Wonders of science

Prof Bikash Sinha, Homi Bhaba Professor, VECC, Department of Atomic Energy, government of India, talks about the experiments at CERN and the discovery of the Higgs Boson like particle, while delivering a talk "Chasing the Missing link at CERN-Higgs Boson" at the auditorium of the Heritage Institute of Technology.


Could you tell us a bit about the motivation behind the experiment at CERN?
See, right from the ancient age man has always felt this intense desire to go for the pursuit of the fundamental. This has been observed in the ancient texts like the Vedas. Man realized that to find the fundamental he needs to develop methods to probe into the greater mysteries of Nature. This yearning to go to the roots still continues within man. Peter Higgs, a theoretical physicist during the 1960s, once theoretically suggested the possible existence of a fundamental particle which is responsible for giving mass to others. This sparked off the experiments at CERN. Such intense is this desire that the scientists built the Large Hadron Collider, which I believe is the most technologically advanced piece ever created by man till date. The LHC is a miracle machine.

What has been India's contribution in the experiments at CERN?
First and foremost it was a joint effort by all. Almost 3381 scientists and around 173 institutes from over the world participated in the CMS experiment. Tremendous effort was given by the scientists from the SINP, Kolkata, who were members of the core team at the CMS experiment. The Muon Spectrometer was developed by the efforts of these scientists from India. India played a significant role in the ALICE experiments with the contribution of the MANAS chip which was initially being developed by SINP, Kolkata. However, these contributions from one particular country should not dilute the fact that it was at the end of the day a combined attempt.

What do you have to say about calling the Higgs Boson - the God particle?
Calling the Higgs Boson the God particle is a complete misconception. Nothing can be further away from the truth because it has nothing to do with God! You cannot say that you have discovered God! Millions of dollars were spent and hundreds of people were giving so much effort for this experiment since Peter Higgs's suggestion in 1964 that the name - God "damn" particle emerged simply out of a colloquial American slang. This however was hyped by people who do not care for anything else expect God damn money and popularized a fact which is far away from the truth, which resulted in all this confusion.

What would you like to say to the budding scientists of India?
In spite of being a theoretician myself I would like more and more youngsters from India to participate in frontier and practical research oriented aspects of Physics. We have discovered a Higgs Boson like particle. Thus the experiment at CERN will go on for another 15-20 years roughly. I would really like to encourage them to go there and do some practical work.

Indian students contribute to the British student experience

Jo Beall, director of education and society at the British Council, tells Tirna Ray, UK is not just welcoming, but enthusiastic in hosting Indian students

Indian students are concerned about the withdrawal of the Post Study Work (PSW) route. What do you have to say to them?
The first thing we have to say is that we support the government's concern to only admit genuine students, to attract the best and to go for quality rather than quantity. We are not interested in students to make money out of them. Instead, we are interested in having students in our universities because they want to be in British universities because they contribute to the universities' research and student experience.

We have had a number of problems related to bogus colleges that we had to tackle. However, having said that, it is a shame that by putting in place very complex visa regulations , we have created the 'perception' that the UK is not open to international students. We are categorically working towards reversing that perception towards demonstrating that the UK is open for business, study and in some cases, even for work.

We are asking the government to think about the wider implications for British cultural relations and British economy, while at the same time, strongly supporting the reasons behind the decision and the changes that have been made.

As to the issue of 'perceptions,' we are working closely with the British government and trying to address 'perceptions,' demonstrating that UK is a welcoming environment - not just welcoming, but enthusiastic in hosting Indian students who are among the brightest and the best.

Why do you think skill education is becoming so important globally?
The global focus on skills is partly to do with the recession and 'recognition .' Recognition that we need to provide people with the opportunities they want and to help people meet the aspirations they have. That applies both for employment and entrepreneurship . If you think of our work in Africa, a large population of the urban dwellers makes a living outside of formal employment. So, I think there is a recognition that skills-support is important for people to make a living, to be innovative, creative, and so on. Also, some of the events in the Middle East have demonstrated to the world that this is what the young people are asking for. When we listen to young people in North Africa and Middle East, it becomes clear that what they want are skills for employability, skills for entrepreneurship, and education that is going to give them jobs in the real world.

What is the scope for India and UK to work in the skills area?
There is a huge scope vis-a-vis actual sectors. While the UK has a lot of expertise in the oil and gas sector, at another end of the spectrum, we have a lot to offer in the area of hospitality skills or even livelihood related to tourism. Secondly, we can look at the education system itself for further/technical education and how we can - through a system-to-system approach - work together to enhance quality, look for ways to jointly accredit and jointly deliver courses of study.

The ambitions of the Indian government are to hugely enhance the offering of higher and further/technical education. And to reach those huge numbers, to extend access, I think India needs to draw on all the support it can get. And UK is very willing to work in partnership with India, to support that quest.

Telecom sector is changing the face of education

With a Post Doctoral Research Fellowship from Ministry of HRD on Telecom Technology Transfer and PhD in Electronics and Telecommunication Engineering, Pande carries out research in technology transfer, ICT innovations in rural education, smart sensing networks and international business.

