ne quest vol 5 issue 1 april 2011

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Newsletter of North East India Research Forum

NE Quest | VOL. 5 Issue 1 | April 2011 1





NewsletterOf

NORTH EAST INDIA RESEARCH FORUM

www.neindiaresearch.org

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/northeast_india_research/





It gives me immense pleasure to

introduce the issue of April month’s NE-

Quest to you. In this issue, Dr. H. N.

Singh of Indian Institute of Tropical

Meteorology, Pune discusses about water

management in India. He has provided

the distributions of climatic moisture

regions of entire India, interestingly only

12% falls under humid regions of Indian

land mass. Dr. Bhaskar Thakuria

contributed a science fiction to this issue.

Those who do deal with microchips or do

programming may sometime realize, as if

machine has its own intelligence or

emotions? Genetic engineering we all

know has advanced a long way, Dr.

Amimesh Sharma has written a short

review on this subject. Cloud is an

integral part of our life. Dr. Subrata Das

discusses about the cirrus cloud which is

a high altitude cloud. Importance of such

clouds is being realized in recent decades

due to its effect on earth’s net radiation

budget.

The entire life system on earth

depends on the sun, water and air. The Sun

controls the weather. With the

competitive industrial revolution among

different countries large amount of

anthropogenic aerosols are being pumped

into the earth’s atmosphere. Though we

are making good money by

industrialization up to certain extent, we

are pushing our atmosphere into an

uncertain and dark future. Power, Politics

and Pollution level are therefore moving

hand in hand. Because of these polluted

gas, anthropogenic suspended particles,

wasted materials, airs that we breathe and

water that we drink, food we eat are

getting worsen day by day. To add to the

woes, the cloud properties are also getting

affected by these aerosols. The distribution

of rainfall is therefore bound to get

affected; hence one can expect a change

sociological and economical aspect of a

country in near future. Question arises

what kind of earth we will leave for our

future generation? As a responsible citizen

and above all, as a human being it is our

primary duty to keep the earth clean.

At last, I thank Dr. Arindam

Adhikari for offering me the opportunity

to serve as an editor for this month’s NE

Quest. I wish that such efforts will get

stronger and stronger.

Dr. Mahen Konwar,

IITM, Pune, India

Editorial





Page Number

1. The Forum 5

2. Science News 11

3. Members in News/Award/Fellowship 16

4. Article Section

(A) Water Resources and its Management in India 17

H.N. Singh and Nityanand Singh

(B) A High Altitude Clouds: Cirrus by Subrata Kumar Das 26

(C) Brave new world of Biotech by Animesh Sharma 31

(D) Fantasia (Science Fiction) by Bhaskar Thakuria 34

5. Interview 41

6. Reader’s page 44

7. Photography 46

8. Fellowship/Advertisement/Opportunity 47

Content





North East India Research Forum was created on 13th

November 2004.

1. How we are growing.

Every forum has to pass through difficult

phases at the time of birth. NE India Research

Forum is also no exception. At the very

beginning, it was a march hardly with few

members (from chemistry only) and today the

forum comprised of a force of 380 elite

members. Now we are in a position such that

people voluntarily come and join the group

irrespective of disciplines.

0

100

200

300

400

0 20 40 60 80

Months

N o o f M e m b e r

Graph of no of members w.r.t. months

2. Discussions held in the forum

• Necessity of directory of all the members

of the forum.• Possibility of organising conference in the

N. E. India.

• Taking initiation on setting up of South

East Asian Scientific Institute.

• On selection of Best paper award.

• Let us introspect.

3. Poll conducted and results

• North East India is lacking behind the rest

of the country due to-

1. Geographical constrain = 0%

2. Bad leadership = 40%

3. Lack of work culture = 36%

4. Corruption = 18%

5. Apathy from Central Govt. = 4%

• Which area of science is going to

dominate by creating a great impact on

society in next decade?

1. Nanoscience & nanotechnology = 22%

2. Biotechnology = 11%

3. Nanobiotechnology = 38%

4. Chemical Engineering = 0%

5. Medicine = 11%

6. Others = 16%

7. None = 0%

The Forum





• Kindly let us know your view regarding

the following topic. What activities of this

group you like most?

1. Research articles = 33%

2.Information about vacancy/positions

available = 10%

3. Way to have a contact with all members

= 29%

4. Scientific discussions = 14%

5. Others = 2%

• Selection of name for Newsletter

There were total 36 proposals submitted by

members of the forum for the Newsletter. The

name proposed by Mr. Abhishek Choudhury,

N. E. QUEST received the maximum number

of votes and hence it is accepted as the name

of the Newsletter.

• How often should we publish our

newsletter '' N. E. Quest’’?

1. Every 3 months = 61%

2. Every 6 months = 38%

3. Once a year = 0%

4. Editors of Previous NE-Quest Issues

1. Vol 1 Issue 1 April, 2007

Editor: Dr. Arindam Adhikari

2. Vol 1 Issue 2 July 2007

Editor: Dr. Tankeswar Nath

3. Vol 1 Issue 3 October 2007

Editor: Dr. Ashim Jyoti Thakur

4. Vol 1 Issue 4 January 2008

Editor: Dr. Pranjal Saikia

5. Vol 2 Issue 1 April 2008

Editor: Dr. Sasanka Deka


Editor: Dr. Rashmi Rekha Devi


Editor: Dr. Prodeep Phukan


Editor: Dr. Manab Sharma


Editor: Dr. Debananda Ningthoujam


Editor: Dr. Robert Singh Thangjam






Editor: Dr. Pankaj Bharali


Editor: Dr. Abdul Wahab


Editor: Dr. Utpal Bora


Editor: Dr. Babita Baruwati

15. Vol 4 Issue 3 October July 2010

Editor: Dr. Shanta Laishram


Editor: Dr. Saitanya K Bharadwaj


Editor: Dr. Mahen Konwar

5. A domain in the name of www.

neindiaresearch.org is booked.

6. Future activities

Proper planning and consequent

implementation always play an important role

in every aspect. Some of the topics / activities

/ suggestions which were being discussed,

time to time in the forum will get top priorities

in our future activities. Those are mentioned

here,

• Preparing complete online database of

N.E. researchers with details.

