RESEARCH

And it bluffed about the 'inevitability' of fuel price hike when it indeed had other options, reports Dibyendu Das F ill it, shut it and forget it! This once-famous slogan from an advertisement of a motorcycle seems to be the motto of the UPA Government as it has conveniently set aside the worries of the poor and the middle class reeling under the pressure of the recent hike in the prices of fuel for transportation and cooking gas. While global oil prices climbed record high this week pushing the benchmark Indian basket to the year's high of $76.13 a barrel, the troubled UPA coalition at the Centre abandoned thoughts of raising fuel prices, withdrawing the subsidy on cooking gas for the non-poor. The Indian basket comprises Oman-Dubai sour grade and Brent dated sweet crude in a 60:40 ratio. It is the government-owned oil companies that will bear the brunt of Rs 5.75 a litre loss on sale of diesel, Rs 3.35 on petrol and Rs 15.47 on kerosene and Rs 174.75 on every cylinder of

Any Tom, Dick, Harry or Philip Kotler can be a marketing guru ________________ Surajit Dasgupta ________________ I f there are three natural numbers ‘a’, ‘b’ and ‘c’ such that a^2 + b^2 = c^2, you call them a Pythagorean triplet (e.g., 5, 12 and 13 make such a triplet as 5^2 + 12^2 = 13^2. And if you substitute 2 by any number, say, ‘n’, then you see that you are unable to find any set of three numbers, ‘a’, ‘b’ and ‘c’ satisfying the equation a^n + b^n = c^n for n ≠ 2. This is known as Fermat’s Last Theorem, which no one could prove mathematically for more than three centuries after the French mathematician’s death until Andrew Wiles of Princeton University, UK, proved it in the last decade. If Pythagoras of Samos and Pierre de Fermat had not formulated the above theorems, respectively, could Surajit Dasgupta have formulated them? Honestly, I do not suffer from such a grand delusion about my intellect. Now, sample this: As we, human beings, grow by age, we want our professional, socia

A student wants to write a thesis on an untouched subject. He approaches a 'guide', a professor in the know of previously researched topics and also the person who can fetch the student his research degree. The latter exploits the former to the extent of extracting personal, menial jobs from the poor student. If the young chap obliges — which most of PhD aspirants do — he gets a doctorate, irrespective of his knowledge in the subject concerned. If not, he is thrown out of the system. That's the story of research in India ______________ Sandeep Nagar ______________ O ne wonders how many people give a serious thought to the fact that India is a premier country to supply scientific human resources to developing countries and yet we are so backward when it comes to scientific research. We took 23 years (1984-2007) to make a Light Combat Aircraft ( LCA ) when aviation just completed its first century and that too by assembling foreign parts*. We always get second-hand accompli

______________________ An anonymous soldier ______________________ Though this is not a poetry blog, the newsworthiness of the following ballad merits its inclusion here. It has been composed by a fourth generation, 24-year old career officer in the Indian Armed Forces, spurred by the report of the Sixth Pay Commission and an insensitive article written by a 'respectable' denizen of the country in a national daily on the armed forces and the pertinence of the Sixth Pay Commission therein. This free-flowing verse has not been edited; it's to ensure that the originality of the angst is maintained. After all, when you are in pain, the language of expression is the last thing in your mind H ow you play with us, did you ever see? At Seven, I had decided what I wanted to be; I would serve you to the end, All these boundaries I would defend. Now you make me look like a fool, When at Seventeen and just out of school; Went to the place where they made "men out of boys" Liv

President Sarkozy is a big disappointment _______________ Mathieu Mercier _______________ L ast year, during the presidential election in France, facing Nicolas Sarkozy was another candidate, a woman. France, it seemed, was not yet ready to elect a woman as the head of their state. Ségolène Royale was being criticized in every public forum, sometimes quite unfairly. People thought she was too naïve and, hence, unfit to govern France. Sarkozy thus emerged as the other — the only viable — option left. Among other things, his oratory skill was largely noticed and appreciated. His experience as a seasoned lawyer came in handy! More importantly, Sarkozy’s past record as an administrator was clean. It was not surprising that the French thought he was the only person capable of governing France after years of rule by extreme and moderate socialists. However, with time Sarkozy started disappointing his voters with his mistakes, some of them seemingly intentional. He was also seen as a callous

