You do not require rocket science to understand history---but in fact you do !

Brief excerpts of Lecture by Prof. C.N.R. Rao`s Lecture: "Celebration of Science" delivered at Indian National Science Academy, New Delhi on the eve of culmination of International Year of Chemistry 2011.

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"Lavosier (1743-1794) is great great grandfather of Chemistry. He contributed immensely to the field to leave no doubt in any one`s mind that how the research in this area will move ahead. His work in conservation of mass, composition of matter, description about the composition of air and thus process of combustion were far more fundamental later to be consolidated by Michael Faradey (1791-1867) who changed the history by discovering electrolysis, magnetism, electricity, liquification of gas, benzene, catalysis and many other ideas. During the mean time, Dalton (1766-1844) nurtured the idea of structure of atom. Faradey who had schooling only three years in formal education system published around 450 research papers is doyen of modern times. He was such a humble man that after being offered chair of President of Royal Society, he just refused by saying that he was the man in the laboratory and did not feel comfortable in the office of authority. 

Rutherford came with a model of atom in 1911. Today exactly 100 years after that, we can firmly say by reminding what great Physicist Richard Feynman has said, "If we forget all the discoveries and inventions, one discovery we will be happy to live with is that of structure of atom." That was the time when Chemistry was ridiculed as a profession like that of collecting stamps. Not a surprise that Rutherford got Nobel prize “for his investigations into the disintegration of the elements, and the chemistry of radioactive substances" in 1908 in the Chemistry and not in Physics. 

Curie, Rutherford, Bohr, Eisenstein and who`s who...

When in 1897 J.J. Thomson discovered electron, the staggering penetration of human mind into the mysterious secrets of the universe has already began. Two Dutch scientists shattered the status quo of Chemistry and Physics. Heike Kamerlingh Onnes`s pioneering work on superconductivity and liquid helium was great step ahead. Then came Vander Waals who became legend by his work on an equation of state for gases and liquids. The grand gathering of Solvay Conference in 1911 and 1927 show us the great amount of affinity great scientists had across the spectrum of scientific disciplines. The International Solvay Institutes for Physics and Chemistry, located in Brussels, were founded by the Belgian industrialist Ernest Solvay in 1912, following the historic invitation-only 1911 Conseil Solvay, the turning point in world physics. The Institutes coordinate conferences, workshops, seminars, and colloquia. Following the initial success of 1911, the Solvay Conferences (Conseils Solvay) have been devoted to outstanding preeminent open problems in both physics and chemistry. Another such conference is very popular called Lindau Meeting. The annual Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings provide a globally recognised forum for the transfer of knowledge between generations of scientists. They inspire and motivate Nobel Laureates and international Best Talents. Lectures of Nobel Laureates reflect current scientific topics and present relevant fields of research of the future. In panel discussions, seminars and during the various events of the social programe young researchers nominated by a worldwide network of Academic Partners interact with Nobel Laureates.

Solvay Conference 1927- Rise of Heisenberg!

Those were the times where Marie Curie (7 November 1867 – 4 July 1934) was a physicist and chemist famous for her research on radioactivity. She was the first person honoured with two Nobel Prizes—in physics and chemistry. She was the first female professor at the University of Paris, and in 1995 became the first woman to be entombed on her own merits in the Panthéon in Paris. But discrimination about her continued in her lifetimes and she was not given honorary membership of French Academy of Sciences. 

Its all about uncertainty during the times of two world wars world witnessed. Uncertainty principle, Schrodinger Equation and Wave-Particle Duality were the glamorous phrases in those times just like Michael Jackson, Madonna and Beatles are of the post war times. Those phrases changed everything. In 1912 came W.L. Bragg who invented X-Ray diffraction crystallography. Then came the chemical bond. This was the beginning of new era in chemistry. A chemical bond is an attraction between atoms that allows the formation of chemical substances that contain two or more atoms. The bond is caused by the electromagnetic force attraction between opposite charges, either between electrons and nuclei, or as the result of a dipole attraction. The strength of chemical bonds varies considerably; there are "strong bonds" such as covalent or ionic bonds and "weak bonds" such as dipole-dipole interactions, the London dispersion force and hydrogen bonding. Godfather of this mother of all discoveries in Chemistry in future was Gilbert Lewis(1875-1946). In 1927, valence bond theory was formulated and it argues that a chemical bond forms when two valence electrons, in their respective atomic orbitals, work or function to hold two nuclei together, by virtue of effects of lowering system energies. Building on this theory, the chemist Linus Pauling published in 1931 what some consider one of the most important papers in the history of chemistry: "On the Nature of the Chemical Bond". Many students of Lewis received Nobel but prize escaped him. 

Chemistry after Lewis was never like before. During 1930-1970, research in Chemistry was dominated by work in molecular structure, reaction mechanisms, new methods by having structural approached to Chemistry leading towards birth of molecular biology and alpha-helix structure. Chemistry after 1970s was revolutionized by serious progress on the front of structure, synthesis and dynamics of the science. 1986 saw birth of high-temperature superconductivity, 1990 gave us synthesis of new carbon forms, in 1992 we witnessed arrival of mesoporous solids and thereafter research in carbon nano tubes, graffines, high quality materials. Challenges for chemical sciences in 21st century are to go beyond molecular frontier. To develop the work on living systems, material and design, computational chemistry, simulation of experiment, new algorithms, new hydrogen batteries, fuel cells etc. As Pencroft has predicted long back in 1874 that Water as fuel of 

future. (The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne: Chapter 33)  When we realize the potential of the research in chemistry, this dream is not 

exaggeration. All these decades Chemistry was Queen and servant of biology.

