Interviews telecasted in April 2016

2.4.2016:

Dr. M Anandaraj: A very enthusiastic, lively talk by Muthuswami Anandaraj, a renowned plant pathologist. Director of IISR (Indian Inst. of Spice Research) at Kozhikode, an institute that is a subsidiary of Indian Council Of Agricultural Research (ICAR). Interestingly, Dr. Anandaraj is about to retire (on superannuation) on that very day (31-March-2016), a few hours after the interview was shot! Interviewer T.V.Venkateshwaran. Born at Marikuppam, a semi-urban place near Kolar gold fields; his father worked at KGF. Was a top-scorer during school days. Talks about the diverse cultual background in which he grew up - mother tongue Tamil, but grew up in Karnataka, often talks in Kannada at home, has Anglo-Indian, Christian friends and friends from other states.

Tells people should shun superstition and emphasizes the need to instill scientific temper in young minds. Narrates a humorous incident to substantiate this point - was returning home with a friend after joint study; was asked to avoid a route as it was supposed to be haunted. Didn't believe it and bravely decided to take the route. Scared by a rock rolling down and started running with a friend. Seeing this, another man started running behind them and asked why they were running - on hearing about the rolling rock, the man said the rock started rolling down accidentally when he was carrying out some digging work :D !!

His passion lay in life sciences and medicine. After doing M.Sc was under pressure to become an IAS officer. Dropped out of PhD (??) to pursue IAS. Worked in Acountant General's office for a while while preparing for IAS. On first attempt didn't get IAS offer due to relatively low score in written exam but got offer for some some other lower-ranked civil service role. At this time, his mentor (who allowed him to drop out of PhD, assuming Anandaraj would take up a research job in ICAR ??) came to know that Anandaraj was trying for an IAS offer asked the latter to apply for ICAR and not pursue IAS. Joined ICAR in 1978? Says he is thankful to his mentor and says he has absolutely enjoyed his agricultural research work of over three decades. He has no regrets about not having become a civil servant (some of his friends went on to become IAS officers).

Large scale phytophthora (soil-based fungi) attack in 1982 affected spice yield and Dr. Anandaraj was called upon to address this problem.

Some discussion about turmeric. TV wonders whether people's notion that deeper the colour of turmeric the better its quality is a wrong notion. Anandaraj says it isn't wrong as curcumin content does contribute to the colour.

Chairman of International Pepper Community headquartered at Indonesia, under the aegis of UNESCO. Recipient of C.S.Venkataraman Memorial award, J.S.Pruthi award, UGC award.

Has 2 important patents:
1. Delivering bio-control organisms as capsules for use by farmers in their farms. Makes it very easy for a Sikkim farmer to apply this to his ginger plantation - just needs to dissolve the capsule in water and apply to the field. No burden of transporting bulky material over long distances.
2. Delivering the bio-control agents through seeds of spices themselves. Possible for corriander, fennel, fenugreek etc.

Message:

1. Students should be encouraged to take up research work. Country needs to be self-reliant in food production. Ample scope for innovation in agro-sciences. Too many people get drawn to IT sector for financial gains.
2. Create awareness, instill confidence in young minds.
3. Agro-scientists need a path in the back (be applauded) for their contribution towards helping India move towards becoming an exporting country.
4. We need to get maximum production from shrinking resources - shortage of land, water and labour; plus climate change posing challenge. Need to fulfill Gandhiji's dream of of making every Indian village self-reliant. (Promote agriculture-based industries??)

9-April-2016:

Prof. V.Ramakrishnan: Director, IISER (Indian Institute of Science Education & Research), Thiruvananthapuram. Ph.D. in molecular spectroscopy. School education in Tirunelveli district (son of a Tamil teacher), higher studies in some well-known universities in Tamilnadu; master's degree from Annamalai university. Motivated in studies by a physics techer (one Venkatasubramaniam) and an English teacher who honed Ramakrishnan's oratory and deep-thinking skills by asking him to write good essays on say life of Gandhiji, thereby helping make Ramakrishnan a good orator too. PhD in physics from Kerala University in 1987. Ramakrishnan is the most highly educated person in his family. His father, despite being a person who only had a diploma, not a degree, inspired Ramakrishnan and would ensure that the family followed a disciplined, orderly life - like getting up and bathing by 6 AM, studying sincerely and going to sleep by 10 PM to get sufficient sleep.

