I decided to write about the one god that I like the most among the Indian pantheon. Saraswati. i know she’s the one most people consider the least useful- knowledge..what can you do with that? but you know me..i love the one that no one loves. I have been since time immemorial, fond of writing. I love literature and am a die hard patron of all art forms be it music, dance or painting. it brings a joy to life that money just cannot compete with. a sense of refinement that cannot be underestimated, a world view that makes life purposeful and complete. for a lack of a better analogy- it is the popu or tadka without which no dish tastes good. okay, okay…i tried real hard…this was the best that I could come up with…

here is a brief excerpt about saraswati from wikipedia: ” Saraswati is the Hindu goddess of knowledge, music and the arts. Saraswati represents intelligence, consciousness, cosmic knowledge, creativity, education, enlightenment, music, the arts, and power. She is not only worshipped for secular knowledge, but for the true divine knowledge essential to achieve moksha. She is associated with purity and creativity, especially in the context of communication, such as in literary and verbal skills. Goddess Saraswati is often depicted as a beautiful, white-skinned woman dressed in pure white often seated on a white Nelumbo nucifera lotus (although Her actual vahana is believed to be a swan), which symbolizes that she is founded in the experience of the Absolute Truth.metimes a peacock is shown beside the goddess. The peacock represents arrogance and pride over its beauty, and by having a peacock as her mount, the Goddess teaches Hindus not to be concerned with external appearance and to be wise regarding the eternal truth.”

Interestingly, i also learned that the book that she holds in one hand represents perfection in sciences. That was of some importance to me considering that I cover most of the science sectors - semiconductors, software and IT, computers, electrical equipment- a lot of nanotechnology, synthetic biology, genetics, pharmaceuticals..u name it! all of these diverse sciences overlap in these 4 sectors that I cover.

i always liked science; never reacted to it with the horror i had for maths. but life led me in other directions. when I read about all the cool stuff nowadays, i used to feel a slight tinge of regret- man, science is in such a cool phase. but then i thought to myself, i am actually a very lucky person. if i had to be a scientist or engineer i would have to specialize in one area but by becoming a research analyst, I am able to cover so many sectors and learn about so many different sciences. one of the things that life has taught me is that I am an optimist, much to my surprise ….!:)

a week or so ago, I happened to attend a seminar arranged by the New York Academy of Sciences on smart and soft materials. I had just written an issue brief on the importance of smart technology as an energy efficiency technology so my interest was piqued by “soft materials”. has anyone heard of the nokia’s morph concept?

2 words- uber cool.

so i decided to go for the seminar and though it turned out to be rather technical-i came away with a deeper understanding of the soft materials concept. i was super excited and wanted to know what India was doing as far as all these emerging technologies was concerned. more importantly, i wanted to sift the work from the hype. here is dr. kalam’s speech on nanotech that i picked from a website that details some of India’s achievements in this sphere:

http://nanoindia.blogspot.com/2007/02/drabdul-kalams-view-on-nanotechnology.html

okay, the list is not quite current as i wou;d have liked and I can’t help wondering- India is a huge country with millions of people…does the scale mentioned in the speech seem a bit too small? considering science, esp nanotech is going to play such a big role in defining a country’s competitiveness in the coming yeras, shouldn’t we be doing more. are we concentrating on too much on software and too less on crucial emerging sciences? such a myopic view may have its short term benefits but may have major long term pitfalls.

i turned to synthetic biology. harvard, mit, university of florida , Berkeley and stanford are the major movers in this area. when i looked for similar movement in India- this was what i found: http://www.biospectrumasia.com/content/270406IND636.asp

there were other articles as well but the momentum I was looking for was missing. we all know economics well enough to know that as a country moves up the ladder of development, it’s economy gets concentrated in services. we have seen that with India and the software phenomenon. the push that software, a services industry, gave India’s economy cannot be underestimated by any means. but as India looks forward, the issue of maintaining growth, increasing competitiveness and morphing into a major global player becomes all important. we need to discover new industries and areas where we can capitalize in and develop our expertise in- in other words we need another “software phenomenon”.

these emerging technologies, heralded worldwide, do not seem to be getting the kind of attention and encouragement that they deserve in India.( at least that seems to be the case from what you can make out on the internet).

smart distribution, smart technologies are other fields that will see a huge growth in the years to come and are perfectly matched to India’s software and computer skills but I don’t see any evidence of many Indian companies doing much in this area.