In 21st Century, Chemistry will be Queen and Servant of Material Sciences which

will be used from kitchen frying pan to wings of rockets, aero-planes in the sky.

Looking back at this snapshot of history, one thing is clear. Great discoveries have come by intuition and not by mere technical appliances and grant. Today researchers in India are more busy with laptops and mobile rather than engagement with creative ideas and constructive discussions. We need to take a careful look at history. When Lavoisier was busy in thinking about founding principles of Chemistry amidst the heydays of French revolution, Tipu Sultan was fighting the war with British at Seringapatam (5 April – 4 May 1799). That war changed the history of subcontinent, British arrived contributing to the advancement of colonialism, and derailment of what could have been rocket-science being used by Tipu against British infantry. 

So, do science as you love it; if you love science, then there is no second love. "

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Indian Modernity: Of History, Present and Future

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{ Lecture on Interdisciplinarity by Prof. Avijit Pathak,

JNU, 14th October, 2011

[ unofficial EXCERPTS OUT OF TALK....
errors, if any, attributed to my compilation ] }

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Modernity is confluence of ideas. It is symbolic, meaningful, experimental and universal generalization of narratives, poetic  subjectives. Especially in the context of interdisciplinary, it is the cross disciplinary idea and culture.  Experiences with modernity and landscapes of modernities are vast and complex. There is no singular way to approach the modernity. There is historical and cultural memory—historically unique and culturally specific. Multiple experiences of modernity are not binary expressions of tradition and modernity. It is legacy of historical heritage. Traditionalisation of modernity and modernization of tradition are in a way indicating past being recalled, reinvented so as to redefine modernity.

Who reinforced this modernity vision? Voltaire, Rousseau, Adam Smith, Kant and likewise. The events of industrial capitalism, secularism, epistemological optimism of science, political democratization, rationalization. All of these contributed to enlightenment. The universes of experiences and critically dissenting voices also contributed to scientificity of culture. When Manchester was symbol of industrial capitalism, then it was also epitome of romantic ideology depicting the transition on the agrarian economy to industrial economy and the pains inherent in it. Also group of intellectuals led by Freud on one side and by Marx on other side developed the critic of enlightened modernity.

Then came the fission of enlightened modernity and colonization with tradition, history of subcontinent in the context of  the engagement with the west. Establishment of modern university, scientific education and arrival of modern communication systems and philosophers like John Sturart Mill and Bentink shaped the modern thought. Proponents of European modernity happened through reason, science. Therefore meaningful dialogue with west also brought huge influences from their culture, lifestyle and progressive democratic ethos. This process of engagement with the past also gave rise to the deep reflection on the past, leading towards glorification of certain convenient aspects of it.  Debate with the western enlightenment, industrial capitalism and notions of progress can be traced by four reminders who are deeply rooted in Indian freedom movement and nation building. Aurbindo Ghosh, Mahatma Gandhi, Ravindranath Tagore and Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar invented the interpretations of the western modernity.

Aurbindo, a saint philosopher advocated and radiated intuitive reasoning to support Darwinian survival instincts as against instrumental rationality. He envisioned the world beyond physical manifestations for quest of deeper and subtler layers of universal mind. Gandhi`s Hind Swaraj protested against aggressive project of colonialism and violent aggressive impulses of modern development. It advocated a paradigm shift required from brute force to soul force. This soul force will help us to look inside for solutions, where really they are located. It has critic of Parliament and modern systems.

Tagore observed crisis of collapsing civilization but had great hope for modernity. He saw great danger in acceleration of nationalism and consolidation of nation-state. Rationalization of nation state may lead sometimes to narcissist state. Ambedkar`s commentary on Hinduism not only gave us new frame of religion but also of making justice with economic and social inequality. Buddhism provided counter culture. He embodied the universal values of liberty, equality and fraternity originality espoused in French revolution. He made those values as permanent feature of Indian constitution legitimized by struggle of social movement.  But tragedy of modernity is that country is not able to forget the caste. Caste continues to acquire new logic and avatar as we go ahead in modern life. This also implies for secularism. Both majority and minority forces have been communalized beyond civilized limits. Kinship identity has crept in politics and films to migrate to other professional fields.

History of India is not only political history of country in making. It is history, rather, histories of everything. Rather it is part of larger civilization heritage—through oceanic flow of which multiple currents of ideologies and modernities pass simultaneously. Thus during this flow the process of becoming is always taking shape. So, today we are witnessing historical, multiple and post-colonial modernities.In this context role of university as a system is very crucial. Because this is a only place in Modern India which taught our civilization to forget all the differences of caste, gender, religion, class and others. these were the great secular institutions emerged which continue to contribute to the great transformation Indian modernity is witnessing and it will continue to add value to the modernity experiment in not only in India but also across the world.

Which revolution, whose revolution: From Social Media to Public Service Broadcasting

Making a Devil`s Advocate case for strong LokPal for Media?

SIMULATION OF REGULATION ?