• Organising conference in the N.E. region-

proposed by Dr. Utpal Bora.

• Research collaboration among forum

members.

• Motivate student to opt for science

education.• Help master’s students in doing projects in

different organisation-proposed by Dr.

Khirud Gogoi.

• Supporting schools in rural areas by

different ways.

• Best paper awards.

• Compilation of book on ‘Education system

of different countries’. Initiative for this

project is taken by Dr. Mantu Bhuyan,

NEIST, Jorhat, Assam

7. New activity

• Guidelines for the members are being

formulated by the moderators of the NE

India Research Forum. These guidelines

are placed in the forum for discussion.

• HiMedia Laboratories Pvt. Ltd is willing

to sponsor some future activities of the

forum and have asked for space to

advertise for their products in the





N..E.Quest. Starting this issue (July 2009)

N.E.Quest is providing one page for the

advertisement. Details about this deal will

be informed soon once finalised. Thanks

to Dr. Robert Thangjam for his initiative

in this matter.

• North East India Research Forum cell has

been started in the following colleges,

• Dibrugarh University

Contact: Dr. Jitu Ranjan Chetia

Dept. of Chemistry

Email: [email protected]

• Tezpur University

Contact: Dr. Ashim J. Thakur

Dept. of Chemistry


Phone: 03712 267008/9/10 (5059)

• Manipur University

Contact: Dr. Debananda S.

Ningthoujam

Coordinator, Microbial Biotech Lab

Reader & Head, Dept of Biochemistry,

Manipur University, Canchipur,

Imphal, India Email:

[email protected]

• Mizoram University

Contact: Dr. Thangjam Robert Singh

Assistant Professor, Department of

Biotechnology, Mizoram University,

Aizawl, India


Phone: 0389-2330861/2330859 (O)

• Govt. Science College, Jorhat

(Jorhat Institute of Technology)

Contact: Mr. Prasanta Kumar Bordoloi,

Senior Lecturer


Mobile: 09957036339

• Arya Vidyapeth College, Guwahati

Contact: Mr. Pabitra Kalita,

Senior Lecturer

Email:[email protected]

Mobile No: 09613133859

& Dr. Pradip Bhattacharyya,

Senior Lecturer


Mobile No: 09864087494

• Pandu College, Pandu

Contact: Mr. Sanchay Jyoti Bora

Lecturer, Department of Chemistry

E-mail: [email protected]

Mobile: 09854078814

• Bajali college, Pathsala

Contact: Mr. Arindam Talukdar,

Lecturer, Environ. and Tourism Dept.


& Mr. Satyendra Nath Kalita,

Lecturer, Dept. of Zoology






• B. Borooah College, Guwahati

Contact: Dr. Diganta K. Sarma,

Lecturer, Dept of Physics.


To run the forum smoothly, to make it more

organised and to speed up activities, formation

of a committee/team is essential.

The combined discussion of the moderators

and senior members make the forum feel the

importance of Advisors, co-ordinator,

volunteer, webmasters etc. Of course it needs

more discussion and will be approved by poll.

8. Guidelines for the forum

The moderators formulated some guidelines

for the forum which are as follow. These

guidelines were kept open for discussion in

the forum. With time and need the guidelines

will be changed.

1. Anybody in the forum can start a

meaningful and constructive discussion

after discussion with moderators.

2. Comments from the individual members

do not necessarily reflect the view of the

forum.

3. No single moderator can take a crucial

decision. All decision would be taken by

the moderators unanimously or together

with the group as majority.

4. One should not write any massage to the

forum addressing some particular

members. It should always start with Dear

all / Dear esteemed members etc.

5. If one has to write a mail to a particular

member she/he should write personal mail.

6. Everyone has the freedom to speak but

that doesn’t mean that one should attack

personally. Of course we do have

differences. There can be debate or

discussion, but it should always be a

healthy one. One’s personal comment

should be written in such a way that it

reflects his/her view only. It should not

touch other's sentiments/emotions.

7. Whenever we are in a forum, society,

home, members should be sensitive /

caring enough to their comments so that it

does not hurt sentiment of any second

members.

8. Members should not post greetings

messages (Bihu wish, New Year wish etc)

to the forum.

9. Members should post authentic news only.

The source of the news should be

authentic. No controversial news or

comment should be posted to the forum.

10. Our main aim is to discuss science to

generate science consciousness, scientific

temperament, sensitivity, awareness and





research for the benefit of the mankind in

general and North East India in particular.

11. In severe cases, moderators can take a

hard decision unanimously or majority

wise (may be through poll). (This point

needs to be accepted by all the members).

While sending request or while fulfilling

request for articles please follow the following

points.

• The forum has been formed to help each

other. When a member requests

articles/literature to forum, members of the

forum are always happy to help the person

by supplying the articles. But at this stage

we have to keep in mind that the article

should be sent to the person who requested

it, not to the whole forum as it creates lots

of unnecessary mails in the message boxof the forum. Moreover if it continues, it

becomes an irritation also for many

members.

• It is also the duty of the person who

requests article to acknowledge the personwho helped him/her. This can be done by

writing ' Request fulfilled by......' in the

subject area while composing the mail and

write a thanking message in the main

message board. Once this is done, then if

some other members want to send the

article will know about the status of the

request. This will also help members in

keeping mailbox clean. For example

• Moreover sending articles (copyright

protected articles) to the open forum

violates copyright act. So please send the

article to the person who requests not to

everybody through this open forum.

-------0-------

"Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be

counted counts." (Sign hanging in Albert Einstein's office at Princeton) @

Kevin Harris





Stay Happy!!

According to a story from Men's Health,

there are ways in which one can prolong youth

and "halt" ageing. There few tips that can

make us healthy and happy:

Have a look and see what you think!

• Live Higher Up

A study of people in Switzerland suggests that

those living at high altitudes had a 22 percent

lower risk of dying of coronary heart disease.

Follow up: Most people can be benefitted

from taking in 1,000 IU of vitamin D daily. It

is suggested to eat more D-rich foods, such as

seafood (Salmon, tuna, and mackerel are good

bets or take vitamin D3 supplement.

