TIFR alumni, donors boost funds for scholars

mumbai: jayant narlikar, the renowned astrophysicist and kalinga- award-winning science populariser, gave away the secret of how to kill a scientific institution that's healthy and kicking. he was speaking at a public seminar organised by the tata institute of fundamental research alumni association (taa), jointly with the mumbai chapter of indus entrepreneurs (tie) on wednesday.to kill a good science institution, all you had to do was to see that the service conditions and pay structure of its employees were exactly similar to those of the corresponding category in the central government, said mr narlikar, who is the founder-director of the inter-university centre for astronomy (iuca) in pune. he said the `babu-boffin bhai- bhai' mantra was officially conveyed to him through a letter sent by the university grants commission. ``however, equalising the pay and working conditions of the scientist with those of the bureaucrat is akin to the board of control for cricket in india, asking cricketers to follow a pattern of play and conduct exactly similar to that of corresponding players in football,'' he said. ``such `enforced equality' can lead to a news item about india's ace cricketer sachin tendulkar being penalised for hitting a ball with his bat instead of his leg,'' mr narlikar told the audience which had a sizeable number of school children. ``scientific institutions need to be run differently,'' he said. ``this can be done by making the bye-laws flexible enough to allow optimisation of output within given financial constraints.'' ``auditing and monitoring is equally important,'' he continued, ``as is accountability vis-a-vis performance.'' the excellence of a scientific institution could be more critically evaluated, on the other hand, by asking the following questions, mr narlikar said. ``is the institution recognised worldwide by peer institutions? are its scientists creative? is their work well-cited? are they invited to give talks at international meetings? and finally, does the institution have an extensive public outreach programme?'' earlier, he dwelt at length on the theme of setting up a new scientific institution, illustrating his talk with a personal view and assessment of two institutions. the first was the institute of theoretical astronomy (iota), set up by fred hoyle, the stormy petrel of british science who was also one of mr narlikar's mentors at cambridge. and the second was mr narlikar's own iucca set up two decades after iota. prior to mr narlikar's public lecture, r. pinto of tifr presented an update on the enrichment of the tifr endowment fund through the tifr alumni association. this year, career advancement scholarships of rs 25,000 each in the first semester were awarded to 48 senior-most research students at tifr, thanks to a donation by kanwal rekhi chairman of indus entrepreneurs. ``the scholarship scheme is going to be enriched and enlarged from the next academic year in such a way that all registered ph.d. students at tifr can be given an annual grant of rs 50,000 each as a career development scholarship,'' tifr director s.s. jha said. ``the success of this scheme would critically rest on the accumulation of a seed amount to the tune of rs 2 lakhs per annum from individual contributions from all of us at tifr,'' said the co-ordinator between tifr and taa a.k. grover. ``we urged each one of us to contribute one or two days' salary per year for a period of five years.'' ``in this context, it's indeed gratifying that mr rekhi has consented to support two-thirds of our 125 registered ph.d students, provided we raise the resources to support the remaining one-third of the students from the contributions made by the alumni and well-wishers of tifr,'' mr grover added. on their part, students said they were gratified with the sudden improvement of their career profile. the monthly honorarium paid to tifr research scholars had failed to keep pace with the inflation since the 1990s. the next instalment of rs 25,000 rupees each is to be paid to students in february.