A Mistake Many School Boards In India Are Making

A mistake that many school boards in India are making is allowing students to choose between Science/Arts/Commerce (and within science: Mathematics/Biology) after 10th grade. The underlying logic is that by then students (which, in India, unfortunately, often means parents) are perfectly clear about their life goals and can start "specializing" from 11th grade itself.

This is wrong on two counts:

1. Students complete their 12th grade when they are 18 years old. That's also the age when we deem them to be adults. This is when they should start making career choices (they, not their parents!). And to enable this, it is best if all subjects are retained in the curriculum till 12th grade.

2. If we want an educated, sensible, society, it is important that people, regardless of their profession, know all science, mathematics, literature and arts subjects till the 12th grade level. Within science, we want a society where folks know both Mathematics and Biology till the 12th grade level. This way they can follow and appreciate developments in engineering, technology as well as medicine with some depth and maturity. Folks will also have a more mature understanding of literature, poetry and the arts - which is a very very important factor in ensuring a psychologically and emotionally healthy society.

I think the above is an important agenda item for our Ministry of Education and the various Central and State School Boards to take up and make the necessary changes.

University Rankings: U Zurich Leads By Example

Sometime in 2012 a colleague had asked me if we'll ever see a return to quality over quantity in Indian academia. I had calmly told him that someone in the west will have to take the first step, then it'll take another decade or so for us to accept that we've been following an incorrect principle like idiots because we don't have convictions of our own, then we'll start chanting quality over quantity, quality over quantity, quality over quantity, as if we had thought of it ourselves!

Here. The process starteth 😊:

Please read: University of Zurich Quits International University Rankings

To quote: "According to the Swiss university, rankings often focus on measurable output, creating an incentive to increase the number of publications rather than prioritise the quality of content."

🤞. Hopefully academia will return to what it is meant to be about: academics.

Mr. M. K. Gandhi and Nathuram Godse

We recently celebrated Mr. M. K. Gandhi's 155th birth anniversary. Some people celebrate it every year, some don't, and to each his or her own. As for me:

I don't believe he was a Mahatma. I also have my disagreements with him on many counts and align myself more with freedom fighters like Subhash Chandra Bose, Chandrasekhar Azad, Bhagat Singh, Rajguru, Sukhdev and others. But agreements and disagreements aside, he was at least a man with some principles, he struggled for a good cause in his own way, and didn't live a life just dedicated to the pursuit of money, power and women. Not too many people qualify to this level.

I would rather befriend a thousand Gandhis than give even five minutes of my time to the person who shot him when he was old, frail and unarmed, the first terrorist of Independent India, the spineless, impotent, coward Nathuram Godse.

I just call him Mr. Gandhi, not Mahatma Gandhi, but do respect him and think well of him. And I think this is a fair viewpoint, far more fair than those who disrespect him while they themselves wouldn't have, and do not, accept a single personal discomfort for any higher cause, leave alone going to prison in a struggle for the country's independence.

The Sheer Perfection in Evolution!

Here's something so simple, so in our faces in daily life, yet blows my mind every time I think about it:

Most of us know this: All solids are associated with 'elasticity' to some extent: you apply a force, it deforms, you remove the force, it regains its original shape. In contrast, fluids are associated with 'viscosity': when you apply a shear (tangential) force, it flows while offering a frictional resistance to the force.

Now, many biological tissues are 'viscoelastic'. For example, the synovial fluid in your knee joint lubricates the joint through its viscosity, while also absorbing some of the shock your knee experiences when you walk or run. It has both properties: the 'viscosity' of a fluid and the 'elasticity' of a solid!

How cool is that! How intelligent and concerned evolution has been! Every little thing taken care of so completely!

Trust me, every little detail of how our own body functions and the physics involved is no less fascinating than all the galaxies, stars and black holes out there :)!

I fell in love with fluid mechanics in my second year of undergraduate studies (1992) and continue to be fascinated with the subject (30+ years!).

Midsemester Exams and Breaks at Colleges/Universities

I've said this before, I say it again:

The right time to have a semester break in colleges/universities is right after the midsemester exams. It (a) helps the students diffuse examination stress and freshens them up for the remaining part of the semester and (b) allows faculty members to check examination answer scripts efficiently and declare marks as soon as students come back from the break.