Make Relationships Last: Adults with strong

friendships and/or community involvement

lived an average of 3.7 years longer than the

normal U.S. life expectancy, according to a

2010 review by researchers at Brigham Young

University.

• Brush Your Teeth

People who brushed less than twice a day had

a 70 percent higher risk of death or

hospitalization from heart disease than those

who brushed three times or more, according to

a 2010 U.K. study.

Follow up: Brushing and flossing remove

bacteria, but many people floss incorrectly.

Floss right: Wrap the floss so it forms a C

around the front of one tooth and a C around

the back of the adjacent one. Move the floss

up and down.

Breath good air

People who live with relatively good air

quality live a few months to a year longer than

average, according to a study in the New

England Journal of Medicine.

Follow up: No matter where you live, you can

trade sidewalk jogs for trail runs. Jog possibly

in the evening when the sun sets.

Accept Your Age

Feel happy with their age lived an average of

2 years longer than people who were bothered

by it.

Follow up: As people age, they tend to

compare themselves with their younger selves,

Science News





which leads to some disappointment. (Source

www.yahoo.com).

Tibetan encyclopedia provides

evidence of ancient brain surgery

Brain surgery was practiced by doctors

at least 2,900 years ago, a specialist on

Tibetan culture and literature said four

decades of research on the Tibetan Tripitaka,

an ancient encyclopedia.

"The 2,900-year-old Tibetan Tripitaka states

clearly why and how brain surgery was carried

out," said Karma Trinley, an associate

professor from the Tibetan language and

literature department of Tibet University in

Lhasa, capital of southwest China's Tibet

Autonomous Region.

Karma Trinley, an avid researcher and reader

of classic Tibetan literature, Buddhism and

calligraphy, began studying the Tripitaka in

1970. "It describes in detail how a young

Indian doctor watched brain surgery being

performed by a veteran surgeon," he said.

The young Indian doctor, whose name was

similar in pronunciation to the Tibetan name

Tsogyel, was not allowed to join the surgery,

but merely stood by with the patient's

permission, according to the Tripitaka.

The book said that the patient was suffering

from a severe headache and repeatedly

knocked his head on hard objects to ease the

pain.

When Tsogyel saw the surgeon trying to

operate on the patient's brain with a pair of

tweezers, he shouted that the tweezers had to

be heated first.

"Tsogyel was a well-reputed doctor and was

good at all medical practice except brain

surgery," said Karma Trinley. "But the

surgeon followed his advice and the surgery

later proved successful."

He said Tsogyel's advice on sterilization

helped raise the success rate of surgery at the

time. Tsogyel later became a skilled surgeon

himself.

The Tripitaka is the earliest collection of

Buddhist writings. The information contained

in the writings was originally passed down

orally, and was finally written down in the

third century B.C.

The Tibetan Tripitaka was translated from

Sanskrit language of ancient India. It contains

two parts, the Gangyur and the Dangyur.





The Gangyur is a collection of teachings of

Sakyamuni, the founder of Buddhism, adopted

by his disciples after his death.

The Dangyur is a collection of notes and

interpretations on the Gangyur, provided by

Indian and Tibetan Buddhist masters, scholars

and translators. It covers philosophy, logics,

literature, linguistics, art, astronomy,

medicine, architecture and calendar

calculation.

"The Tibetan Tripitaka contains Sakyamuni's

classifications of 440 ailments that were

believed to be associated with wind, bile and

phlegm, and were categorized accordingly,"

said Karma Trinley.

He added that many of the medical theories in

the book are still used by Tibetan doctorstoday.

Evidence of ancient brain surgery was first

found in 1998, when archeologists unearthed

human skulls with mended cracks on the

Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. These cracks indicated

that craniotomies were probably performed by

the Chinese over 5,000 years ago.

Before the Tibetan Tripitaka's description of

brain surgery was discovered, researchers

used to disagree on the purpose of ancient

craniotomies, said Karma Trinley.

"Some believed it was a religious ritual to

dispell evils or bring happiness, while others

held that it was a therapy used by witches and

wizards," he said. (Source: Xinhuanet )

Melting icebergs fertilize ocean

Efforts to remove climate-warming carbon

dioxide from Earth’s atmosphere appear to be

getting a helping hand from a surprising

source: the iron in meltwater from Antarctic

icebergs.

Icebergs calving off of Antarctica are

shedding substantial iron — the equivalent of

a growth-boosting vitamin — into waters

starved of the mineral, a new set of studies

demonstrates. This iron is fertilizing the

growth of microscopic plants and algae,

transforming the waters adjacent to ice floes

into teeming communities of everything fromtiny shrimplike krill to fish, birds and

sometimes mammals.

To grow, these plants and animals use carbon

drawn into the water from carbon dioxide in





the atmosphere. Some share of this carbon

will eventually be excreted as wastes that fall

to the ocean floor, essentially removing it as a

near-term climate risk.

“Icebergs should be considered by climate

modelers, because the more icebergs that

develop [from the breakup of glaciers], the

more carbon dioxide you’ll draw out of the

atmosphere,” says Ken Smith of the Monterey

Bay Aquarium Research Institute in Moss

Landing, Calif.

Smith and colleagues first fingered icebergs as

hotspots of biological and chemical activity in

a 2007 study published in Science. New data

from Antarctic cruises in 2008 and 2009 by

Smith and other scientists from nine research

institutions now appear as 20 papers in the

June Deep Sea Research Part II .

Researchers refer to icebergs’ carbon removal

as an export. “And the amount of carbon being

exported near icebergs is twice as high as in

areas away from them,” Smith says.

Counterbalancing icebergs’ carbon removal:

No one views the sea-level rise accompanying

massive ice melting as a good thing. The rate

of iceberg calving — and ice loss — in recent

years has increased there, as elsewhere, in

response to warming of Earth’s atmosphere.

Prior to the new studies, “we didn’t know the

nature of the biological communities

associated with icebergs and we certainly

didn’t know their direct relationship to carbon

exports,” says chemist Timothy Shaw of the

University of South Carolina in Columbia,

who coauthored several of the new reports.