Has media undergone revolution? No one should have any doubt about that. However, is new/social media contributing to the revolutions as claimed in Arab Spring? Recent Time magazine declared 'The Protestor' across the world as the personality of the world. Many people still argue that technology of social media mattered but this was not technological revolution. Social networks did cause movements and fights for human rights and liberation from authoritarian regime but they largely kept the movement alive and connected by massively huge momentum and increasing degree of velocity. 

Is freedom expression absolute and invaluable entity, which cannot be compromised? Why there are different standards for freedom of expression in different media? Once media was deregulated in last two decades, why it is being felt today necessary to have regulatory standards, which will create 'level playing field’? All and other equally important questions cropped up during the two day long synthesis on media law organized by Program on Comparative Media Law School of Oxford University in capital in last two days. 

In a huge country like India where political independence came much before the realization of economic and social justice, the questions of freedom of expression are also larger questions about survival of democracy. These days urge for regulation and moreover a well-planned strategy for having a legal/legitimate say in controlling competition or minimizing losses out of market takeover by riding entrepreneurial media houses mushrooming now and then. Today corruption scandals are driving awareness agenda and public consciousness. So media regulation is also not immune from the grey areas of maneuvering, exploitation and manipulation of rules and procedures. So, is it fair to say that political vindictiveness or quest of quality of content is pushing the regulation debate; or is it emerging media industry which forced the conscience keepers in judiciary and society compelling to act like a whistle- blower and thus igniting debate around trivialization of media content, as recently Justice Katju did. 

  

Merry-go Round of Regulation- Entangled Web of snake and ladder show

Before going deep into the nuances of the debate, we should first understand the challenges ahead of regulation. In the midst of environment which nurtured practice of ad-hoc policy making, are misuses in competitive arena going to help us? Today there are number of regulatory agencies like TRAI, Prasar Bharti, BRAI, IMC, TDSAT, IBF, NBA, BEE, ASCI, Press Council of India. All of these agencies are supposed to inspect, evaluate and report the dynamic aspects of technology, ownership, content, systems, literacy, investment and other important issues. Today there are more than six hundred channels, thus plurality in itself is not a big issue to have demanding discussion. Even though there are many statutory bodies available for regulation, the autonomy vested in these institutions has not materialized. The act of regulation has to go along in two parallel directions, educating audience and secondly law enforcement. In this context let us try to understand that self-regulation is ideal concept.

The debate about regulation must shift from content to infrastructure and organisational framework. There is conflict, confusion and lack of consensus about what would be the preconditions for regulatory forms. There is inherent lack of interdependence in different legacy bodies, which are involved in regulation. Here no single actor is dominating body. Thus challenges of multisector issues are haunting this industry. All sectoral bodies lack compliance mechanism and authority in sectoral bodies is divided. The boundary lines of public interest and state interest are blur. Thus it all leads us to fight and arguments for transparent and evidence based policy in the framework of self-regulation. Let us decode the meaning of 'self' here. Self can be industry, a particular sector, firm or user. In all of these there can exist two competing ideas simultaneously fighting for space.

What would be the enabling environment for regulation then? Self-regulation can be triggered by increasing or decreasing cost of marketing failure, centrality of particular sector to economy and available supportive market structure. In all these reasons ability of firms to recognize changing times matters most. If industry is matured, then it will create incentives for compliance, recognize common interests and respect the existence of players with sufficient resources to do self-regulation. Idea of media regulation moving ahead towards media governance is shifting towards standards and benchmarks because increasing diversification and convergence of both technology and content is happening simultaneously. Different institutions have different mechanisms to deal with these kind of situations. It depends upon whether they are involved in vertical or horizontal integration. 

Current regulatory landscape in India is fragmented. Press Council of India has classic co-regulation arrangements, which believes in cultivation of public taste. Amidst all the dust being unsettled about telecom issues, carriage vs. content regulator, digital/internet governance, role of competition commission, convergence debate one thing is sure; media regulation debate in India is driven by unavoidable reality that objectives of regulation are changing at the same time institutions which were established to do that job have remained the same. Thus key tasks in coming times are to device the novel strategies to shape time-tested methods to achieve these changing objectives. 

Privacy: The Smoker`s cabin

Taking this discussion ahead we arrive in the realms of privacy. Privacy vs. national security, privacy vs. freedom of speech and privacy vs. transparency (online records) are new punchlines in the battle for liberal rights of expression, right to have privacy and also right to be forgotten (EU flattening standards of data protection) from internet archives or cache/permanent memory of web. Thus data protection vs. compliance function of different laws, treaties and rules while we use many telecom, internet and other service which use our private information to get access to. To make things simple, convenient and easy to comply to harmonisation of privacy standards is very crucial. The quest for privacy in online environment is interesting because increasingly information about activities we do or other salient information about is being spread over the web like never before along with proliferation of our multiple identities on the internet sites, we tend to 'learn day by day to hide and play inside'. So, this is turning out to be publication vs. access to information debate. Future is quite open to all possibilities of controversies/concerns about privacy infringement like X-ray body scanners at the airports, smart metering, breach in search engine privacy, issues of locational privacy, ISP or Google`s real name policy and Google`s street name disclosure policy initiative and reidentification move are some of the most powerful concepts coming soon. 