We must not let the opportunity of tomorrow be lost due to overemphasis on the constraints of today’s opportunities.

education in India should be geared towards inspiring interest in India’s future generations regarding these crucial emerging technologies not just filling up the shortage of skilled software personnel.

so after that long rumination about the importance of technology for India’s future competitiveness, what’s our murder case today ?

well, while i was researching for this blog post i came across clinical drugs trial related deaths in India: companies in question are Shantha Biotech and Biocon.

http://babylonwatch.blogspot.com/2005/12/third-world-petri-dish-for-us-pharma.html http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1776215.cms

that’s disgusting- the same old mentality that third world lives are cheaper than lives in developed countries. and to think that these two firms are Indian firms- killing your own. how low can you sink to?

a lot of software firms are into pharmacovigilance and so am pretty familiar with the regulatory situation in India, implementation wise. so we have the usual regulatory body, a nice sounding policy, a couple of centers set up all over India and then …little else. i generally like to give the benefit of the doubt but there is no updated information available other than the flurry of activity that took place a couple of years ago.

that worries me. this is india and just look at what shantha biotech and biocon have been accused of doing. for that matter, the kidney kingpin case of Dr. Amit Kumar that happened just recently. there are too many illiterate and poor people in India to let a field like phamacovigilance be governed with little regulation.

Let me reiterate that I have nothing against India’s progress (the former part of this blog post should confirm that), all i want is that there should be constant an active regulation not just bureaucratic body that has been set up for the sake of setting up something. Policy is nothing without implementation. Especially in fields such as these, it is all the more vital to safeguard the the interests and the rights of those who are unable to do so for themselves. Progress and responsibility should go hand in hand.

India has enough of these rubber stamp organizations out there- we do not need another one.

this reminds of the movie the Constant gardener. would hate to think that we mirror Africa’s plight. Yes, we are poor and developing but our lives are just as expensive and worthwhile with those of others in the more developed countries.

we have to remind all those people involved in such areas, individuals, law, political parties, mncs ,domestic corporates and otherwise that we think this way.

but how do we do that? is the RTI a good weapon in that regard?what do u think?

what’s even more surprising is the genetic mapping news that came out: http://www.financialexpress.com/news/-Indians-have-no-natural-HIV-shield-/302133/

i did not know we were doing this in the first place. that shows how much we are kept in the dark. that said, I think that effort was commendable and that some real important info came out of that and that we can mobilize the research findings in a positive, constructive and responsible way. if we want to….

the genetic mapping touches on pharmacogenomics, something I hold dear..i was given the tech sector when I first started out in my job and I had discovered that many IT firms were involved in this marriage with biology with pharmacogenomics, the potentially controversial offspring of this unlikely union. I can see the premise for this field and it holds promise but it depends on the “soft power”, ethics and social responsibility of those involved.

phew! i think it’s now time to stop the blah blahing so, there’s another interesting mythological dude for this part of the blog post.

Dhanwantari.

yeah, i know. god or goddess? and what’s with the ultra dehati name?

well folks, in the times of yore the name must have been uber hep.( i know, i know i used the word again…what can I do i have fallen in love with it :))

Dhanwantari, our man, is the physician to the gods (i never knew gods fell sick, i thought that was one of the perks of being a god). apparently he was reincarnated as the king of benares to give birth to medical science in India. our friend is also credited with the founding of ayurveda. so, in short he is the god of medicine in India. our man was one of the first surgeons ever counting plastic surgery among his accomplishments. He stands as the go to man for health, healing and cure.

Wow, considering that’s all heavy duty stuff how come I hadn’t heard of him? as i delved deeper into mythology, i found out that during the churning of the ocean using the mandara mountain in one of those rare moments of cooperation between the devas an the asuras, our man was the first to appear out of the ocean. he emerged with a handful of medicinal herbs in one hand and the very delectable and uber desirable (see, how effortlessly I slipped it in there ) amrit.

on a side note- the dude is supposed to be very good looking…i know, i know there’s no point but there’s no harm..after all eye candy is hard to come by in indian mythology

promptly, the asuras predictably stole the amrit. and as if this were a hindi movie, the woman of all women, the lady who defines sensuality, beauty, desire and a rocking figure made her appearance on the scene.

Mohini.

No wonder no one has heard of this Dhanwantari dude.

interestingly, Mohini who came to be known as an enchantress, actually is a male god but that’s a story for another day….

so because beautiful women are of paramount interest in the world, our dude got eclipsed, fell into oblivion and stays there to this day…

so basically, u should know when to make an entry

p.s the count is now 5 is to 2

ooooh….shukra baby wassup dude? workn for me, are we ?

let’s go on this voyage and rock the universe sweetheart