One surprise: The proliferation of

phytoplankton — tiny plants at the base of the

marine food chain — that were witnessed in

the waters around ice floes “could onlyaccount for about half of the increased carbon

export we measured,” Shaw says. His team

now attributes the other half to changes in the

chemistry of iron and carbon use by

phytoplankton living next to and under the

icebergs.

Benjamin Twining of the Bigelow Laboratory

for Ocean Sciences in West Boothbay Harbor,

Maine, points to another big surprise:

Icebergs’ iron enrichment of southern waters

could vary by a factor of 100 from one iceberg

to another, or even along walls of a given

berg. This patchy enrichment reflects

differences in chemical reactions triggered by

various organisms and to the unexpectedly

complicated turbulence associated with water

melting from the floes.

(Source: http://www.sciencenews.org/)





No pain, healthier brain

Wiping out chronic pain in the lower back

doesn’t just dull the agony. It allows the brain

to recover, too. Six months after people’s

backaches were eased, their brains showed

fewer signs of the abnormalities that

accompany chronic pain, a new study shows.

This brain recovery is “a concrete message

that certainly brings hope and relief to thosesuffering from this condition,” says UCLA

neuroscientist Dante Chialvo.

In the study, neuroscientist Laura Stone of

McGill University in Montreal and colleagues

scanned the brains of people who had

experienced back pain for at least a year.

Compared to healthy controls, chronic pain

sufferers had thinning in the dorsolateral

prefrontal cortex, a brain region that’s been

linked to pain modulation. This region also

showed abnormal activity when people with

chronic back pain took a simple cognitive test

while in a brain scanner, the team found.

But six months after treatment with either

spine surgery or pain-relieving injections,

scans revealed that the pain sufferers’ brains

bounced back. Their thin dorsolateral

prefrontal regions grew larger, and their brain

activity began to look more normal. These

brain changes depended on the level of pain

relief: The less pain a person reported after

treatment the greater the improvement, the

team reports in the May 18 Journal of

Neuroscience.

“We know that pain causes brain changes, and

now we know that taking pain away reverses

those changes,” Stone says.

It’s too soon to know exactly how pain

reduction influences the brain, or vice versa,

Stone says. But if it turns out that the

dorsolateral prefrontal cortex controls pain,

she says, clinicians might one day be able to

reduce suffering by targeting the region with

noninvasive techniques such as cognitive

behavioral therapy, meditation or exercise.





Miss Sumi Handique has joined Tezpur

University Department of Environmental

Science as assistant professor in October

2010.

She is pursuing her PhD degree from

Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi after

obtaining M.Sc. degree in Environmental

Science from the same university in 2008. Her

research topic is “Geochemistry of

Brahmaputra river and its tributaries”. She

was shortlisted for SPM (Shyama Prasad

Mukherjee) fellowship screening test in July

2008. She has successfully supervised

Ms.Nilakshi Senapati, Department of

Environmental Science, Tezpur University for

her project work entitled “Grain size and

geochemical analysis of the sediments of the

Brahmaputra river and six of its tributaries.”

Dr. Pranjal Saikia has joined recently as an

Assistant Professor in the Department of

Chemical Sciences, Gauhati University,

Assam.

Members in News

/Awards /Fellowship

Birth of an idea

Developing the Radio started in 600

B.C. more than 2,500 years ago. A Greek

philosopher, Thales of Miletus found that by

rubbing amber he produced a force that would

pick up straws.

Sir William Gilbert two thousand two

hundred years later did experiments with the

idea and called the phenomenon as electricity.

Sixty years later, Otto von Guericke, a German,

built a machine to generate static electricity.

One hundred years later, Benjamin

Franklin identified positive and negative

lightning and electricity were the same thing. In

1820, Oersted proved that electricity would

produce magnetism and about the same time,

Franklin did some experiment and discovered

the principle of electric motor. After Faraday

came Morseand Bell, who used the idea as a

means of communication - the telegraph and

the telephone. Edison made the idea glow and

lit up the world. Marconi and deForest went

Morse and Bell one better and laid the

foundation for radio. (www.todayinsci.com)





Water Resources and its Management in India

H.N. Singh* and Nityanand Singh

Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology

* E-mail: [email protected]

Background

Understanding the degree of criticality

of water in terms of the

interrelated/interlinked between the freshwater

and waste water as well as its proper

management has been emerged largely in the

last few decades all over the globe. Rainfall

spatial-temporal variability over India, which

is the main source for water, is quite complex;

during the same year contrasting conditions,

increasing/decreasing, expansion/contraction,

droughts/floods, can be seen in different parts,

even in the same part. The paradox of

rainwater potential and its proper management

in India lies over the regions where orography

plays a major role of its own in modulating the

whole system. Supply of freshwater will be a

critical issue in the years to come.

Information, assessment and monitoring of

sustainable global water resources will be a

priority and major challenges in near future,

particularly in the developing countries like

India where agriculture-based economy plays

a vital role in its development. Real-time

monitoring of the parameters of the wet and

dry spells can provide vital information in this

endeavor.

Article Section





Introduction

Water is one of the most important

renewable natural resources available

abundantly with us. Though 75% of the earth'stotal surface covers by water, only 0.5% of the

total water on the earth's surface can be

utilized by us as 97% of it is in the oceans.

