Awards and recognition in India - the way I see it

 I was never into applying for any award, memberships or recognition because I feel that we should not apply or influence someone to get recognized and till now I hold the same ground. I feel recognition should come from the work you do not by lobbying or by knowing someone. As I see more and more people recognized by their contribution to a certain field I fail to find where the real contribution is. In India, if one wins one award, they also win all others one after the other. Because one recognition gets some visibility that drives the other and so on. Now, I take a pause and would like to ponder over the quality of the people who determine who should be awarded. Do they read enough papers, do they update themselves with the technology OR they are part of some gossip club where science and technology is gossiped and hearsay determines the future.  Recently, 75 women were celebrated for their contribution in STEAM. Now I am wondering where are their contributions hiding. Who has decided that. Sadly, I see many distinct names missing who are in a much better place to be nominated rather than the people who adorn this list. I feel it is time, we stop celebrating such successes and stop spreading lies, give promotions and recognition to such people if we really want to enhance our science. 

Getting a driver's license in Kolkata

 Thanks to Nitin Gadkari ji's initiative, now there is a national portal for obtaining a driver's license. The site to visit is https://vahan.nic.in/nrservices/ . There you register your intent to get yourself a driver's license. 

I have made one 20 years back in Bangalore in 2001. There, I remember, there was a written test conducted where we took paper  and pen and wrote the test in a room. The results were declared almost immediately. Subsequently, there was a small buffer time within which one needed to give road the test. It was indeed a road test, where one has to drive on the road with real vehicles and animals and humans all around. Both the tests were fair so to say and I passed the road test in the second attempt (failed the first one: Another long story. Road test was going fine till a dog appeared suddenly out of nowhere. I stopped the car and could not start due to nervousness) and got a license for 20 years (Till 2021). So, I was wondering whether to go for a renewal or take a fresh test. Taking a fresh one seemed more appropriate. So, we filled the forms and submitted the documents online. Our test dates were scheduled and the time slot was also scheduled. The date of written test, we had to go to the DMV (Kasba). They verify the papers (mainly Adhaar card and address proof etc.). Then an OTP is generated that has the login and password information for the written test. One can get the photograph taken digitally and get the signature digitally registered in the same office at the same time by standing in another queue. After that, using the login and password, one can go for the computerized test. Note: If you happen to go anytime other than your scheduled slot, the system will not take you. For this test, there are many online study materials one can find. I find this link very useful: https://indianauto.com/tips/guidelines-on-getting-loan-against-your-car-nid6418 . Once I started answering the multiple choice questions, I get to see my scores. The moment the scores are more than 50% of the total mark, you don't have to proceed any further. You will immediately get an OTP that you have cleared the Lerner's permit. At that point of time, you can also go to the Vahaan site and download the learner's permit.

Regarding the road test, there is a buffer time (usually between a month to 6 months) within which you have to go and give the road test (here the road test does not mean actual road test. Only a small place marked for going forward and reverse to complete the test). So, on our scheduled date and time, we went for the test. Unfortunately, the place is extremely crowded and chaotic and an unsuspecting mind will not be able to figure out what to do. After several rounds of asking we figured out that there is a place where the car has to go 100 meters forward and 100 meters reverse to test driving. That is it. We somehow managed to go near the test site. They were letting the driving school people to precede everyone else. After waiting for a couple of hours, I went and asked the MVI when they are going to take our test. They said, you just wait. After the driving school is done, you can give your test. But I protested. So they made me write an application that I need to give test in our own vehicle. [Another alert, always carry plain paper, pen, staplers and glue stick if you are going to any such places to avoid un-necessary hassles.] I did just that and then they allowed us to give the test. The test lasted for 2 minutes. After the test, they signed on the document and wrote "passed". They said nothing. I was wondering if the test is done, is that it or we needed to wait longer and what paper to give what to take. Nada - nothing no communication. We waited and saw what the driving school was doing. They handed over bulk paper and per candidate they were paying the MVI 200 INR. We were not sure what was that for though. They did ask us 200 rupees in sign language but we ignored. We did not realize that we had to take the copy of the page signed as passed before handing them over. Since we didnot pay any extra money, we were not certain whatever will happen to our recently "passed" trophy paper. We handed over all the documents to them "without taking copy" and were extremely anxious about this. Then the waiting started.

