INO again

The interest in neutrinos started with the KGF experiments. I remember reading about them as a student and being terribly impressed that our physicists have succeeded in setting up one of the (then) two such facilities.
The revival of interest is described here-
http://www.imsc.res.in/~ino/OpenReports/Insa/naba.pdf
I looked at this mainly to see why the KGF cannot be used again...perhaps some scientific reason. The report does not mention any...only that the KGF mines were closed due to financial reasons and so they could not use the facility. Why can they not use these crores of rupees to revive the KGF mines lab and upgrade the facilities. Surely it must be cheaper and environmentally better. Perhaps the lure of living in Ooty as opposed to living in KGF ( a dismal town) is one factor.

The INO

There seems to be a major brouhaha brewing in the Nilgiri biosphere. How has the Ministry of Environment cleared this is a mystery. But the greater mystery is how scientists can believe that transporting three 17kton detectors, building material for a large cavern, electrical equipment, air conditioning systems etc, into the site and transporting earth from a huge 3.5 km tunnel out of the site, can be done without disturbing any wildlife?
Surely other sites must be suitable!
http://nbralliance.wordpress.com/ino-at-singara/
http://www.imsc.res.in/~ino/

fate of life sciences

I rejoined my college to the dismal news that very few students are interested in taking admission in a BSc life science course. Till two years ago, the Chemistry department that teaches Chemistry to all life science course students had more than 400 students in the three years of BSc now our first year may not have more than 50 students.
Our college is self- financed...no student, no money. This dismal state of affairs is due to two factors. One is that in this state, professional degree is the only degree of value..only losers do pure science. Secondly, the state government prefers quantity to quality. They have encouraged a huge number of colleges to start a BPharm course. Everyone will get a BPharm admission if he/she does not get into an MBBS/BDS course.
For most parents, being a dentist is preferable to being a scientist.
I could understand the craze for a BE/Btech since you were getting a good job(fancy salary) after 4 years of study. But this craze for BPharm and BDS, I cannot understand. How many BPharms can the industry employ? And looking at the infrastructure in some of these Pharma colleges, will their alumni be employable?
A (informal) survey shows that nowadays very few students take biology in their Intermediate(XI class equivalent).
Soon this state will not produce any graduate in a life science subject. This state aims to be a biotech hub.... with what?

Waldorf schools

Last evening, one of the new Waldorf schools had a "workshop" to educate parents about the benefits of the Waldorf system. True it is better, but the teacher who spoke made a couple of errors which made me think. The basic idea in these schools is that the teacher introduces concepts of say math or science or history or whatever during the course of a sort of a talk on anything...she in particular said she brings in the Pythogoras theorem when discussing Egypt, and discussed the advent of the Mughals with regard to the building of the great wall of China. All very well, but she also mentioned how she discusses the composition of air...oxygen, nitrogen and hydrogen...now why hydrogen? is that just aslip or does she not know that the % of hydrogen is rather small? she also said that the % of oxygen must be maintained (good so far) because excess oxygen makes our skin age faster. Now of course, yes, oxidative processes do age us, but is that relevent? Such things give the children totally wrong ideas...it would mean the world is designed for our benefit....haven't we done enough damage to the world without inculcating such attitudes in kids?---- and even if you wish to be anthropocentric, excess oxygen would burn everything up....forest fires we have seen so far would be kids' bonfires in comparison--but aging skin??
This makes me wonder if leaving things to teachers is such a good thing...many school teachers are learned, well read, but many are not.
This method puts too much on teachers and many may not be able to rise up to it.

election results.

Thankfully Narendra Modi did not prevail. If the BJP had won, Modi's form of "good governance" would have been taken up pan-India and we may have had happier industrialists, but also a mini holocaust. It so surprised me that Ratan Tata gave a thumbs up for Modi after the Nano went to Gujarat, but glad the people did not think so.

Back to 44C summer from 24C holidayland.

http://nanopolitan.blogspot.com/2009/05/great-commencement-address-by-dean-dad.html

"In boom years, I've seen some folks succeed a bit too easily, and draw some falsely flattering conclusions about themselves". This I have seen across all kinds of college students. I see it not only in my college, but I also came across such attitudes in the engineering college I visited often during my vacation.

You go to a debate competiton, 19/20 year olds talk utter nonsense in a fake accent and believe they are really good, and what's more, get prizes! They are feted by the faculty and other students, made to feel they are great. They debate with no logic, no coherence , no building up of arguments...in fact, in my college, once on a debate on whether cable televison is a good thing or not, one of the speakers turned to his friend in the opposite camp and said "As if you dont watch MTV! " He thought that was a clincher!! Applause, applause! That's the quality of debate. Where are the budding intellectuals?

But then, when I watch programs on TV where issues are debated, the bigwigs dont argue all that much better either. (LokSabha TV has some good talks/debates sometimes though. They dont need TRPs I suppose).

private colleges

Tough I malign the "paan dukaan" colleges, I must admit they cater to a section of students who perhaps need them. These colleges run with minimal infrastructure and are therefore able to charge low fees. They are on main bus routes and are therefore easy to commute to. They are in crowded residential localities and therefore many girls from conventional homes are able to attend.
The teaching staff are pressurised to get good results in the theory exam so they make the students memorise pages of notes. Many of the students are industrious and so they get spectacular marks (90%).
You may ask then what is your problem with these colleges?
There is no education...they only learn the textbooks.... that's the problem.
However, sometimes, I come across really good students in these colleges. I went as an examiner to one of these colleges. In the viva, I asked a girl a few questions, she answered well, so I went on to ask more intricate questions. She could not answer, but I was quite pleased, so told her "good, but go and find out what the answer is". The next year, I again went as an examiner to the same college. I was stunned when the girl came for her viva voce, and reminded me of my question the previous year and she gave me the answer!!! I was so impressed!
Sad part is, she is from an orthodox family, and her teachers told me she was getting married as soon as her exams got over.
Such is life.