The water resource of a country is one of its

vital assets as water is a basic need of the

human being. It plays a major role in

agriculture, hydropower generation, livestock

production, industrial activities, forestry,

fisheries, navigation, recreational activities,

etc. With rapid growing population and its

migration to urban areas for search of its

livelihood, the pressure on our water resources

is increasing and heading towards serious

water crisis in the years to come. The

situations of the water related sectors in India

needs serious reckoning as the per capita

availability of water resources is reducing day

by day. Per capita availability of utilizable

water reduced to 1250 cubic meters in 1999

from 3450 cubic meter in 1951 (Singh V.K.,

2009). It is further expected to 662 cubic

meters per person in 2050. Many longstanding water related disputes still remain

unsolved, and the increasing demands of the

global fresh water requirement is expected to

pull to a new height of the risk in the water

related future conflicts. There is no political

boundary for the natural flow of surface water

as well as the underground water. Thus the

problem of increasing water stress cannot be

dealt with in isolation. Sustainable water

resources management is a very complicated

and inter-dependant process among various

sectors involving interstate venture or

international venture. It encounters a variety

of socio-economic problems particularly

where much of the land is either semiarid or

arid regions. With unclear laws pertaining to

the water related issues, the water supply

crunch particularly in the urban areas is a real

problem. Information, assessment and

monitoring of sustainable global water

resources will be a priority and major

challenges of the future to face the water

crisis, particularly in the developing countries

like India where agriculture-based economy

plays a vital role in its development. A few

pertinent water legislations, strict water

conservation practices, judicious & efficient

use of water and recycling can offer viable

options however it should be well defined,

well coordinated as well as well addressed in

the interests of all the citizens of the country.

The availability and demands of water

resources in India as well as the various issues

and strategies for developing a holistic

approach for sustainable development and

management of the water resources of the





country should be very clear and addressed for

a better future. So far, the availability and

demands of water resources in India,

processing, storage and dissemination have

not been received adequate attention compare

to other developed countries. The efforts

initiated under the Hydrology Project Phase-I

and the development of the Decision Support

System proposed under Hydrology Project

Phase-II under the initiative of the Ministry of

water Resources, Govt. of India are expected

to bridge some of the gaps between the

developed advanced technologies of water

resources planning, designing and

management and their field applications

(Rakesh Kumar et al. 2005).

While occurrences of water bodies

(rivers and canals; reservoirs, tanks and ponds;

beels, oxbow lakes and derelict water; and

brackish water) across the country depend

upon physiographic settings and rainfall

conditions, the recharging of the water bodies

depends mostly on rainfall which is a highly

variable parameter (Sontakke et al. 2008) in

terms of space and time. Due to large variation

in intensity and frequency of rain-inducing

disturbances (western disturbances,

thunderstorms, monsoon/cyclonic

storms/depressions, monsoon troughs etc.) as

well as the summer monsoon and post

monsoon circulations over different parts of

the country, rainfall occurrences exhibit large

spatial variability (Ranade et al. 2007,

Sontakke et al. 2008). The intensity and

variability of the monsoon rain depends upon

several parameters of atmospheric circulation,

which interlinked with the impact of global

climate change as well as on extreme rain

events across the country. Rainfall spatial-

temporal variability over India, which is the

main source for water, is quite complex;

during the same year contrasting conditions,



even in the same part. The paradox of

rainwater potential and its proper management

in India lies over the regions where orography

plays a major role of its own in modulating the

whole system. The best known example of it

is Mousinram near Cherrapunji, which

receives the highest rainfall in the world, also

suffers from an acute shortage of drinking

water during the non-rainy season, almost

every year due to the lack of proper

management of the available rainwater.

Hence, there is a great need for proper

planning, development and management water

which is considered to be the greatest of the

available assets of the country to

combat/resolve the twin problem of floods and

droughts that directly affects the decision-

making support system in water-related





sectors such as agriculture, hydrology, water

resources and terrestrial and freshwater

aquatic ecosystems. Earliest possible action

may be initiated to store the available surplus

rainfall to the maximum possible extent in

order to have stable food grain production and

to meet drinking water supply and

hydroelectric power generation. Real-time



endeavour.

Features of large-scale rainfall spatio-

temporal variability

The hydrological cycle is being

affected quantitatively and qualitatively either

by complexity of the earth-atmosphere climate

system or man-made development activities

such as construction of dams and reservoirs,

land use change, irrigation, etc. Understanding

climatic and hydroclimatic features of wet and

dry spell is essential for effective agricultural

and hydrological operations. This problem

assumed to be of greater importance in the

wake of global climate change scenario and

thus attempts have been made in recent

decades world-wide to understand the problem

on regional/local scales.

Rainfall spatial-temporal variability

over India is quite complex; during the same

year contrasting conditions,



even in the same part. The spatio-temporal

variability of annual, seasonal and monthly

rainfall over India is studied by examining

expansion and contraction of the moisture

regions and that of seasonal and monthly

rainfall from expansion and contraction of dry

and wet zones of the respective period using

highly quality-controlled data from 316

widely distributed locations for the period

1871–2006. Rainfall data up to 1900 were

obtained from Eliot (1902) and for the period

1901–2006 from the records of the India

Meteorological Department (IMD), Pune. A

digitized map of India on 1:6 million scale

with the projection system of “Albers Equal

Area Projection with Two Standard Parallels,

15°

N and 30°

N” was utilized in a GISenvironment (GeoMedia Professional 5.1) for

the spatial analysis of the rainfall data. To

understand spatial variation of annual rainfall,

expansion/contraction of different moisture

regions, viz. arid (rainfall ≤ 560 mm), semi-

arid (561–1040 mm), dry subhumid (1041–

1420 mm), moist subhumid (1421–1630 mm),

humid (1631–2450 mm) and perhumid (≥

2450 mm), are examined. This climatic

classification of the different moisture regions

is based on the average annual precipitation as

the climatic conditions of any place in the





Fig. 1 Map of the country showing climatic moisture regions. Dots indicate the location of

316 rain-gauge stations used.





country can be assessed with the average

annual precipitation over it (Singh, 1984).

Thematic maps of the country showing the

normal (1901–2000) position of the moisture

regions (Fig. 1) as well as their yearly

positions (figures not shown) have been

prepared using the GeoMedia GIS. The

different moisture regions of the country show

large variations from one year to another. On

the normal annual isohyetal map the arid

region occupies 383,584.6 km2 (15.32%);

semi-arid 1,103,091.5 km2 (33.79%); dry

subhumid 793285.7 km2 (24.30%); moist

subhumid 289,239.2 km2 (8.86%); humid

404,151.3 km2 (12.38%) and perhumid

174,327.0 km2 (5.34%) of the country. The

different moisture regions display intrinsically

large spatial variability

(expansion/contraction) from one year to

another albeit in an organized manner. Though

the spatio-temporal variability of wet and dry

spells is quite large, occurrence of rainfall

gives rise to a pattern of wet and dry spells in

the time domain. Overall climatic condition of

the country shows drier tendency in the recent

years/decades (Singh et al., 2009). The

sequence of dry and wet periods in the

fluctuations of the moisture regions is also

given in Table 1. On the mean isohyetal chart

of particular month, one-fourth area of the

country with lowest rainfall is identified as

very dry and one-fourth with highest rainfall

as very wet. The remaining area between these

two extremes is divided into two equal halves

and designated as dry and wet zones. Dry/wet

zones of January, February, March, April,

July, August, September and October months

showed increase/decrease during 1965-2006

compared to 1931-1964. While opposite

condition is true for the other four months

(May, June, November and December).