We were checking the web site for the status. On the web site, it showed us that ground test is conducted and road test is awaited. We were wondering what is that next road test is all about. In front of our eyes so many driving school people zoomed in and out with the 2 minutes test. Do we have to give another test? Since we did not have copy of the "pass" signed paper neither did we pay that 200 rupees, we were very anxious.  Just like that one week passed has and the status on the web site did not change. Then we decided to visit the DMV personally to see what is happening there. To our surprise, even if there are some automation, but the human components are slow and there are no accountability there. Even if someone i sitting at one place, there are no system is check whether the paper actually moved. After waiting in DMV for several hours, we discovered that there was a saint like person called "Bablu da" who does work selflessly. It is rare to find such people in government offices. Even though I work for the government, I still have this impression about all things government. We approached him and he pulled out the file and took our paper (among the few unfortunate ones who still did not show up at DMV) and put it in front of the signing authority. We got an OTP to our phone and could download the provisional drier's license from the web site. Now the status is pending at the "printing" stage. We don't know when that is going to happen and whether we need to discover another Bablu da who will escalate the printing of the license. By the way, we had driving test on 21st Dec 21 and got the approval on 28th Dec 21. So long as this is a valid document we are not approaching anyone...

Altogether we have paid Rs. 550 as fee and not spend anything else for the whole thing...

Congratulations!! To Mayuri!!

Congratulations Mayuri!! From all of us!! For passing the most exhaustive exams that humanity faces. 

It really feels a kind of weird to see our name and IICB for a different reason than what was meant to be.. I feel like sharing my thoughts on this... 

It has been an overwhelming week for me. Completion of course work, beginning of skill courses, CSIR foundation day, paper deadlines,  institutional administrative job, guiding students, doing paperwork for funding agencies on the work front. At the home front, running a home as a late bloomer sandwich generation where parents and child's well being are completely lying on my shoulder. My ever so reluctant playful child's exams, meeting with various societal obligations, travels - it is a super busy life. I am not complaining about any of it, since fully aware I chose to come back to India for all these only. Now maintaining my sanity and getting charged every morning with a proper exercise regime is often taking a backseat. But this is just a regular day for a PI. But there are days when one of your best students chooses to give UPSC exams a try and successfully clears it. This examination attracts a lot of publicity and media frenzy. I see a lot of activities happening around when she clears the exams and mentions the PI' s support as one of the contributing factors. While it feels good to be appreciated, I have a weird feeling. Suddenly giving so much importance to something that was clearly not in my job profile neither was in my priority list.  I also feel the pressure the other students might be feeling right now. 

When someone congratulates me, I have mixed feelings. While I feel super happy that my student has achieved the un - achievable and has acknowledged me, but I wonder what has it got to do with me? Apart from being plain happy when I see one of my students will probably have a good and respectable life, but as a researcher I feel it is kind of my failure that I could not keep one of my best to stay motivated to do science.  What we probably need for our country at this time is to have fiery innovators with the best mind. The scientific innovators who can think independently fill in the innovation void we have. Launch products make a difference. 

We spend money on research but are unable to make a dent in the global scenery. We spend endless hours at work without getting a product at the end of our time as a scientist. We are not providing the best options to our students who work so hard to get a PhD. At the end of their PhD journey, they are left with very few options that include going for a postdoc abroad and struggling further to get college and university jobs that are too few. Academic/scientific jobs are even more scarce and the recruitment procedure is extremely arduous and long. We are not creating the best opportunities for our young minds, therefore, there is a kind of uncertainty developing in  them. Can we change anything about that? Can we create more opportunities where our young minds will feel secure to complete a Ph.D. and will be assured of a job? Can we have world class University and Institutes funded in public private partnerships where we have innovations seeing a clear way ahead for translation? Can we ease our purchase processes so that we don't spend 80% of our time complying with the ever changing purchase rules? Can we stop consolidating our research funds at the end of every March 31st, so spending will be meaningful? Your comments are most welcome!!