What many colleges/universities have started doing instead is continuing classes right after exams and giving semester breaks during festivals instead. The supposed logic is that students can travel home to be with their parents during Holi, Diwali, etc. This has three drawbacks: (a) students don't get the much needed stress release right after exams, (b) answer script checking gets delayed because faculty members have to now distribute time between their lecture responsibilities and checking answer scripts and (c) students miss out on celebrating festivals with their college/university friends - something that actually goes a long way in deepening friendships that last for a lifetime!

And alongside the above, another thing I've said before and say again: Have only one set of midsemester exams in a semester. Some colleges/universities have two sets of exams during the semester and then an end semester exam. This is excessive! Education cannot only be about preparing for exams all the time! In fact, students have to be gradually brought to a point where they understand that education is important because it enhances the quality of their lives, and they need to appreciate and absorb knowledge regardless of whether someone is going to test them or not! Having too many exams is the easiest way to have students miss this point entirely!

Research Red Flags: Paper Retractions

Below is a bar graph depicting the Top 10 countries in the world when it comes to paper retractions. My remarks:

1. I've said this before and I gladly say it again: China is NOT a model to emulate when it comes to anything, leave alone a noble profession such as the pursuit of knowledge. This is not a statement on everyone from China. I've met some fine Chinese students during my graduate school years in the US. But China as a country doesn't understand ethics - period. And we Indians know this all too well from direct experience! From the Indo-China war of 1962 when they infiltrated our territory with the slogan "Hindi - Cheeni Bhai Bhai" (Indians and Chinese are brothers) before suddenly attacking our soldiers, to what they did to Tibet, to what they are still doing on our North East border, they are known to be without any sense of right or wrong. And this shows in their research ethics too. China is simply someone to be wary of as a potential predator, nothing more than that.

2. The USA needs to course correct. They've been knowledge leaders for too long, have earned too much respect globally over the last several decades, to allow themselves to be No. 2 on this list.

3. I'm ashamed that we are in the Top 3 of this list! All our talk of the great "Indian Values" just went down the toilet, didn't it?

There is one, and only one, correct approach to research: Get onto a problem that really interests you, or a problem that you genuinely believe is important to solve, and keep at it till you have something significantly useful to say. Then, and only then, put it out as a research paper or conference presentation. Every other approach is dishonest at some level or another and belongs in the dustbin. (And stay assured: All lies eventually surface and bring shame. Far better to climb rankings steadily and solidly than try to cheat our way up and get embarrassed on the world stage like this!)

Note: Further below are the worst offenders from our country. Dig up the names and email addresses of Directors, Chancellors, Vice Chancellors and CEOs of these universities and send them love letters. Congratulate them on setting an example for our students and inspiring them to get ahead by cheating their way up instead of sustained, steady, hard work.

Vegetarianism NOT Essential to Hinduism

I'm surprised that Hinduism is still being correlated with Vegetarianism! This is just plain nonsense!

We Punjabis are non-vegetarians, Marathis are non-vegetarians, Bengalis are non-vegetarians, Telugus are non-vegetarians, Assamese are non-vegetarians, Orriyaas are non-vegetarians, Malayalees are non-vegetarians, and dear Idiots, even Kashmiri Pandits are non-vegetarians!

Have we gone mad or something?

A certain amount of meat is needed for a healthy and strong body. By all means we must eat that much meat. If you eat more than what is necessary, it's a problem. Not otherwise.

The article below is an example of what this vegetarianism myth leads to 👇:

Gujarat more audience of war than participant? State has high nationalistic fervour, but ranks low on army recruitment – Firstpost

I have no desire to see our nation becoming a ghaas-phoos nincompoop nation that is devoid of all strength and valour!

Every so called "Guruji" who preaches vegetarianism as a pre-requisite for spirituality and religion needs to be rejected. These fools simply don't know what they're talking about! They'll weaken the whole nation with this nonsense!

No wonder we've been invaded so many times! No wonder!