Water resources management in India

Being an agriculture-based economy,

development of irrigation system and its

proper management in India to increase

agricultural production for making the country

self-sustained and for poverty alleviation has

been of crucial importance for the planners.

More than 50% of the water resources of India

are located in various basins of the major

rivers and their tributaries (Lal, 2001) and rest

are groundwater component. Due to rapid

increase in the population of the country, the

demand for water for the use of various

purposes increases drastically though region

specific. To cope up the increasing demands

of water for meeting the requirements of the

rapidly growing population of the country as

well as the problems that are likely to arise in

near future with our existing water resources,





Table 1 Dry and wet periods in the fluctuations of the six moisture regions over India.

Moisture regions Dry periods Wet periods

Arid1896–1925, 1934–42, 1965–74,

1984–87, 1999–2004

1871–95, 1926–33, 1943–64,

1975–83, 1988–98

Semi-arid 1900–12, 1950–57, 1964–2004 1871–99, 1913–49, 1958–63

Dry subhumid 1914–17, 1948–83 1871–1913, 1918–47, 1984–2006

Moist subhumid 1871–83, 1952–89, 1999–2004 1884–1951, 1990–98

Humid1899–1913, 1949–53, 1964–89,

1998–2004

1871–98, 1914–48, 1954–63,

1990–97

Perhumid1898–1910, 1935–42, 1960–87,

1995–2006

1871–97, 1911–34, 1943–59,

1988–94

a holistic, well planned long-term strategy for

sustainable water resources India is asked for.

A few pertinent water legislations, strict water

conservation practices, judicious & efficient

use of water and recycling of waste water can

offer viable options however it should be well

defined, well coordinated as well as well

addressed in the interests of the general

public. It should also be made mandatory for

the people’s participation in the forward

move. The participation of the local people in

the watershed management will be more

effective in accordance with the use of their

traditional knowledge to capture and store

rainwater for its efficient utilization and

conservation to control its runoff, evaporation

and seepage because the mode of rainwater

harvesting adopted depends on the

geographical and meteorological conditions of

the particular region. It will also help in

formulating an efficient mechanism for the

spatio-temporal availability of water to meet

the demands among themselves. The water

resources management practices are to be

more focused on data monitoring, processing,

storage, retrieval and dissemination so as to

help in planning and design of the water

resources structures in the country. New

concept of decision support systems

introduced to the water resources management





provides the necessary inputs to the decision

makers for better water resources

management. Some important aspects of water

resources management are flood & drought

management, groundwater management,

watershed management, rainwater harvesting,

recycle and reuse of water, inter-basin water

transfer, data monitoring & information

system, applications of decision support

system in water resources and water pricing.

Most importantly, knowledge sharing through

various modes among the citizen regarding the

preciousness of water, common people’s

participation in the local level water resource

management, mass communication and

capacity building for the nation-wide publicity

are essential for effective water resources

management.

End note

In spite of the fact, there has been

large-scale decline in rainfall in recent period,

the survival of the system reasonably well

suggests better management practices of the

water bodies adopted by the people to

combat/resolve the twin problem of floods and

droughts that directly affects the decision-

making support system in water-related

sectors such as agriculture, hydrology, water

resources and terrestrial and freshwater

aquatic ecosystems. Earliest possible action

may be initiated to store the available surplus

rainfall to the maximum possible extent in

order to have stable food grain production and

to meet drinking water supply and

hydroelectric power generation. Real-time



endeavour.

Acknowledgements

The authors are extremely grateful to Prof.

B.N. Goswami, Director, Indian Institute of

Tropical Meteorology, Pune for necessary

facilities to pursue this study. The rainfall data

used in this study were provided by the India

Meteorological Department, Pune, is

thankfully acknowledged.

Reference

Elliot J. 1902: Monthly and annual rainfall of

457 stations in India to the end of 1900. India

Meteorological Department Memoirs, Vol.

XIV, 709 pp.

India Meteorological Department (IMD),

1961: Monthly and Annual Normals of

Rainfall and of Rainy Days (based on records from 1901-1950) . India Meteorological

Department, New Delhi, 204 pp.





Lal, M. (2001): Climate change –

Implications for India’s water resources. J.

India Water Res. Soc., 2001, 21, pp.101–119.

Singh H.N., Singh N., and Sontakke, N.A.(2009): Monitoring Large-scale rainfall

variations across India, Hydroinformatics in

Hydrology, Hydrogeology and Water

Resources Edited by Ian D. Cluckie, Yangbo

Chen, Vladan Babovic, Lenny Konikow,

Arthur Mynett, Siegfried Demuth & Dragan

A. Savic, IAHS Publ.(Red Book) 331, 2009,

Pp. 514-522.

Singh, N., 1984: Fluctuations of different

moisture regimes in India, Arch. Met.

Geophys. Biocl., B35, pp. 239-256

Singh V.K. (2009): Water Crisis and Rain

Harvesting, Geography and You, Jul-Aug

2009, pp. 52-53.

Sontakke, N.A., Singh, H.N. and Singh

,Nityanand (2008) : Chief Features of

Physiographic Rainfall Variations across India

during Instrumental Period (1813-2006), IITM

Research Report No. 121, 128 pp.

Rakesh Kumar, R. D. Singh and K. D. Sharma(2005): Water resources of India, Current

Science, Vol. 89, No. 5, 10 September 2005

pp. 794-811.

