8 Researching Pioneer Competencies in India
Chhaya Goel and Devraj Goel
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. Introduction
2. Meaning of Pioneer
3. Pioneer Competencies
4. Attributes of Nobel Laureates of India
5. Problems Addressed by the Pioneers
6. Developing Pioneer Culture
1. Introduction
A researcher is one who is fully lost in quest of solutions to the problems round the clock through humanistic & scientific approach irrespective of the discomfort. A Pioneer is noblest number one innovator who identifies with the universe wholistically. A pioneer germinates, incubates, innovates, creates & constructs. A pioneer is round the clock lost in sensing, formulating and addressing developmental challenges through most innovative, creative, constructive & connectionist approaches. The intent of the present paper is mapping the competencies of the pioneers and trying to emulate these to address numerous problems so as to recreate & reform this sphere as a happy, healthy, peaceful abode for all. The focus is on recalling Nobel Laureates of India and researching pioneer competencies in India.
2. Meaning of Pioneer
The universe has revelations in many varied forms. There is no space, no spot, no dot in the universe which is problem independent, even, vacuum is in problem. How to justify the existence of every entity, their interconnection and occurrence of various phenomena? The question is that of identification with the universe. But, in this plight of identification, no thesis, how so ever, comprehensive & precise is ultimate. We are degrees of a do main & discipline. No one is perfect (100%) in internalizing the universe. The question is how big & substantive is our knowledge base? With the efforts of all the generations we still have a very little knowledge base of the universe. It is because identification with the universe demands round the clock quest, systemic wholistic systematic research with full dedication independent of all the noises, and with capacity of understanding & connecting the interplay of many varied variables. The pioneers in various disciplines have very well demonstrated the identification. But, where do we stand in understanding the reality we are with. The reality is independent of all of us who try to investigate it. Then how a subjective investigator can have objective view of the reality? It demands infinite, rather, indeterminate arrays of abilities, capabilities, skills and competencies to reach the reality. There are various challenges & conditions which are limiting the quest. Scientific realism is too meek to capture the reality. But, there have been Sages, Wandering Ascetics, Spiritual Scientists along with Physical Scientists to provide & activate the strength & power of soul within & between us. It is true that there is only one Cause and all the rest are Effects. So, it is impossible by the effects to have intelligibility of the Cause comprehensively. But the pioneering & innovative research in the form of constructions & connections, though very limited, but is enlightening.
3. Pioneer Competencies
Pioneer is a quintessential recluse, that is, unique excellent innovator, who tends to be close to the creator on the object of quest. Germination, Incubation, Innovation, Creation, Construction and Connection are the essential attributes of a Pioneer, who is lost in the q uest round the clock, with positive attitude despite all discomforts. The marvelous mysteries & deep secrets of the nature are revealed when a Researcher is fully lost in the quest. It is in tune with Swami Vivekananda Vision & Determination that “Arise, Awake & Stop not till the Goal is reached”. The ultimate goal is a perfect becoming with Skill, Scale & Speed, Constructivist, Connectionist & Naturalist, proud of thy creation, always humble, a wholistic being, an embodiment of the soul, having perfect entrainment of heart, brain, senses, motor- muscles, resonating self with the environ, a universal being with unconditional eternal love & affection for all, mostly roaring, a blissful being, transcending time, space & mind to be one with the sole Soul. A Pioneer is a curious, determined, dedicated, committed, eternal scholar with a unique profile. Nobel Laureates may not be roaring IQ, but they are highly goal oriented dedicated people who fully strive for finding the truth & reality.
Here is a poem which reflects on the Real & Perceptible:
4. Attributes of Nobel Laureates of India:
1) They have a passion & dedication, JAJBA & Perfect Immersion of Life.
2) Their Goals are not degree of Degrees, but 100% Empathy with Painful to filter Pain.
3) They believe in simple living and high thinking.
4) They fully identify with the objects of their quest.
5) All of them are universal becoming.
6) They are intensively connectionists.
7) They have a wonderful sense of sensitivity & skill of scanning.
8) They try their levels best to transcend Time-Space-Mind & Self.
9) They are fully lost in the realization of their goal, regulating, both, the in vivo & external.
10) They rarely aspire for awards & rewards.
11) Their acts & texts have own testimony.
12) They realize quality & perfection with every bit of action.
13) They live alone in & with the crowd.
14) They are goal oriented round the clock.
15) They try to set all the systemic parameters with them in perfect resonance.