Debate about privacy seems to be driven by once hippocratic and other way round revolutionary (individuality driven) concept must be continued upon. It is like smoker`s cabin at the airport where all other public spaces are not allowed to have that type of content but if you are member of that privileged club you can barge into any boundaries of insanity. Therefore, hoopla about the encroachment of civil liberties on internet created recently due to Indian IT minister`s intention to address 'freedom of expression in compromising position with that of intentions of inciting violence and 'moral-over riding of public space' is understandable. 

Ideas of transparency and privacy are different in different societies. What is the difference between privacy of poor and that of rich? Are they same? Argumentatively they may be same because we do not want to utter politically incorrect justification for the unbalanced privacy for both poor and rich. But common observation and experience is that there is huge discrimination in assessment about the degree of privacy and transparency poor persons should enjoy-- reasons are not at all debatable, they are understandable because our dichotomous standards while talking about everyday life and asking for unification of standards while advocating it in professional arena are entirely at opposite ends. Thus these kinds of divergent behaviors ask for experience-based research where human body has been treated as a global common. 

Censorship (Obvious) in 21^st Century?

Some voices express concern that self-censorship is greatest threat to freedom of expression. As new media / social media platforms proliferate along with the growth of citizen journalism where anyone having a mobile phone/bandwidth can contribute to the news, the viral fever of Arab Spring spreading very fast across the different continents, scandals like news of the world, expose by Wikileaks are all contributing to the changing notions of censorship. Media has not necessarily created revolution, but it has managed to make its arrival very easy and less painful. Potential of social media in shaping the political change is exaggerated but these kind of borderless media is surely not going to resign from its basic instinct to instigate masses from expressing their righteous voice.  

Some say, real media revolution happened in 16^th century, which invented printing press and pamphlets, newspapers and books of 18^th-19^th century. In all the noisy flattering of new media, electronic media and other evolving media, role of growing print media in India and China is outlier to the global trend of shrinking growth in print media.

Filtering of content, daily fight to compensate price through advertising because subscription based model is absent in India, growing politics of  questioning credibility of news information, corporate pressure which control finances are real reasons which controls freedom of expression and compromises the newspapers integrity in dealing with socially relevant issues. In this context, it is not shocking that big media houses are always late in breaking important scandal/corruption stories. Is is not a intention here to deny the fact that editorial judgment is dependent on competence and in turn is related on vocatinalisation of journalism, proliferation of media platforms and overemphasis on technology. But that does not stop the trend of big journalism houses being less and less motivated to expose crimes against humanity. Only exception may be their business model demands occassional dose of compliance towards the proffessional ethics, sometimes it is politically correct to work in that direction and some times it is due to competition or some external pressure. 

Therefore we do not overestimate political excitement achieved out of Arab Spring if that is compared to revolutions happened in France, Russia, Germany, Indian freedom struggle. Simply generalizing the achievement of the Arab Spring will be problematic. We should look how the combination of social media and crisis behaves vis-a-vis combined behavior of social media in non-crisis life. So, in India there is moreover no understanding about what social media`s role should be in daily life. Shall we see it as moving towards high performance knowledge exchange through ubiquitous improvement in computing, so that we can evolve into the age where one to one (telegraph/telephone), one to many (radio/TV), many to many peers and group to group communication is possible.

Research into Policy and Policy into Practice =>-> >

Normally academicians are pretentious about the complexity and jargon in presenting difficult ideas. But looking at the media scene in India, everyone besides academic would will instantly agree about complex web of intricate factors which have largely determined our perception and understanding about development of media in India. With media expansion it is becoming more difficult to distinguish between massification and visibility. However small may be the publication, but mode of production is elite. The diversification in content and technology is giving birth to new political culture. This culture is creating critical questions and demanding positions. Just inviting media to cover political activities will not contribute to the rational assessment of the political processes. The increasing visibility has penetrated the governance. Rise of Lokayukta in Karnataka and recent upsurge in Lok Pal debate are the prime examples of this argument. Gaze of media is altering and catalysing the democratic functioning. However by promoting freedom in the sphere of established media and new media, democratic governments feel salvation by giving chance to express and not consolidating fundamental rights.

Today media policy research is limited to sectors like access, regulation, spectrum allocation and data protection etc. Thus contemporary research is focussed on approaching regulations in sector specific forms and existing fragmented landscapes. Only interpretation of policy documents cannot be held as serious media policy research. There is very little investment in history and ethnographical research. Contemporary commercial models which are based on language, caste, ideology, nature of content (news, feature, sectoral information: business, culture, life-style, cinema, sports, S&T, development, literature etc). Thus huge diversity of the ownership, business model and changing pattern of readership considering growing economy, aware readership and evolving specialised interests are drastically altering the media-plane. Reviving public service broadcasting is utmost priority of the media reforms as far as first responsibility of the government is concerned. Physical infrastructure, connections between different media/content platforms, curation techniques of media houses and process, quality of content are significant issues of the public service broadcasting. Now the time has come that ‘public service broadcasting’ must transform it into ‘public service media’.

The media policy research must be participatory policy research by strengthening the ability of engineers to interpret law and that of lawyers to understand technical aspects of the policy. Importance of evidence-based research cannot be ignored and underestimated. How much policy is being driven by data and how much innovation is being triggered by enablers created by governance remains most crucial aspects of the times ahead in the media regulation. Challenge is to remove the distinction between researchers and researched. This ‘entering into the field’ or ‘growing with the natives’ approach is going to determine the future of research in this field.

