Angst against NCL

Yesterday I saw a skit which was performed during a cultural programme held at NCL. The skit was titled Munnabhai Chale NCL. On the lines of the Sanjay Dutt film Lage Raho Munnabhai, our Munnabhai decides to learn about the goings on at NCL in order to impress his sweetheart RJ Jhanvi. In doing so he along with Circuit unearths all that is wrong in NCL: the lax security at the gate of the scientific institution, the smelly bathrooms with water leaking like a shower, the unhappiness of a scientist at finding his junior winning the coveted Bhatnagar Award, the easy going attitude of the Safety Committee who are satisfied as long the experiments are being carried out while wearing lab coats and goggles, the frustation of a student on not being able to get his PhD degree even after putting many years of hard work, the disgruntled researcher at not being able to acquire the much needed chemicals for his work or getting them but not in enough quantities and finally his annoyance at the variety of applications forms to be filled and him being sent back and forth between the stores department and purchase section.

During my nearly three year experience at NCL I have found reasons different from the ones mentioned in the play for venting fire. The terrible food at the canteen has always been a cause of complaint. Then the poor accomodation facilities that are provided to the students. Even here its the PhD students who somehow manage to get a room in the hostel while the Project Assistants (PAs) are left to fend for themselves. They have to stay as Paying Guests (PGs) which is very expensive and considering the meagre salaries that we get its very hard to manage. For some life is still harder because they also have to take care of their families back home.

When a national level scientific institute is in such an appalling state what must be the condition of the not so well known organizations? How do you make students stay in India? Why should they not choose to go abroad? Almost all of my friends who are employed in India but not pursuing science earn within a month what we would be able to save in a year if we didn't spend one rupee of our salaries. And we at NCL work as hard as any of them.

Its very easy for scientists with their good pay packets to say that doing research is its own reward. Let them stay in a two room flat shared by six others for which a deposit of 40,000 rupees has to be paid even before you've started getting your first pay check of 8000 (which used to be 5000 for PAs until a year ago and even less before that). For some students even getting that amount is a long time away when there is no position available in the group they join and so for many months and on occasions even for a year have to go without any income as they are simply Guest Workers doing research out of their own will. Let the scientists also work 24x7 on industrial projects that don't even allow you to publish papers and which you can't include in your PhD thesis. Let them work in an uninviting lab with broken chairs and tables which can't be replaced with new ones because of the Director's orders not making it possible to do so until renovation begins. Let them eat the drab lunch at the canteen everyday. Let them after a day's hard work return to a room where you have to sleep on the floor and truly live out of a suitcase. Not only the PGs but those staying in the New Hostel face the last problem because there are no cupboards in any of the rooms!!

And lets see after facing all of this and much more how happy they feel every Monday morning about entering the gates of NCL.

What makes any field attractive is the satisfaction and money that it fetches. And currently doing science in India is not providing either of that.

Its not enough complaining to oneself. We students have to raise our voices if we want our grievances to be heard and addressed. A student body such as a Research Scholars' Forum has to be formed and every person doing research be he/she a PA, JRF, SRF, RA or a Guest Worker should be its member. Monthly or bi-monthly meetings can be held say in the auditorium where students can speak up or if the need be annonimity may even be maintained. Every meeting must be attended by the Director or Deputy Director, someone high up in the Administration and the Student Academic Committee. The actions taken in answer to the questions raised should be followed up in the successive meetings. Improvements in conditions at NCL and outside must be assessed on a regular basis.

I am sure lot more can be done. If any of my fellow NCL researchers are reading this and are in agreement with my views then we could jointly do something in this regard.

Someone has to take a stand.

Why look at others everytime? Why not the one starting it all be us?