16) Irrespective of the disciplines they are identified with, they are ultimately Spiritual Scientists.
How to research the Pioneer Competencies is beyond the conceptual framework, theoretical framework, propositions, methodology, tools & techniques of the investigators with limited knowledge base.
a. Rabindranath Tagore
Rabindranath Tagore, India’s popular poet and writer was awarded Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913 for his “Geetanjali” a collection of his poems. “Our passions and desires are unruly, but our character subdues these elements into a harmonious whole. Does something similar to this happen in the physical world? Are the elements rebellious, dynamic with individual impulse? And is there a principle in the physical world which dominates them and puts them into an orderly organization?
b. C.V. Raman
Chandra Shekar Venkata Raman, Indian Scientist was awarded Nobel Prize of Physics in 1930 for his “Raman Effect” related to light. In 1922 he published his work on the “Molecular Diffraction of Light”, the first of a series of investigations with his collaborators which ultimately led to his discovery, on the 28th of February, 1928, of the radiation effect which bears his name (“A new radiation”, Indian J. Phys., 2 (1928) 387), and which gained him the 1930 Nobel Prize in Physics. Other investigations carried out by Raman were: his experimental and theoretical studies on the diffraction of light by acoustic waves of ultrasonic and hypersonic frequencies (published 1934-1942), and those on the effects produced by X-rays on infrared vibrations in crystals exposed to ordinary light. In 1948 Raman, through studying the spectroscopic behaviour of crystals, approached in a new manner fundamental problems of crystal dynamics. His laboratory has been dealing with the structure and properties of diamond, the structure and optical behaviour of numerous iridescent substances (labradorite, pearly felspar, agate, opal, and pearls). Among his other interests have been the optics of colloids, electrical and magnetic anisotropy, and the physiology of human vision.
c. Har Gobind Khorana
Dr. Hargobind Khorana, India’s Doctorate in Chemistry was awarded Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1968 for his study of the Human Genetic Code and its role in Protein Synthesis. Har Gobind Khorana also known as Hargobind Khorana (January 9, 1922 – November 9, 2011) was an Indian-American biochemist who shared the 1968 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine with Marshall W. Nirenberg and Robert W. Holley for research that helped to show how the order of nucleotides in nucleic acids, which carry the genetic code of the cell, control the cell’s synthesis of proteins. Khorana and Nirenberg were also awarded the Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize from Columbia University in the same year. Khorana was the first scientist to chemically synthesize oligonucleotides.
d. Mother Teresa
Mother Teresa, a Yogoslavian nun who became an Indian citizen was awarded Nobel Prize for Peace in 1979 for her service through her Charitable Mission “Nirmal Hriday” at Calcutta to people suffering from Leprosy and to those people dying in destitute. Mother Teresa had first been recognised by the Indian government more than a third of a century earlier when she was awarded the Padma Shri in 1962 and the Jawaharlal Nehru Award for International Understanding in 1969. She continued to receive major Indian awards in subsequent years, including India’s highest civilian award, the Bharat Ratna, in 1980. Her official biography was written by an Indian civil servant, Navin Chawla, and published in 1992.
On 28 August 2010, to commemorate the 100th anniversary of her birth, the government of India issued a special 5 Rupee coin, being the sum she first arrived in India with. President Pratibha Patil said of Mother Teresa, “Clad in a white sari with a blue border, she and the sisters of Missionaries of Charity became a symbol of hope to many – the aged, the destitute, the unemployed, the diseased, the terminally ill, and those abandoned by their families.
e. Subramanian Chandrashekar
Dr. Subramanian Chandrashekar, an Indian Astro-Physicist was awarded Nobel Prize for Physics in 1983 for his theory on white dwarf stars’ limitation known as ‘Chandrasekhar Limit’. He wrote that his scientific research was motivated by his desire to participate in the progress of different subjects in science to the best of his ability, and that the prime motive underlying his work was systematization. “What a scientist tries to do essentially is to select a certain domain, a certain aspect, or a certain detail, and see if that takes its appropriate place in a general scheme which has form and coherence; and, if not, to seek furthe r information which would help him to do that.” Chandrasekhar developed a unique style of mastering several fields of physics and astrophysics; consequently, his working life can be divided into distinct periods. He would exhaustively study a specific area, publish several papers in it and then write a book summarizing the major concepts in the field. He would then move on to another field for the next decade and repeat the pattern. Thus he studied stellar structure, including the theory of white dwarfs, during the years 1929 to 1939, and subsequently focused on stellar dynamics from 1939 to 1943. Next, he concentrated on the theory of radiative transfer and the quantum theory of the negative ion of hydrogen from 1943 to 1950. This was followed by sustained work on hydrodynamic and hydromagnetic stability from 1950 to 1961. In the 1960s, he studied the equilibrium and the stability of ellipsoidal figures of equilibrium, and also general relativity. During the period, 1971 to 1983 he studied the mathematical theory of black holes, and, finally, during the late 80s, he worked on the theory of colliding gravitational waves.