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From Rio to Durban- From Uncertainty to Certainty towards Skepticism !

Excerpts from Book Launch: New Delhi, 19th Dec. 2011
[ Samjay Baru, Nitin Desai, Amita Baviskar, Navroj Dubhash ]

From Rio to Durban much water has flown under the bridge of climate change and in the river of geopolitics. Now comes the Handbook of Climate Change and India: Development, Politics and Governance edited by Navroz Dubhash of Centre for Policy Research. In the view of less informed foreign policy debate surrounding climate change and absent domestic nuances in the political discourse, this book is a hope for adding the diverse colours from the scientific end to the development aspects with clear focus on issues which otherwise we brush under the carpet as isolated vested interest issues present on the corporate coffee tables and gravitating in the dynamics of movements.

One thing is clear. Despite the East Angila University inspired Climategate fiasco, which largely heightened the suspicions and attacks because of exaggerated claims and data pushing the hysteria of climate change, the consensus of its existence remains and continues to be proved by new evidences being given by IPCC and its Assessment Reports. Still, there are lots of question marks on climate change and scientists are working hard (?) to answer that. Thus uptill now, having science of climate change largely established (except report Climate Change Reconsidered), today it can be said that economics and sociology have taken over as far as latest discourses about impacts of climate change are concerned. These discourses are largely concerned about development implications of the climate change along with equally significant aspect of geopolitics of negotiations in these issues.  

Science of climate change is very well enmeshed with the non-scientific dimensions of the debate. Increasingly the summits, negotiations, vocabulary of the debate is shifting towards or being oriented towards development priorities. We have to remember with cautionary hindsight and skeptical foresight that climate change is still an evolving issue. Scholars have to admit that we should not jump in the well and start beating drum for it twenty-four-seven. Lot of experts in this field are relying on definitive solutions. Climate change is just not a matter of negotiation; rather it is a matter of perseverance as far as realizing its huge network of factors causing it. Thus distinction between scientific answers and other enquiries is very essential.

The contents of the books (available below) does not hint at Indian intervention in the climate change scientific research. There is urgent need to develop an Indian perspective in all the aspects of climate change debate. Informed debate among scholars will certainly create a healthy environment for where policymakers, political leadership and bureaucracy will then be driven by evidences, data and authentic perspectives. Also, there is a need of an independent view to respond to the geopolitics of climate change. Cumulatively, this debate is being enmeshed in the contexts of structured changes observed in the economy in last few years, especially financial, debt crisis in developed world, food, and natural resources crisis in developing & least developed countries. In a way it has become a function of dynamics in global private assets vs. global commons.

Causes of climate change are surely embedded in industrial growth. Rise of the rest and the decline of the west is becoming sure possibility. From Bali action plan to Durban summit, the economic policy is clearly seen to drive the debate and instincts about the negotiations. Especially Copenhagen accord which proved to be disaster was a strong indicator of that. We should emerge to evolve the strategies to manage these changes. Therefore more awareness in all quarters of society is needed to establish control over changing relationships. Equations about recently formed BASIC group formulation may change, as we do not know what will be scenario in two three decades from now. India should take care to see that it should not lock itself in any kind of impossible commitment or promised prison due to which it forever compromises its position on equitable sustainable development with uncompromised vision for global compliance of the “just” principles of climate change negotiations.

Experts talked about three missing elements out of this handbook. Firstly, it is missing comprehensive agenda for south Asia. SAARC countries should have calibrated strategy for all the possible issues of negotiations and thus strategy formulation in coming times. South Asia being one of the largest geoeconomically homogeneous entity sharing common natural resources of rivers, glaciers, mountains, geography. This book also needs another Indian point of view vis-à-vis SAARC view. Secondly, this book does not address migration issue in depth. As human being, migration has been unstoppable event in all evolutionary history uptill now. Regimes of VISA are primarily established post world war II. In the times when the political entities have frozen the geoeconomically dynamic migration which is done by survival instincts will definitely shape the climate change debate in different direction once these political borders are subjected to change in next few decades. Thirdly, the issue of energy security has been inadequately dealt here. Search for new energy sources, investment in different energy technologies, access-pricing-marketing aspects of new technology is very crucial issues needing immediate attention. In the context of all these issues concerned, how concepts of adaptation and mitigation are going to change in the Indian contexts remains to be seen and to be studied. Thus energy solutions equally for economic growth and sustainable development will be the main challenge ahead of these studies, research and development.

Debate about climate change is shaped by normative criteria in recent times coming up more with policy prescriptions rather than policy prescriptions. While doing these intelligent, innovative suggestions need to be pursued. The kind of suggestions/prescriptions are being made to the agencies/institutions cannot be realized because there track record in appreciating the concerns of development is not upto satisfactory level. In contemporary times, when economic growth is top most priority of the government how it can be expected that it will deliver on the promises of inclusion, conservation and preservation. Problems, prospects and possibilities of distorted climate change debate remain on the cards. All the debate about seems to be driven by ambitious nationalism. There has been no indication or hint towards domestic economic processes. There are huge disparities in every sector of economy and in every walk of life. But there has been studied silence on all of these issues during major climate change related debates or coverage in the media.