Ranade, Ashwini A., Singh, Nityanand.,

Singh, H.N. and Sontakke, N.A. (2007):

Characteristics of Hydrological Wet Season

over Different River Basins of India, IITM

Research Report No. 119, 155 pp.

Picture courtesy: Mr. R.K. Diamond, Loktak

Lake of Imphal, Manipur.

Author’s biography: Dr. Huidrom Narendra

Singh is presently working as a scientist at

Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology. His

research interest is on Hydroclimatic

Variability and Prediction with special

emphasis on Indian Monsoon, Water

Resources & Hydrological Modelling,

Applications of RS-GIS in Hydroclimatic

Variabilities. He has good number of papers in

national and international scientific journals to

his credit. Email: [email protected]





Clouds are considered as an aggregate of tiny

particles of water vapour or ice, or both,

suspended in the atmosphere [ Houze, 1993].The Earth is roofed with nearly 60 % of the

clouds. They are identified as an important

regulator in the global climate and

hydrological cycle. The cloud also affects the

Earth’s energy balance by reflecting,

absorbing and transmitting the solar radiation.

Clouds are formed when water vapour rises in

the atmosphere from the surface, cools and

condenses onto particles. At any level of

the atmosphere, clouds can be formed,

provided humid air cools enough for water

vapour to condense into droplets or ice

crystals. First attempt (1801) of cloud

classification was made by French naturalist,

Jean Lamarck . The classification of clouds

presented in Table 1 is taken from Houze

[1993] and Lynch [2002]. Cirrus clouds are

formed at high altitude, which develops either

in the form of white, delicate filaments or

narrow bands that etches across the sky. The

name ‘cirrus’ is a Latin word means ‘wisp of

hair ’.

Table 1. Clouds classification w.r.t. their occurrence

height.(Courtesy: Houze 1993])

Cloud

group

Type of

Cloud

Base Altitude (km)

Tropics Mid

latitude

Polar

Low

Clouds

Stratus

Stratocumulus

Nimbostratus

Cumulus

Cumulonimbus

Below

2 km

Below

2 km

Below

2 km

Middle

Clouds

Altostratus

2-8 km 2-7

km

2-4

km

Altocumulus

High

Clouds

Cirrus

6-18

km

5-13

km

3-8

KmCirrostratus

Cirrocumulus

A High Altitude Clouds: Cirrus

By

Subrata Kumar Das





Cirrus clouds occupy nearly 20% of the

Earth’s atmosphere out of which 50% in the

tropical region. These clouds have the high

frequency of occurrence over the summer

hemisphere, which moves with the seasonal

movement of the Inter Tropical Convergence

Zone. The continental effects of cirrus clouds

are also reported i.e., maximum occurrence of

cirrus clouds are over the landmasses as

compared to the oceans. These clouds can

spread over the large horizontal areas and can

persist for several hours or days. Cirrus clouds

can take a variety of forms or shapes and

generally contain ice crystals. Some of the

common shapes of ice crystals in cirrus are

shown in Fig. 1. The shapes of ice particles

that compose cirrus clouds are diverse and

irregular. The different shapes of ice crystals

have varied scattering properties and thus

identified as one of the most complicated

components to model in the radiative transfer

simulations. Cirrus particle sizes are often

expressed as the maximum dimension of the

particle, which varies in the range from 5 µm

to a few mm.

Jensen et al. [1996] proposed two

formation mechanism for the tropical cirrus:

(i) convective transport of water vapour to the

upper part of the troposphere by

cumulonimbus clouds (i.e., anvil cirrus), and

(ii) in situ formation of ice crystals by slow,

synoptic scale uplift of a humid layer (i.e., in

situ cirrus). A schematic sketch of the two

formation mechanisms is shown in Fig. 2a and

2b, respectively.

Cirrus clouds can also be formed artificially

behind the aircraft’s exhaust, known as

contrail cirrus. The water droplets are

deposited on the soot and sulphuric acid,

which are emitted by the aircraft. If the

ambient temperature is cold enough, these

water droplets freezes and turn into ice

particles.

Figure 1 Examples of various ice particleshapes.(Courtesy: http://www.its.caltech.edu/





Fig. 2. A schematic diagram of the formation of (a)

anvil cirrus and (b) in situ Cirrus. (Courtesy:

Veerabuthiran [2004])

Cirrus clouds have raised a particular

interest for their role in the atmosphere’s

greenhouse and the albedo effect. Past studies

have reported that the cirrus clouds are also

one of the influencing factors for the variation

of tropical precipitation, upper tropospheric

humidity, and sea surface temperature and

thus influence the climate change [ Heymsfield

and McFarquhar, 2002 and references

therein]. It is not clear at the present time

whether the net effect of cirrus clouds is to

warm or cool the Earth’s atmosphere. Because

of the height altitude appearance, the

investigation of cirrus cloud properties, which

depends upon the concentration, phase, size,

and shape of the ice crystals, etc., are complex

and thus limited. Therefore, the cirrus clouds

parameterization in the climate system is

considered as one of the challenging tasks.

Hence, the parameterization of cirrus clouds

still remains one of the major sources of

uncertainty in the climate model forecast for a

future climate change.

There are various methods for

investigating the physical properties of cirrus

clouds such as lidar, cloud radar, microwave

and sub-mm radiometers, balloon borne frost-

point hygrometers, dual theodolite, aircraft

observations and satellite measurements

[ Dowling and Radke, 1990]. Among the

mentioned measurement techniques, the lidar

(complementary to the radar) is most

appropriate. LIDAR is an acronym for LIght

Detection And Ranging, which is an active

remote sensing device, also referred to as a

laser radar. Lidar is based on the principle that

when a pulse of laser light is transmitted to a

target, a portion of pulse light is backscattered

through either reflection or scattering or both

and collected using a telescope, providing

information about the target. Lidar offered the

capability for sensing scattering by both air

molecules and the floated particulate matter in

the atmosphere. The lidar has a better spatial





and temporal resolution with diurnal sampling

and thus capable of explaining the dynamics

of the cirrus clouds in terms of their chemical

and physical composition. The schematic

diagram of a typical lidar system is shown in

Fig. 3.