f.Amartya Sen
Dr. Amatya Sen, an Indian Professor in Economics was awarded Nobel Prize for Economics in 1998 for his work in Economic Theory related to Poverty, Democracy, Development and Social Welfare. “The curriculum of the School did not neglect India’s cultural, analytical and scientific heritage, but was very involved also with the rest of the world. Indeed, it was astonishingly open to influences all over the world, including the West but also other non-Western cultures, such as, East & South-East Asia (including China, Japan, Indonesia, Korea), West Asia and Africa. I remember being quite struck by Rabindranath Tagore’s approach to cultural diversity in the world (well reflected into our curriculum), which he had expressed in a letter to a friend: “Whatever we understand and enjoy in human products instantly becomes ours, wherever they might have their origin….Let me feel with unalloyed gladness that all the great glories of man are mine”
g. Venkatraman Ramkrishnan
Venkataraman Ramakrishnan, an Indo-American has shared Nobel Prize for Chemistry along with a co-American Thomas Steitz and Ada Yonath of Israel in 2009 for mapping ribosomes, the protein procucing factories within cells at the atomic level. Ramakrishnan was born in Chidambaram in Cuddalore district of Tamil Nadu, India to C.V. Ramakrishnan and Rajalakshmi. Both his parents were scientists and taught biochemistry at the Maharaja Sayajirao University in Baroda. He moved to Baroda in Gujarat at the age of three, where he had his schooling at Convent of Jesus and Mary, except for spending 1960–61 in Adelaide, Australia. Following his Pre-Science at the Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, he did his undergraduate studies in the same university on a National Science Talent Scholarship, graduating with a B.Sc. degree in Physics in 1971. In a lecture in January 2010 at the Indian Institute of Science, he revealed that he failed to get admitted to any of the Indian Institutes of Technology or the Christian Medical College, Vellore, Tamil Nadu. Immediately after graduation he moved to the U.S.A., where he obtained his PhD degree in Physics from Ohio University in 1976. He then spent two years studying biology as a graduate student at the University of California, San Diego while making a transition from theoretical physics to biology. Ramakrishnan began work on ribosomes as a postdoctoral fellow with Peter Moore at Yale University. After his post-doctoral fellowship, he initially could not find a faculty position even though he had applied to about 50 universities in the U.S. He continued to work on ribosomes from 1983-95 as a staff scientist at Brookhaven National Laboratory. In 1995 he moved to the University of Utah as a Professor of Biochemistry, and in 1999, he moved to his current position at the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, England, where he had also been a sabbatical visitor during 1991-92. In 1999, Ramakrishnan’s laboratory published a 5.5 Angstrom resolution structure of the 30S subunit. The following year, his laboratory determined the complete molecular structure of the 30S subunit of the ribosome and its complexes with several antibiotics. This was followed by studies that provided structural insights into the mechanism that ensures the fidelity of protein biosynthesis. More recently, his laboratory has determined the atomic structure of the whole ribosome in complex with its TRNA and MRNA ligands. Ramakrishnan is also known for his past work on his tone and chromatin structure.
h. Kailash Satyarthi
The Nobel Peace Prize will be awarded to educational rights campaigners from Pakistan and India, the Nobel Committee has announced. Malala Yousafzai and Kailash Satyarthi share the 2014 award. The Nobel Committee announced on Friday that Malala Yousafzai and Kailash Satyarthi had jointly won this year’s Peace Prize. They will receive the award in a ceremony in Oslo on December 10, the anniversary of the death of industrialist Alfred Nobel, who founded the award in his 1895 will. “The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided that the Nobel Peace Prize for 2014 is to be awarded to Kailash Satyarthi and Malala Yousafzai for their struggle against the suppression of children and young people and for the right of all children to education,” the jury said. Yousafzai, now 17, is a schoolgirl and education campaigner from Pakistan who first rose to prominence through her BBC b log advocating greater access to schooling for girls in Pakistan. In October 2012, she was shot in the head on her school bus by an attacker who had asked for her by name. The committee said that the other winner, Satyarthi, had maintained the tradition of Mahatma Gandhi and headed various forms of peaceful protests, “focusing on the grave exploitation of children for financial gain.” The life and work of Mr. Kailash Satyarthi is synonymous to the never-ending crusade against child slavery. Born in 1954 in Vidisha district of Madhya Pradesh, a state in central India, he has a degree in electrical engineering and a post-graduate diploma in high- voltage engineering. While teaching as a professor in a college in Bhopal, Mr. Satyarthi decided to work more active ly for social change.