________________ Surajit Dasgupta ________________ ( Click on the headline for details of cognitive behaviour therapy for hypochondriasis by the Journal of the American Medical Association ) The reproduction of this article in this blog has been provoked by a frequent topic of discussion at this writer's workplace: health profiles of the respective speakers. It amuses me, hailing as I do from a small town where I grew up leading a carefree and yet disease-free life, as to why the people living in big cities are often unduly worried about their health Asukh: This film by Rituparno Ghosh showed how the mere thought of a disease can wreck a family ( Published first in The Pioneer on 1 October 2007 ) E ver since The Pioneer published the story, "Indian woman stripped of her job for wearing nose stud in UK" (September 19), I have been trying to eat with my nose and figure out how it could possibly affect my hygiene and that of the people whose company I keep. Jokes apart, wh

Things exist because they do ____________ Debarshi Dey ____________ R eason and reality: these are the two parameters we constantly invoke in our post modern lives to validate and justify all that we think and all that we do. Such is the absolute power of these two concepts on our minds that even our Gods and our innermost dreams have to pass the twin tests: Are they reasonable? Are they realistic? We might use other words in their place: “scientific”, “rational”, “practical”, “pragmatic”, but they all convey the same meaning. In all our experiences, and in all our conscious responses to them, we try to satisfy ourselves that they have the twin blessings of being reasonable and real. When these ideas of reason and reality are of so paramount importance in the way we live our lives, or rather in the way we think and make sense of things that are happening around us, let us ask ourselves: what do these words actually mean? Reality: What is reality? What are the things we consider as real

Shivraj Patil must come clean ________ M Ratan ________ Ambala, New Delhi, Latur, June 6 : Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil’s record in office may not be much to write home about — a string of terrorist attacks across the country since he took charge and no sign of a breakthrough in any case. On one front, at least, the Minister has delivered — by providing the clout of his official address to help his son’s businesses, from a distillery in Haryana to a sugar mill in Maharashtra. An investigation by The Indian Express in New Delhi, Ambala and Latur has found that the Home Minister’s son Shailesh Patil and daughter-in-law Archana Patil have cited the Home Minister’s official residence, 4, Janpath, as their address when they became part of a Rs 149-crore distillery project sprawled across 52 acres in Ambala. Records obtained from the Registrar of Companies and pollution board authorities show Shailesh and Archana Patil joined as directors of N V Distilleries Ltd on May 9, 2005. The plan

Editors, shed a tear for yourselves A report published in HT City 's 13 June 2008 edition: Blogstress.com Burning the midnight oil, skipping meals, stressed out 24/7 - we aren't talking about students or BPO workers; we are talking of bloggers. Neck deep in competition to write the best post, get maximum clicks or make the most money, their lives are nothing but grist for their next post. They surf incessantly, are hooked on news updates, and are constantly thinking of opinions they can give. Taking a break is not an option. In the US, two popular tech bloggers, Russell Shaw and Marc Orchant, died suddenly of heart attacks. Another prolific blogger, Om Malik, 41, also had a heart attack, but survived. Delhi guy Pratyush Ranjan has been blogging for three years. "It's stressful. I need higher levels of concentration. I've to socialise to make my blogs popular, which further saps my energy " Zola Marquis's blog Elitechoice.org started as a passion. But now i

The RSS's prevalence in orkut had made Google nervous, as it briefly blacked out all RSS communities a year ago. It shouldn't be difficult to guess who had arm-twisted Google into taking the action of intolerant censorship. Nevertheless, the youth protested vociferously and all those banned fora were back online. This is an announcement of the commemoration of the event, marking youth power, next week ________________ Amit Chatterjee ________________ W e often celebrate festivals and days of national importance and also mourn the death and sacrifices of great leaders. The reason we do this is to remind ourselves and the present and future generations every now and then about our history so that they remember and learn from the past.This is a universal phenomenon. Such days or periods unify people and strike emotional chords. Similarly we, the RSS members who are regular orkut users, thought of remembering a dark chapter in orkut for the Sangha Pariwaar communities (or fora).

( Click on the headline for a surgeon's prescription describing genuine cases of appendicitis ) _________________ Surajit Dasgupta _________________ Anywhere in India, if someone suffers from stomach pain, the ailment could be anything. If it's West Bengal, and it's a woman, chances are high she will be diagnosed with 'appendicitis'. How reliable is this diagnosis? Background: This article was written in December 2004. However, none of the two newspapers I worked with during the period September 2004-March 2008 had enough space to accommodate it, even as it's difficult to do away with any of its technical details. The Pioneer had published an abridged version (about 800 words) of this exposition in 2006; the article was not uploaded on to the newspaper’s Internet version. Four years after writing this article, as I heard last week from friends and acquaintances from Kolkata and its suburbs and the towns Burdwan, Durgapur and Asansol, the scourge of doctors presc