Issues of equity seem to have been sidelined under the guise of low emission per capita in India. Insecurity and uncertainty of the poor have been neglected systematically. Environmental fluctuation and its impact have not been addressed in sound manner. Hard life, struggle and crisis in social ambience of the country seem to have disappeared from the radar of research in climate change. Thus safeguarding future is less a priority as against planning of strategies for negotiations. The issues of environmental conflicts and sacred landscapes have been completely forgotten. The crucial aspects of safety, shelter, sanitation, and livelihood have been sidelined. Vulnerabilities to glaciers, coastlines, marine geology and other natural commons have gone deliberately unnoticed. In the view of large models, much of the attention is directed at state; seeking its intervention or welfare wisdom to guide the community of scholars, professionals and practitioners.

But why this should be the only way to look at this process of fighting climate change, if it is happening any way? Where is the discussion about the pollution out of loot of mines and likewise locations. What politics will be mobilized to create awareness about this? How experience gained by social movements can contribute to understanding the complexity of the relation between climate change and development processes? How political ecology can address social justice issue. In the context of accelerated exploitation of the natural resources and labor forces how modes of production are changing or being utilized for narrow goals? How we can question, challenge commoditization and consumerist culture in today’s times? How major alternative streams of politics view these debates about climate change and are we going to recognize those voices? These all questions need to be asked again and again when we realize that climate change discourse is hell bent to discuss only pattern/model of growth. This is significant when we recall Mahatma Gandhi`s need vs. greed argument.  

The government mechanisms and institutions which are dealing with the climate change policy need massive reform as they have hegemonised and dominated by same stagnated perspectives since long time. The understanding about power equations, how it drives development agenda and what decides power dynamics is utmost important to understand while throwing any political argument about climate change. Ultimately, this is turning out to be fight between global vs local commons, let alone between treaty, negotiations or bargaining trade-off between institutions, economies and countries.

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Handbook of Climate Change and India: Development, Politics and Governance

Edited by Navroz K. Dubash

Contents

Foreword by Jairam Ramesh

Acknowledgements

Introduction Navroz K. Dubash

Section I. Climate Science and Potential Impacts

1. Impacts of Climate Change on India J. Srinivasan

2. Sea Level Rise: Impact on Major Infrastructure, Ecosystems and Land Along the Tamil Nadu Coast Sujatha Byravan, Sudhir Chella Rajan and Rajesh Rangarajan

3. Impact of Climate Change on a Shift of the Apple Belt in Himachal Pradesh, India Ranbir Singh Rana, R.M. Bhagat, Vaibhav Kalia and Harbans Lal

4. India in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change R. Ramachandran

Section II. Past as Prologue: Early Indian Perspectives on Climate Change

5. Global Warming in an Unequal World: A Case of Environmental Colonialism

Select Excerpts Anil Agarwal and Sunita Narain

6. Present at the Creation: The Making of the Framework Convention on Climate Change Chandrashekhar Dasgupta

Section III. The International Climate Negotiations: Stakes, Debates and Dilemmas

7. International Climate Negotiations and India’s Role

Sandeep Sengupta

8. The Reach and Limits of the Principle of Common but Differentiated Responsibilities and Respective Capabilities in the Climate Change Regime Lavanya Rajamani

9. Equity and Burden Sharing in Emission Scenarios: A Carbon Budget Approach

T. Jayaraman, Tejal Kanitkar and Mario D’Souza

10. Equity in Climate Change: the Range of Metrics and Views

Narasimha Rao

11. Climate Change Debate: The Rationale of India’s Position

Prodipto Ghosh

12. India’s Official Position: A Critical View based on Science

D. Raghunandan

13. A View from the Outside: International Perspectives on India’s Climate Positions European Union - Bert Metz Bangladesh - Saleemul Huq

Philippines – Vicente Paolo Yu III China - Ying Chen USA - Michael Levi

Section IV. Domestic Politics of Climate Change

14. Climate Politics in India: Three Narratives Navroz K. Dubash

15. Climate Change and the Indian Environmental Movement Sharad Lele

16. Hiding behind the Poor Debate: A Synthetic Overview Shoibal Chakravarty and MV Ramana

17. Climate Change Debates in the Indian Parliament

Commentary: Suresh Prabhu

Excerpts from Lok Sabha Debates Excerpts from Rajya Sabha Debates

18. Climate Change and the Private Sector Tarun Das

19. Corporate Responses to Climate Change in India Simone Pulver

20. A Change in Climate? Trends in Climate Change Reportage in the Indian Print Media

Anu Jogesh

Section V. Integrating Climate Change and Development: a Sectoral View

21. Energy, Development and Climate Change Girish Sant and Ashwin Gambhir

22. Climate Change and Urbanization in India Partha Mukhopadhyay and Aromar Revi

23. Agriculture in the Environment: Are sustainable climate friendly systems possible in India? Rajeswari Raina

24. Framework for India’s Strategic Water Resource Management under a Changing Climate Himanshu Kulkarni and Himanshu Thakkar

25. Mitigation or Exploitation? The Climate Talks, REDD and Forest Areas Shankar Gopalakrishnan

26. The Technology Agenda Anand Patwardhan and Neha Umarji

Section VI. Looking to the Future

27. Mainstreaming Climate Change Shyam Saran

28. The Geopolitics of Climate Change Nitin Desai

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Dev and Jagjeet: Angel Ambassadors of Peace and Romance & Destroyers of Agony and Torment...!