Along with a set of friends, he founded Bachpan Bachao Andolan (BBA) in 1980. BBA (Save the Childhood Movement in English) symbolizes the struggle against child labour and child servitude. The organization is also the initiator of the first regional South Asian people’s movement, the South Asian Coalition on Child Servitude (SACCS), a conglomeration of more than 750 civil society organizations. Till date, BBA team has led to the rescue and withdrawal of over 77,328 child bonded labourers and developed a successful model for their education and rehabilitation. In 1998, Mr. Satyarthi organized the Global March against Child Labour (GMACL) across 103 countries with participation of over 7.2 million people and 20,000 civil society organizations. It is the largest peoples’ campaign on child labour that led to ILO Convention 182 on the worst forms of child labour. It has been successful in the formation of the Global Task Force on Child Labour and Education, which is a working committee of UN agencies and GMACL for policy coherence and concerted action on child labour elimination, education for all and poverty alleviation.
Global Campaign for Education (GCE) – The education initiative led by Mr. Satyarthi is the Coalition of civil society networks, foundations and teachers association campaigning for the implementation of Dakar goals of ‘Education for All (EFA)’ through international advocacy and lobbying work. As an analytical thinker, Mr. Satyarthi has been the pioneer advocate of the now established ‘Triangular paradigm of development’ interlinking child labour elimination and poverty eradication with education for all. He is combating the use of child labour by creating domestic and international consumer resistance to products made by children in bonded labour. In 1994, he started “Rugmark”, a social labeling program in which rugs are labeled and certified to be child- labour- free by factories that agree to be regularly inspected. He has promoted the empowerment of children through the formation of Bal Mitra Grams (Child Friendly Villages). The concept of ‘Bal Mitra Gram’ is an innovative approach towards total elimination of child labor and universalization of education. Children’s village council has evolved to enhance community awareness and participatory democracy and has been an unprecedented success.
“The Nobel Committee regards it as an important point for a Hindu and a Muslim, an Indian and a Pakistani, to join in a common struggle for education and against extremism,” said Thorbjoern Jagland, the head of the Norwegian Nobel Committee.
“It has been calculated that there are 168 million child laborers around the world today. In 2000, the figure was 78 million higher. The world has come closer to the goal of eliminating child labor.”
Chancellor Angela Merkel’s spokesman Steffen Seibert wrote on Twitter that the award was a “great encouragement for everybody who fights for children’s rights,” offering congratulations to both winners.
5. Proble ms Addressed by the Pioneers
There are many developmental challenges of India, such as , Assimilating the globalization, Managing Knowledge, Continuous updating of Knowledge & Skills, Creating new age institutions, Balancing materialism and values of orient, Phantom use of Resources, Trans-planet technology stabilization, Working with multiple languages and multiple cultures, Meeting the climatic & environmental challenges, Sustaining development, Collaborative Living, Wholistic development, Developing Vocational Skills, Enhancing Communication Skills, Quality control, Removing Public Private dichotomy, Controlling Rising materialistic values, Realizing even distribution, Controlling Ecological imbalances, Fair Recognition, Valid Accreditation, Sustaining Symbiosis, Respecting Cultural Heritage, Sustaining sensitivity to the basic values, Convergence of State, Society, Education & Judiciary, Respecting Rights of all, and Transcending time, space & mind. There is infinite universe & beyond yet to be explored. India which has had the grace of being contented, peaceful, healthy, happy, beauteous, cultured society is moment by moment losing its natural bliss & beauty. We have become insensitive to our Indian Heritage of peaceful struggle. Each one of us needs to recreate, revive and refresh ourselves wholistically to value our heritage and build a Strong, Powerful, Cultured, Dedicated, Gracious and Pioneer India.
6. Developing Pioneer Culture
Developmental Challenges demand Pioneers with interdisciplinary competencies. How long will we compromise with the fragmented research? Should not it be wholistic? Why the Scientists have not come out of the laboratories? Is not there a need to conduct naturalistic situational research through deep observation, reflection & intuition and construct grass root theories, addressing our problems, through our tools, through our sources & resources, to better our quality of life & living?