Inelastic and elastic scattering and Raman effect. Interviewer T.V.Venkateshwaran tells for laymen how K.S.Krishnan would explain Raman effect using the analogy of cricket bat hitting a ball. If the bat moves backward a bit before it pushes back the ball, the ball loses some energy, while if the bat moves forward when it strikes the ball, the ball gains energy. If the bat remain still when ball strikes it, the ball doesn't lose or gain energy. Similarly, when a photon strikes an electron when the electron is moving away from the photon, the photon loses some energy, whereas if the electron is moving towards the photon when the photon strikes it, the photon gains energy when reflected or scattered back.

Research on Surface Enhanced Scattering phenomenon (especially on metals) that is related to Raman effect. Got special funding for this research in 1989. Recent research on Raman imaging on nanomaterials. Raman intensity variation that acts as a signature of surfaces. Studies frequency variation, as opposed to intensity variation, resulting from difference in surface molecular vibrations; helpful in studying sandwich of 2 semiconductors, like selenium and gallium.

Discussion on IISER: IISER, a new concept, is quite unique in that has programs that allows students who haven't studied physical sciences in 11th, 12th to get a firm grounding in science and become science researchers. Similarly, students who have studied maths but not biosciences in high school but want to take up bioscience research will be able to take some courses on biosciences.

6 IISERs operating in India at present. Top 1% ranking students from any state/central board 12th exam can apply for IISER after clearing one of the entrance exams.

As a director of IISER, he is focusing on improving the infrastructure (IISER-Thiruvananthapuram is operating from a temporary campus and is going to shift to a new campus), in addition to improving quality of research and ensuring more students get an opportunity for research.

Message: Be positive and face challenges. Success and failure don't matter.

16.4.2016:

Prof. Talat Ahmad: Renowned earth scientist and geologist. Vice-chancellor of Jamia Millia islamia University; formerly vice-chancellor of Kashmir University. Born in a small town/village called Giridih in current-day Jharkhand. Post-graduation from AMU. Says that despite Giridih being a remote and small place, it provided opportunity to learn diverse cultures/languages - had diverse demography - many Bengali people in addition to Hindi and Urdu speakers. Had many good and friendly teachers. Curious about geology since childhood as Giridih had coal mines nearby and adjoining areas were rich in mica.

Inspirations:
a) his teacher Sanjay Mitra who was a knowledgeable, friendly and multi-faceted person (good at sports too?).
b) Talat Ahmad's uncle who was a doctor and also a naturalist who'd take his Talat on bird-watching trips.
c) A young professor at AMU who specialized in structural geology and was very energetic and passionate, not depending on his students to carry field work.

Discussion moves onto Talat's study of Indian geology. Aravalli one of the world's oldest extant mountain chains, though eroded now. Himalayas, relatively newer. Around 2.5 million years ago, earth was much hotter than now - more volcanic activity; India was in the southern hemisphere, close to current South Africa. As a geochemistry he is interested in the chemistry of volcanic activity. Need to discover new areas of mineral deposits by using models based on understanding of geochemistry; should move ahead of depending on chance discoveries.

Some discussion on pre-cambrian geology. Talks about importance of geology; water could soon become a scarce resource. Water more important than food as people cannot survive without water for more than 3 days but could survive without food for somewhat longer. Thus students must be made to understand and study geology besides maths, physics and chemistry.

During his tenure at Kashmir Univ, he helped expand the earth sciences dept. there. Would often explore remote areas of Ladakh.