My Farewell Speech

When I joined this lab, O'dear,

I came across people

Who immediately became close and near

Arpita, Madhu, Subhadeep and Lubna

Our first trip to Shantiniketan was euphoric

And a total hit, hai na

We collected our cyano from there

And all of us 

Started taking their care

Ma'am said, we are sitting on gold mine

True it is, they are precious greens

That could make our lab shine

On fridays and saturdays, we were visited by a special guest

Not actually a guest, Ada became one of the labmates, 

The smallest, the cutest

Neha, Gyan, Sushma, Devdas, Madhvi, Shreya

The trainees kept the youthfulness alive

With their chitchats, their hehe haha

Samrat and Mayuri accompanied me in the coursework

We went back to college days 

With our assignments and homeworks

Arijit, Abhishek and Pijush became our labmates

In no time, 

We started sharing our fates

Postdocs were more like friends and less like a senior

Diyadi, Rajibda, Adityada guided in our works,

Made concepts clearer

I got married and had to leave Kolkata

The difficult truth of our society

I got Delhi as my new pata

But, my fate was tied with this lab

I successfully convinced my near ones

That we do good work, that our lab is fab

I came back to Kolkata and found newbies with their own sets of tool

Shashikant, Asha were later joined by

Priya, Geeta, Subhajeet and Kajul

I wish that this lab grows and becomes the best

Believing and leaving to the juniors

All the rest 

Google meet Camera issues (Camera starting... never started)

 Ever since the pandemic has raised its ugly head, most of the meetings, classes are held online. Our CSIR family came up with MS Team, and there is this zoom meetings and Webex platforms. While all of them are fine so far, I had this strange issue with my google meet where, from my laptop, I could never start my camera. As a result, nobody could see me. Although this is not a problem, often my audio did not work. This created trouble while taking online classes. I had to come to office during wee hours to attend a meeting launched in google meet platform. While all other apps were fine with video, this problem persisted with google meet. Not to mention, this is the free platform that many of us like to use only added to my troubles. I checked all my settings, gave all desktop apps permission to access my camera regardless of the security threat - still all failed. The last nail on the head was when my daughters online classes started and teacher could not see her.

Today I decided to do one last try. I tried with an external camera but still no luck. Finally I started browsing again to find a solution. And dang this is what I got from google search @ https://support.google.com/meet/thread/41815190?hl=en

This is what I exactly did and my camera started working. Thanks to the amazing people for posting the response. In brave browser, this is the url where you can disable and relaunch the browser.

brave://flags/#enable-media-foundation-video-capture

On the first item "Media Panel Video Capture" make it disabled and relaunch the browser. it works fine.

Joshua Hill [Kesterson ES]

8/13/20

SOLUTION FOUND!!!!

Thanks to User 17638620824911394124 for finding this.

Like everyone else my camera worked fine on Meet with Chrome for months, then BAM, stopped working. Works fine in other browsers (Firefox) and programs (Zoom). Tried everything that everyone else mentioned and nothing.

So please try this:

1. Open Chrome browser

2. Copy and paste the following into the address bar at the top of the browser:

chrome://flags/#enable-media-foundation-video-capture

3. In the drop down for "MediaFoundation Video Capture" select "Disabled"

4. Relaunch Chrome and it should be fixed.

Google, WTF!!!!! How are y'all not on top of this? Especially during this pandemic and with so many inquiring about this rampant problem. Thanks again to User 17638620824911394124!

Community Specialist

 

Luong

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A bad day and rendezvous with our own random musings blogspot!

Yesterday evening, suddenly I felt all blank and had pinching headache on left side twice. I left for home and had a small fight with Nikhil after which I tried sleeping but could sleep only after 2 hours of uneasiness and struggle. Today morning, again I was feeling sick and lots of emotional turbulence was stopping me from starting my day. I dropped an email to Ma’am that I would not be able to come to lab and then whole day did nothing. Nikhil asked me what has happened to me but there were too many reasons for my present state of mind. I could figure out what was wrong but was unable to find a way to come out of this seemingly never ending situation of problems.