Indian brain is highly evolved, Indian artists, scientists, scholars, technocrats, researchers, and industrialists, as well as businessmen all are quality service oriented in their core. There are pioneers and pioneers in India. But, we are more used to the foreign molecules in most of the domains where as the India molecules wait for years together to be patented. We have more craze for the extraneous at the cost of indigenous. Our apex institutions are mad after the foreign products. Papers published in the foreign journals are better Academic Performance Indicators (APIs).
1. There should be healthy relationship between State, Society, Judiciary & Education.
2. We should learn to love the indigenous.
3. Minimum 5% of the GDP should be spent on Education.
4. Minimum 2% of the GDP should be spent on Research.
5. We should learn to manage with the minimum essential.
6.There is rare, rather, no concurrence of the State Governments to the new Projects and Positions sanctioned by the Central Government, to own these after the initial Project Period. This indifference of the State Government is a countrywide phenomenon which is evident through the treatment of almost all the States. Then, why not Education be shifted from the concurrent list to the central list.
7. The creativity of the budding scholars ought to be incubated in the Indian Schools. There should be capable teachers & congenial culture to facilitate the innovations.
8. There should be Research Culture in Indian Institutions. How long we will go on duplicating, replicating & stereotyping?
9. We ought to learn to value the indigenous.
10.Facilities should be created at National level for providing clinical trial. The institutions should fund patenting.
11.Facilities should be provided for patenting and scale production of the valuable products and their marketing.
12.Scientists should move from the laboratories to the operational level.
13.There should be university industry interface for developing research culture and ambience.
14. National meet of Researchers in various disciplines should be the integral feature of Indian Higher Education.
15. We should learn how to showcase and deploy to the operational level.
16.Indian Scholars & Scientists should earn respect. What are we busy with, if we don’t create even the minimal facilities to live in India, that we Scientists have to seek shelter abroad?
Most of our institutions are busy imitating & duplicating. There is rare expression & appreciation of the innovative. We are mad after trying to superimpose common university act. There is no appreciation for the uncommon & differential. Even the so called Choice Based Credit System is based on the limited choice out of the given, than out of the desired.
A Nobel Laureate of India finds recognition after 84 Years. There is a need of revamping India. What use are the National Curriculum Frameworks for Education & Teacher Education if these are resident in Papers only and have failed to find expression at the field level. Originality & Creativity demand peaceful & healthy ambience. Unless we Indian learn to respect the indigenous, and develop a compatible culture we will fail to have noble laureates. There is a lot of awakening amongst Indian pioneers not to let their efforts go waste. It is high time that we learn to appreciate the passion and round the clock dedication of these pioneers.
Do we have even a single Universal University in India? We have Central Universities. We have State Universities. We do have deemed to be universities. Identity of a university is
“Universal Outlook & Universal In look”. Our Universities should give a feel of universities in terms of their act, vision, mission, structure, functionaries & functions. Indian Higher Education ought to revive and establish its identity as Higher Education. Face validity of a university be assessed on the basis of Pioneer Tendencies & Competencies.
It is really surprising to learn someone else telling our problems. Let us learn to identify & identify with our problems and address these indigenously. We need to be smart scientific humanistic cheerful players. Let us learn how to drop, how to place, how to smash, how to spin & return spin, how to full toss & bat full toss, how to throw, how to dribble, how to scoop, how to hit, how to kick, how to sublime, but, above all, let us learn how to play cheerfully, fairly, joyfully, and meaningfully. Indians are blessed with addressing any problem, physical or metaphysical. Let us exercise & realize our potentials. India will have to revive its cultural heritage and modernize socially, logically, scientifically, technically and transcend space, time & mind to realize its status of JAGATGURU. For that let us learn to activate & respect the self.
There are problems of Bipolarity & Peace in India. Most of our feature films and TV Serials focus on these. Unless we learn to adore Nature as Source, Peacefully, we cannot be Nobel Laureates. There is no parallel to Indian heritage, ethos, values & culture. Let us Search & Re – Search and find our own selves & basic culture through our Pioneering Striving. Where are we lost? We ought to find our own selves.
References:
- Raman, C. V. (1928), “A new radiation”. Indian J. Phys. 2:387-398
- https://en.wikipedia.org
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_laureates_of_India
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Indian_Nobel_laureates