“ Unki awaj me ek chain aur sukun tha...”, said Javed Akthar when Jagjeet went beyond horizons of pleasure and pain. Who knew that after few days another shaksha would go beyond the mysterious clouds of evergreen stardom to rest in the infinite memories. These memories of Dev sahab would come in the avatar of saffron clad Guide who tells us that he never regretted about anything he did passionately in his life: “ betrayles, heartbreaks ...but no regrets!”

Any deeply devoted personalities cannot be paraded just for arriving at some denominatory characterisation of their personification. But two of them can be said to have unique gift of touching hearts of the people who heard him or watched him on the screen. With the time becoming more and more fermeneted and water, air and land around us aggressively getting polluted, their audacity to soothen the massively troubled minds of common men and women was the hallmark of their existence in songs they stood for and thus charm of life those songs reflected.

Proffessional roles apart, what makes a person as a source of inspiration is their simple, elegant approach to the seemingly complex and difficult task of making each other happy. The spontaneous showering of pleasure and lateral reflections they exhibit about the connections of art and life are simply matter of daily practise for them. But still they nurture a kind of proffessional sophistication, very flexible but firm discipline about the performance they do and thus starting a informal conversation with the audience apart from their formal roles they do in studios and sets.

If Jagjeet gave classical gazal the modern outlook, Dev gave modern romance the vintage touch. Other day when I was reading one article about modernity by Dipesh Chakravarty where he says modernity is like a waiting room for many people simultaneously at any point of time in history. There is always rush in our lives to move ahead, to grow, to rise and to prosper. So, we are always trying to forget from where we arrived to that waiting room. We, due to hurry to confrm reservation to next milestone in life always struggle, fight and spread hatred in that waiting room. We want to travel by some train to reach our destination to achieve something. Jagjeet reminded us of our emotional connections to the heritage we left befind before leaving to catch the train. Dev consistently dragged us to the new voyages of train possible where he potrayed in front of us how easy it is to discover the romance with life at every station we arrive and still not forgetting the founding principles on which this outlier life started.

So, where is the vaccume? We express our condolences by saying that the person`s loss is irreparable and the vaccumen created because of their eternal journey can never be filled again. But mind again. If we think we cannot absorb what they radiated, if we feel helpless without their presence that is spiritual retardation of our minds which keeps us busy in thinking about our mortal inabilities. But think again for a second, if we truly loved the persons for whom we are grieving; we will never again disturb the people around us who are dedicated to the quest for cherishing moments of satisfaction. Dev and Jagjeet always tried to give those rare moments to the people with and for whom Jagjeet and Dev lived, and empowered their hopes towards illusionary-hopeless life.

Science and Globalisation: Towards a changing notion of relationships between research and society

Reflections on Towards lnterdisciplinarity: 

"A Panel Discussion on Science and Globalisation"

 held in JNU on 25 November 2011

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In a recently published book "Civilization: The West and the Rest", Historian Niall Ferguson tries to touch upon the root causes behind why western societies flourished and others did not. Few days before when Justice Katju was speaking on the eve of Nehru Memorial Lecture in JNU he appreciated to the great length the ancient heritage of Sanskrit and Urdu language embodying vast resources of rational scientific knowledge and also great literary potential. He appealed to the students present there to investigate the famous Joseph Needham question further asking why India and China did not have scientific-industrial revolution in 17th-18th century even though historically these countries were ahead in many areas of science-technology in medieval times. 

So, let us come back to the six reasons cited by Ferguson. Those are: 1.Competition, 2.Scientific Revolution, 3.Property Rights, 4.Modern Medicine, 5.Consumer Society and 6.The Work Ethic. According to Ferguson these "killer applications" were responsible for the emergence of western world in its current shape where they enjoy basic facilities of health, education and livelihood supported by formal/informal institutions of knowledge creation, diffusion and application of it. Further he says, these reasons were also responsible for the economic prosperity and thus the ability of western world to influence the modern institutions which regulate trade, research and development and international development agenda thus to leverage the benefits for the western world. Ferguson then says that in recent times developing world is downloading these applications much faster so as to catch up with the developed world.  Recent talk by Prof. Avijit Pathak who spoke about multiple modernities in India, concluded by saying that universities will be playing great role in the next wave of modenrity in the future of India by hinting that universities are one of the few places where secular, liberal and argumentative debate helps to unravel the complexities of not only multidisciplinary knowledges but also of the life.

In this context the panel discussion on the topic "Science and Globalization" touched the right nerve. When we are observing the huge influx and out flux of skilled communities across the borders, the changing nature of investments in R&D by multinationals in developing countries and the globalisation of higher education witnessing new transformation, one can sense the deep connection this panel discussion has to the unravelling of whole dynamics of the "Science and Globalization".

The discussion recognised that much of the scientific research is already globalised because it would not be a matter of conflict of opinion as far as consensus about basic principles of sciences is concerned. We are witnessing the globalization of economics compared to globalization of politics and science and technology. The much of the post-doctoral research is already globalized. Now it seems to be the case of globalization for doctoral, undergraduate and further for secondary education. Due to the invention of internet it is possible now to realize greater degree of collaboration between different institutions, countries and disciplines. The competition in the research and development in academic set up also enabled visualization of the possibilities for the new path breaking research.