Since some time now, I have been multitasking in both professional and personal lives; professional not as much as personal though. Professionally, multitasking not because I have been running from chemistry lab to our wetlab and sometimes bioinformatics but because since I joined back from January, I felt few times that I have been running more to R&C, AO chamber, Accounts, Bill than doing my research work. And this would not end just running downstairs but also several rounds of calls to ICMR and then going and personally meeting the AO there.

Personally, things changed for me two years back after I got married. Life does change for everyone after marriage but more important is how those changes affect you. I got married to a family which is not entirely different from mine but their outlook is different in several things and situations. Where before marriage, I have learnt that girls and boys are equal, suddenly I started witnessing several occasions of gender inequality and though I must say, things are not as strict and orthodox as compared to what many other girls have to go through but for me, its not only marriage but my Dad’s ill health too. And mostly, I being the one to look after them, time demands seems quite tight. And its not just the time demands but more of emotional and mental work to convince my husband’s family that girls have their own family too and though ageold traditions say that girls leave their parents after marriage, I don’t think it’s right to leave my ill father alone. But, my husband’s family expects me to give them more time. And, I find myself struggling balancing time between work, my parents and my husband’s family.

While all this was going in my head back and forth, I opened my laptop and opened the random musings blogspot. I read what I had posted long back(The uncertainty principle and challenging the imposiible), I read Ma’am’s blog (set your priorities reset your goals), Madhu’s blog(Keeping yourself fit 1 year of journey of fitness) and suddenly I felt emotional and empowered too.  

I felt less anxious. I observed we used to write so nice things. These blogs didn’t take away my worries but they gave me strength to carryon. Thanks to all of us for contributing to the blogsite. I hope we all will continue to write.

Madhu's Acsir guidelines for thesis submission

PhD thesis is a big thing to write and submit. submission is a big event. after submitting we have to follow up at-least weekly thrice otherwise will not be be knowing whats happening with a thesis. we are not aware of guidelines and rules. I learnt certain guidelines in a hard and tough way while submitting my thesis. I am writing it here maybe helpful for people ( but they can change the guideline anytime)

1.  make sure you have your thesis ready before DAC 4 then give DAC 4 ie open colloqium.
2. DAC 4 is the last chance to finalize your thesis title.
3. If your giving new title to your thesis make sure before DAC 4 you give a letter to Dean of Acsir and get it approved for thesis title change.
4. once you are done with DAC 4 after 15 days you can submit your thesis. make sure you to pay thesis submission fee of Rs 5000.
5.  print 2 hard copies of your thesis co-ordinator asks for it.
6. Documents for thesis submission are given below

1. final thesis with pdf (should contain certificate from your PI that should be attached, check format)
2. your passport size photo
3. High school certificate.
4. Acsir semester fee receipts
5. Thesis submission fee receipt
6. Grade card (from coordinator)
7. list of publications.
8. synopsis
9. thesis submission checklist excel file needs to be filled with your passport size photo along with personal details.
10. CSIR 800 project (Date should be before the DAC 4 )
11. Review article ( should not be having identical title as your thesis. date should be before DAC 4)
12. Project proposal ( same as above )
13. DAC 1 report
14. DAC 2 report
15. DAC 3 report
16. DAC 4 report
17. comprehensive report
18. list of examiner ( 8 members  as per present new rule 3 member can be given from same city must be from different institutes, you should not be having publications with examiner, details should be filled from the given format get it signed from PI and coordinator in all the pages)
19. Registration letter

These are the documents  required for thesis submission. make sure you make a PDF of all this and make a zip folder as well as separate folder containing all this and copy in PD and give it to coordinator.

Make sure you don't make any mistakes on titles, name, dates, grades.

In Review Article and project proposal grade should be written as satisfactory or unsatisfactory, don't put any other grades. Make the front page ready.


make sure you don't have any compliance with sem fee confirm you paid all the fee before submission and submit your thesis .


all front pages , excel files are available with me, can be shared upon request.

These are the rules needs to be followed when i submitted my thesis , often change the rules.
Happy thesis submission :)