A dedicated professional with 19 years of academic experience specialising in personnel management, interpersonal and communication skills, Pande is well-known as an effective communicator with strong relationship management skills. He speaks to us on how the telecom industry is changing the way education is imparted.
Q: How is the telecom industry changing the way education is imparted?
A: It has been indicated that mobile devices are a scalable technology assisted with learning alternative to address the gaps and has helped to reduce 50% dropouts from primary education. Students with a camera enabled cellphone can annotate their everyday assignments with pictures.

Handhelds can also function as ubiquitous educational resource if graphing tools, language dictionaries, logarithmic tables, historical and geographical factoids are bundled along with the device.

Learning Lab project is unique as it does not adopt a technologically deterministic approach. Rather, it strives to let user needs and contextual factors shape the choice of technology.

Q: Will the telecom connectivity help in overcoming limitation of providing education especially in rural and remote areas of India?
A: Mobile enabled platform has opened new fields such as m-infotainment, m-connectivity, m-enterprise, m-commerce, m-health and m-education.

M-infotainment content focuses on current trends in music and movies among others. Education is related to training and learning through mobile; a platform when used effectively in rural areas will not only benefit education but also the overall development of rural India.

Q: How will m-learning and e-learning help achieve government’s initiative of ‘Education for all’?
A: The launch of 3G, LTE and WiMAX services will play a key role in increasing rural telephony and options for rural education. Through m-learning and e-learning, we can easily overcome geographic barriers as it provides learning at anytime from anywhere.

Another advantage is that it will remove the need to physically attend a course, eliminating travel time and costs. Also, with the increase in rural telecom density, m-learning will be the most feasible way to achieve government’s initiative of education for all. This will benefit rural areas where even transportation is a problem.

Offline learning is possible through CD ROMs and DVDs as broadband penetration is still a long way to go in rural India. The technology can be deployed rapidly in remote location and will be able to support the minimum capacity and speed requirements that will be laid down by the government in its national e-governance plan initiatives.

Q: Tell us about the importance of instant communication for knowledge dissemination?
A: With technology increasing at a great pace, people want information instantly. Emails, blogs, instant messaging and social networking sites plays a major role in instant communication for knowledge dissemination. People want to keep themselves updated via gadgets.

They prefer reading newspapers on their gadgets. Education is also heading in the same direction due to technology that facilitates fast, cheap, equitable, and resource-efficient access to information, accumulated knowledge, learning opportunities and co-operation support tools.

As information becomes accessible to anyone and anywhere, it is increasingly becoming a basic economic resource and a structuring factor in today’s society.

The rapid development of information and communication technologies and their application present the world community with unlimited opportunities.

Q: What are the career prospects for freshers in the booming telecom sector in India?
In the next few years, telecom sector is going to expand at a neck breaking pace. There are fifteen verticals such as value added services, network security, service providers, handset manufacturers, telecom infrastructure, billing companies, service marketing, telecom software, telecom equipment manufacturers, quality of service, telecom regulation, customer grievance and support, telecom health services, telecom education services and telecom agriculture services.

These verticals are in need of unique technology and skill management sets. The telecom sector will certainly grow at a rate of over 20% in the near future and according to the projection, jobs in this sector will grow at 7% every year.

'We need to introduce the youth to the world of ideas'

Shyam Sunder, professor of accounting, economics and finance at the Yale School of Management speaks to Shashank Venkat on his current research on the state of higher educationin India 

Q- Your current research is based on the state of higher education in India. What are the challenges for higher education in India? 
There is not enough talent going into higher education i.e into teaching and research. Top ranking students do not want to get into teaching and research. Education institutes in India are not centres of innovation; new ideas, theories, inventions. We are not at the frontier when it comes to invention. Our best brains get into selling soap. The second major issue is financing. No university in the world delivers quality education at a profit. To be a good university, you need to have quality people working for you and preparing PhD students to teach the next generation. On an average, 40-50 per cent of the expenses for American universities come from tuition fees. In India, 150-200 per cent of the expenses come from tuition fees. We are a country of 1.2 billion people. A lakh or two among them are bright. India has to worry about the other 25 lakh. 

Q- Which areas in higher education are in need for reform? 
Apart from the issue of talent and financing, there is also the question of the system of governance at universities. Research is about ideas. The usual measures of performance do not apply in the world of ideas. Rigid rules and regulations hinder performance. Politicians and civil servants have a stranglehold on education. They do not want you to have any room for judgment. There is also the issue of lack of good teachers. Additionally, there is a history of businesses supporting education in India. But businessmen, today, think that education is a great way to make money. We have to find solutions to these problems. We need to introduce the youth to the world of ideas. 

Q- Tell us about your current research in the field of accounting. 
My research is based on the value of finance to the society. The financial industry has made a lot of money all over the world. Has the industry really made money by adding wealth to the society or is it just transfer of wealth from some people to the finance industry? I want to separate these two things. 

Q- Could you elaborate on the Yale-India Higher Education Leadership forum? 
This programme was initiated last September where Yale and the HRD ministry got into an agreement to work with the leadership of the higher education in India. We get the vice-chancellors, registrars of the Indian universities to come down to the US for two weeks. They spend a week at Yale learning how it is works and discuss various aspects like fund raising, curriculum, admissions, teaching, faculty, faculty development, sports, administration, etc.