Other point of view about globalisation focussed its enquiry about the social/cultural situations in which the development of science and technology takes place. The colonial/imperial history was largely responsible for the creation of institutions and practices, which were responsible for the development of S&T system in the developing countries. Historically Wilhelm von Humboldt inspired from Friedrich Schleiermacher’s liberal ideas about the importance of freedom, seminars, and laboratories founded Berlin University. This
model focussed on the goal to demonstrate the process of the discovery of knowledge and to teach students to “take account of fundamental laws of science in all their thinking.” Thus, seminars and laboratories started to evolve. Humboldt envisioned the university education as a student-centred activity of research.

Then the big thrust for the fundamental science in the western world was emphasised by the Vennever Bush`s 'Science: The Endless Frontier', a report which laid the foundation of massive investment in public funded research and thus paving the way for spillovers necessary for application of knowledge. The critical enquiries by Karl Popper, Thomas Kuhn and Robert Merton largely contributed to the understanding about how science progresses. The basic principles elucidated by Merton were Communism, Universalism, Disinterestedness, Organised skepticism. The Haldane principle which believes government should keep its nose out of decisions about research projects or programmes largely promoting the autonomy of the research and development and the 'Republic of Science' theorised by Michel Polyani was largely responsible for viewing research and development as an autonomous enterprise.

In particular reference with India, Humboldt model remains largely unrealized. In India fundamental research largely remained with the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research and other autonomous bodies outside the university system. This vacuum of fundamental research was also complemented by the fact that 94 % of the research and development funding was concentrated in the few establishments of government namely defense, atomic energy and agriculture institutions. While the synergy between teaching and research still remains to be strengthened in Indian universities it is also true that till recently there is very lopsided compared to the needs of culture where excellence is nurtured and resources are needed to promote that culture.

One of the significant issue out of this discussion was about commodification of the knowledge, freedom of enquiry and the societal relevance of the science-technology initiatives. Lot of issues of globalization are directly related to the economic aspects namely the product driven research, intellectual property protection of the knowledge and monopolization of the profits leading to the domination of access-benefit sharing mechanisms. The historic context of development of recombinant DNA technology and the cases which lead to the approval of human intervention in life systems so as to allow patenting anything under the sun (Diamond Vs Chakravarthy, Harvard Onco-mouse case) were largely responsible for the establishment of the international regimes like TRIPS, WIPO.  The success of intellectual property rights has been overestimated especially to realise invention, innovation, technology transfer, foreign direct investment, disclosure of knowledge.  

 The changing role of universities is also necessary to understand the 'globalisation' angle being discussed here. The role of universities is changing from Mode 1 to mode 2 as argues by Gibbons and as conveyed by John Ziman the scientific knowledge being produced in the university system is transforming from that of 'reliable' towards that of 'robust' forms.  The historic peer review method where experts or scholars from particular knowledge discipline is actually under dynamic transformation. The people outside the peer review group are increasingly influencing the ‘construction of knowledges”.

Let me refer to an interview published in Nature. This interview report asks the question: "Is the model of research-intensive universities still valid at the beginning of the twenty-first century?” It says: "Outside the academic realm, the world has also changed markedly since von Humboldt's time. The ‘advanced’ nations have been moving away from the manufacturing-based economies that sustained them throughout the twentieth century, towards so-called knowledge-based economies that rely heavily on scientific research and a trained workforce. As such, these nations no longer compete for industrial capacity or access to natural resources, but rather for skilled workers, intellectual property and knowledge." Another respondent in this report says, "Research universities should fight the trend of becoming more and more specialized, and instead try to integrate undergraduate teaching and research to create a true community of scholars."(The future of research universities, EMBO reports (2007) 8, 804 - 810 * doi:10.1038/sj.embor.7401052 * http://www.nature.com/embor/journal/v8/n9/full/7401052.html)

 Another respondent says, “In many disciplines, the boundaries between basic and applied research are blurred. It is more of a continuum and one should think more in terms of short-term and long-term research. Hence, universities are moving toward supporting this continuum. With regard to intellectual property, universities and their faculty should have incentives to commercialize their discoveries and in doing so support economic development and job creation. However, universities should not become ‘greedy’ and they must realize that the intellectual property they generate is often only a small contribution to a product. They must learn to work more cooperatively with corporations on intellectual property creation, ownership and commercialization.”

The processes and goal of democratising science, issues of citizen science, hegemony and violence created by techno-scientific establishments were mentioned when the social aspects of this globalization of science were discussed.  In this kind of interdisciplinary interaction, some of the representatives expressed their dismay about their perception that science is largely being viewed from very negative perspective, which does not appreciate their efforts aimed at development. Also, lack of the meaningful institutions having capable people who can communicate the process of scientific discovery and people who can comment, write and mobilize debate about the science-technology policy in the country, the creation of environment where the challenges ahead of basic research can be deliberated upon by appreciating the ethos of science were also expressed by some members of the audience.

Eventually before leaving this particular report sharing the analysis of founding definition of globalisation in contemporary times given at (http://www.infed.org/biblio/globalization.htm)

“Globalization involves the diffusion of ideas, practices and technologies. It is something more than internationalization and universalization. It isn't simply modernization or westernization. It is certainly isn't just the liberalization of markets. Anthony Giddens has described globalization as 'the intensification of worldwide social relations which link distant localities in such a way that local happenings are shaped by events occurring many miles away and vice versa'. This involves a change in the way we understand geography and experience localness. As well as offering opportunity it brings with considerable risks linked, for example, to technological change.”

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