Message: Undergraduate education in India must have a flavour of research in it; shouldn't wait till masters programme to understand what research is about. Tells about B.Sc programme in Cambridge Univ (where he got post-doctoral fellowship) which has flavour of research and students proceed directly to research without intervening master's programme.

23.4.2016:

Dr. Archana Pai: World-renowned astrophysicist; one of the around 1000 authors of the historical paper related to the discovery of gravitational waves by LIGO in 2015-2016. Assistant professor at IISER-TVM since 2008. Specializes in gravitational wave physics. Graduation from Bombay and PhD. in astrophysics from Pune (IUCAA?). Her research guide (Sanjeev Dhurandhar?) at Pune is considered to be the father of gravitational wave theory studies in India.  Was curious about celestial events since childhood and joined an astronomy club early on. Was encouraged by her mother. Her curiosity also spread to her brother.

In her Ph.D. she worked on ways to identify ways to detect gravitational waves related. 3 post-doctoral degrees. First one from France. 2nd from Rome - worked with a group that used metal/cryogenic bar based detectors. 3rd post-doc from a Einstein Institute near Potsdam.

Major areas of interest are neutron stars and black holes. Devises signal processing algorithms to detect gravitational waves from binary (neutron star) systems - one aspect of this is optimal strategy to best possible, most promising data from signals received by multiple detectors.

Says she is very excited by the LIGO discovery - still unable to believe that such a string signal would be received to establish presence of gravitational waves. Also excited about the upcoming gravitational wave observatory in India.

Says women scientists face difficulties in India due to absence of sufficient family ans societal support to pursue a research career. Often women researchers take a break and then find it difficult to get a good research opportunity when trying to come back after even 2 years of break.

Message: Quotes Albert Einstein - "I'm not a smart person. I just stare at a problem for long enough". In summary, do not give up - persist and retain the interest in research.

30.4.2016:

Dr. Rajeeva Karandikar: Eminent mathematician, director of CMI since 2010. Specialized in probability theory. His father was a prof of math and statistics. His mother was a chemistry teacher. On TV Venkateshwaran's question about math-phobia, says it is due to the drab way in which math is taught in schools; says students must be taught to relate math with the real world. Other factor is negative reinforcement, being told by others that math is difficult and pressure to score. Tells his father would teach him maths in a logical manner (using coloured buttons to explain addition and carry over) and never pressurized him to score marks. Recounting his past, says he was born and brought up in Indore. Says he had a lot of free time during his younger days, and contrasts that with lack of time for the current generation. TVV says time to take a break to give program viewers get some free time :)

When in Delhi, heading Indian Statistical Institute (2000 and 2004-2006), he got a chance to work with CBI! A CBI officer once asked him whether 7 students scoring exactly the same marks as each other in multiple papers should raise suspicion of foul play. Replied saying he needed more data, data on marks of all students who wrote the exams. Turned out that the 7 suspected students had also scored the same marks as each other in almost all questions. Then computed probability of this happening and found that this is less than the probability of DNA samples of 2 different persons matching when sent through forensic test and told the court of law that if DNA sample was considered a proof, then the marks-matching should also be.

Used mathematical models to identify signals, for white noise filtering and non linear calculus related to noise filtering.

Teachers need to explain maths in a way that young students can understand logically and be able to relate to real world. Says one who is turned off from maths once (early on) will not turn back to maths, though some who are tuned to maths early may choose to turn away later. Important to ensure children don't develop math-phobia.

Problems facing math research. Tells funding needs to be increased for higher education. Funding varies between institutes - IIT get more than NIT which gets more than other institutes and so on; arts colleges get the least. Rethinking needed on financing higher education. Fund providers must realize that funding is a necessary but not sufficient condition for innovation and high-quality research output.

Maths is needed everywhere. On math career opportunities, says things have changed in the past 10 years and new types of opportunities have opened up beyond just academics. High demand for data scientists and big data analytics now. These in turn need good knowledge of math. Math is needed for optimizing business (procurement, delivery??), decide best advertising strategy etc.