Let us stop this "Marche Arriere" right here and now. After more than twelve years of school education and a few years in colleges, if our students cannot be trained to think of themselves as Indians first and Indians last, we cannot expect anybody else to take up this job. Economic or social backwardness has to eliminated/ not only physically but mentally. Forced segregation of the backward-economic or social, is a crime. But by voluntary segregation by attaching a tag to themselves, any section will only harm themselves in the long run.                    To flaunt anybody's social status or higher economic power is arrogance. To flaunt somebody's poverty and backwardness - real or imaginary is antiwisdom. It is not somebody's fault that one is born poor, but it is one's own fault if one does not work and earn and does not have the confidence in one's ability to win. Humility, more...

Our country has 81,250 species of animal kingdom and 45.000 species of plants. Out of this large number, 15000 are of great medicinal value and 3200 are wild relatives of agricultural crops. Nearly one third of the species of plants in the country have medicinal value. In addition, there are also many medicinal varieties of rhizomes and mushrooms from Korea, China and Malasia. Their identification and how they are related to Ayurveda, their classification, scientific studies and methods of preparation of the medicines according to the ancient texts have to be undertaken in our universities. We have more than two hundred and thirty universities. Everybody knows the composition of many medicines but the people invariably buy only from the well-known manufactures. The same with the vaids. We have great doctors and great medicines. What is needed is progress to make people aware of the great treasure they have. We do more...

When knowledge is misused, it is harmful for humanity. This knowledge can be science, economies, political science or even agriculture. When huge tracts of good arable land is converted to grow opium in certain countries, it is a misuse of the knowledge of agricultural science. Further misuse is in making worse narcotics out of opium. Yet, opium is used in certain medicines. Chemical warfare is the worst form of utilizing the knowledge of chemistry. But the knowledge that mustard gas is a slow killer because it inhibits the production of white cells in the blood, came useful in the treatment of lukaemia patients. For them the problem is the overproduction of certain white corpuscles in blood Medicine from mustard could control them. Chemists have to take inspiration from Louis Pasteur and other eminent chemists to harness chemistry for good of man. There is a fallacy that anything available in plenty more...

Compared to the past three years, this year's Chemistry paper is very easy and as the students remarked, many can score high marks. This paper is also concept based as in physics. What we find is a change in the philosophy of IIT's. This change is for growth. Our congratulations to IIT’s for belling the cat. The change in the pattern of chemistry paper is only in line with the CBSE medical paper where it is always the concepts that are emphasized. The number of institutions that offer medicine and technology have enormously increased of late. While medicine remains the choice for many bright students. A number of students have chosen other opportunities although they had cleared medical exams. Food technology and biomedical research are some of the branches which are ideally suited for getting placements in big institutions. While competition is more for the routine jobs, people who have more...

Compared to many branches of science, Biology is making up for the past lag, It is going forward by leaps and bounds in recent years. The achievement of AIIMS in using a single cornea for three persons successfully, is something one should be proud of. Prediction of characteristics by DNA and alterations in gene in order to make violently oriented persons milder is on the border line. With regimented thinking in society and autocratic regimes, the border line between proper use of these techniques and misuse is very thin.                                       The latest news about successes in stem-cell research that for generating human embryos one can use bone marrow perhaps strikes at the very root of the concept of family and human society. Cloning and creation of crossbreed animals are sufficiently bad. Cloning humans or making humans in laboratories will have to be condemned in no uncertain terms. When one has more...

Once again there is a problem of the dates of exams. AFMC of Pune, Karnataka's Corned - K's Under graduate Entrance Test, Maharashtra Associate CET (AMUPMDC) hold their exams on 6th May. UGET Manipal exams are from 3rd April to 1Oth May. But they are ail on-line exams. While we do not request that every exam including fashion technology exam of NIFT should bother about the exam dates of other institutions, it is common knowledge that many students attempt both Engineering and Medical exams and finally choose the one where they get a 'good' course which means the course they ask for. At least the entrance exams of Medical, Engineering and for undergraduate courses of l.l.T. for pure sciences should not be on the same dates. Then who will change the date?                    This is a situation which can be best tackled more...

To understand the students' mind-set, one has to think like a student. That is why every teacher is first a student and then a teacher. In one of the top research establishments in India, it is the periodic interviews that motivated the scientists to take interest in general things also apart from their specialities. Weekly seminars also keep one abreast. Questions asked in interviews range from the difficult ones to  test their speciality to simple ones which will probe their mind Let us take a sampling. What is Avogadro's number? What is sin? What is the mass of the photon? etc. The same questions are asked by the students. How does one make the student understand this mysterious number of atoms in one mole of any substance? One has to start with simple examples, if a match stick, weighs 40 mg, what is the number of matches in 4 g? more...

Here is a recipe for those who do not want to spend all their lives wearing long lab-coats, thick- rimmed glasses and shaking a beaker or test tube in hand. If any one of you is interested, but allergic to physics and mathematics, one need not worry. Anti-allergic pills in the form of tailor-made courses in physics and mathematics are available. In course of time, the barriers between disciplines will vanish and one will start liking them. Here is the list of things, which you have to handle in a modern laboratory. Atomic emission, atomic absorption, x-ray fluorescence spectroscopy, Electron spectroscopy, and mass spectrographs are used for elemental analysis. To study molecules, infrared and ultra violet molecular spectrometers (emission and absorption), microwaves, nuclear magnetic resonance, chromatography and many others are, used depending on the nature of the laboratory and the funds available. To study the structure of materials, X-ray and electron more...

Theoretical models/ experimentation, remodeling the theories to explain the experiments is a cycle. This cycle is repeated many times before a sound theory is developed and application to the unknown fields attempted. This is the law of science. Of all sciences, now it is biology that is expanding so fast from being a purely descriptive science to a science with vanishing barriers. While most of the Indians as well as many all over the world are very religious with strong beliefs/ and certainly with tolerance towards all, we have been overtaken in our own field (?) by the Americans. Yoga is good. Any proof ? To be religious is good. Any proof ? This is what is provided by the scientists of the university of Pennsylvania under the leadership of Dr. Andrew Newberg, director of the new centre for spirituality and the mind, investigating how spiritual and secular beliefs affect more...

According to reports, fifty two new species of animals and plants have been discovered in Borneo, According to Prof. E.D. Wilson, the 1.5 million species so far discovered represent only 10% of the living species. While exploring for new species of plants and biological specimens is important; it is more important for our universities to have interdisciplinary expeditions to explore/ identify the plants not only by the botanical name but also by the names in the regional languages and most important/ in Sanskrit. Teams can co-ordinate their work with base laboratories to identify them, analyse the products and document after comparing the ancient texts. Then Indian manufacturers of Ayurveda, Unani, Siddha and other systems should combine to exploit them for preparing medicines for distribution in India, at affordable prices. Out of hundreds of varieties of mangoes and bananas in India, only a few are surviving. After Dr. Mashelkarwon the historic more...