Figure 3: A schematic diagram of lidarsystem

Now with the lidar technique, the

characterization of cirrus cloud is possible

from the ground (ground-based lidar), from

the aircraft (air-borne lidar) and also from the

space (space-borne lidar). A typical height

time intensity plot of the cirrus clouds

measured with a ground based lidar at Chung-

Li (24.5 oN, 121.1oE), Taiwan is shown in Fig.

4. The increased in backscattering intensity

clearly reveals the distribution of cirrus clouds

in the height between 17 and 18 km, which is

at the tropopause height. The cirrus clouds in

the vicinity of tropopause affect the

stratospheric radiative balance and have an

Fig. 4. Height-time intensity plot of backscattering ratio (BR) observed atChung-Li, Taiwan from 20:00-22:00 LT

(LT=GMT+08 hrs) on July 9, 2009.

impact on dehydration of the air [ Hartmann et

al., 2001]. Cirrus clouds properties have large

spatio-temporal variations. To divulge the

important aspects of cirrus clouds and

associated dynamics in the different regions of

the globe, several experimental, observational,

and campaign measurements are being

conducted using lidar and other techniques.

The outcomes of those investigations will be

helpful in understanding the radiative impact

of cirrus clouds on the Earth’s radiation

budget, atmospheric thermodynamics,

hydrological cycle, and atmospheric

circulations, etc. These studies could be vital





Brave new world of Biotech

Dr. Animesh Sharma

Imagine that a person with some

childhood birth defect meets a doctor, the

doctor engineers and transplants the defective

organ, literally guiding a life of disability to a

normality... wait, you don’t need to imagine

this! Meet surgeon Atala,director of the Wake

Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine,

transplanting Luke with a bladder created out

of Luke’s own bladder cells. Now he is

pushing this to generate the fully perfused

solid organs like liver [1]. We have indeed

come far from blaming natural forces for our

defects to actually confronting it and trying to

control and improve. Engineered organs are a

reality and soon we will be printing out

functional organs of desired constituents

directly into the patients.

So where did it all begin? We have

been wondering about nature since time

immemorial but til 19th century we had no

clue whether life we see around is engineered

or not. This was answered beautifully

byDarwin who outlined his theory of

evolution, natural selection operating on

population leading to immense diversity in

life. Still, the very basis of this phenomena

was not understood till Mendel came up with

theory of genetics. However the real

understanding of this process had to wait till

Watson and Crick elucidated the DNA

structure, the self replicating, stable structure,

which could preserve information through

generations and yet able to change to suit the

environment.

The cells in our body contains DNA

carrying the genetic information. It is more or

less true for all the life forms. This

understanding of genetics at the molecular

level enabled us to tinker with the very fabric

of life. We are no longer mere passive product

of natural selection and evolution, rather we

are actively engineering it now. Lock’s getting

treated for his birth disorder, X-linked SCID,

severe combined immunodeficiency making

person vulnerable to all sorts of diseases,

through gene therapy is another example of

this incredible power and cloning of the Dolly

has brought this progress to its natural

conclusion. Moreover, this is not just

restricted to stem cells or organs or to cloning

a whole being, rather, it is progressing towards

creating artificial life itself. Synthetic biology

has come a long way from introducing and

expressing desired genes using restriction

enzymes to actually creating synthetic life.

American biologist, Craig Venter unveiled





this last year where his team wrote out, letter

by letter, the whole genetic information

(genome) of an organism on the computer,

introduced it into a nucleated cell, soon to see

the cell dancing to the tunes of this new

genome until all of its machinery was replaced

with artificially synthesised chemicals. This

cell was alive and throbbing, yet completely

devoid of any of its original parents

component. This God like abilities led his

team to proclaim “Lower synthesis costs

combined with automation will enable broad

applications for synthetic genomics” [2] from

mere taking control of a cell to actually create

cells performing specific tasks so far unseen in

the natural world. Yes indeed, things are

getting cheaper day by day, on an exponential

scale. Next generation high throughput

technologies are able to generate, in a day, as

much, if not more, biological data which use

to take years. This coupled with Moore’s law

of exponential growth in computing power,

Kryder's Law for hard disk storage cost per

unit of information and breakthrough in

algorithms has opened up horizons

unimaginable few years ago. Now we can

actually imagine to simulate a cell. This opens

up a possibility for exploring biological

interventions which were earlier unthinkable

due to various concerns.

However these mind boggling

developments brings up a serious concern,

won’t like money, this will create another

social divide of people who will have

capability to utilize such powers and those

who don’t? Like the way nuclear weapon has

created national divide, won’t such biological

power, lead to further divide? Probably yes,

but this might be a much powerful deterrent to

social conflicts. Nonetheless we can surely

envision that at local level, there might be

Schematic of Genetic Engineering





apartheid issues between genetically enhanced

biology and normal biology.

At individual level, a gene chip analysis,

assigning individual probability scores such as0.7 percent chance of suffering Diabetes at 40,

will surely make the person less employable

bringing out the concern for the accessibility

of the results. Who would really own the data?

Such scenarios make these developments look

scary, but come to think of it, at least we will

be able to save more of Lukes and Locks. So

lets embrace this brave new world of biotech.

References:

[1] Hepatology, 53: 604–617. DOI:

10.1002/hep.24067

[2] Science, Vol. 329 no. 5987 pp. 52-56DOI:

10.1126/science.1190719

Dr. Animesh Sharma is working as teaching

assistant and research fellow at Department of

Informatics (http://ii.uib.no/ ) and

Computational Biology Unit at

http://www.bccs.uni.no/units/cbu, University

of Bergen, Norway.

http://sites.google.com/site/sharmaanimesh/

Source:http://spollack.wordpress.com/





FANTASIA

Bhaskar Thakuria

Nibid-296 and Nirob-348 were tryingto bring back that almost extinct piece of robot

to a working state and the exercise had already

taken a good amount of time. It is not usual

for them to devote so much time as the

common practice to repair such robots is to

reboot the firmware or to format all its

memory and to install appropriate software.

And if that fails then the simple solution is to

change the mother microchip. Or just dump it

to the electronic incinerator and replace the

customer with a new one.

But Miss Niharbala’s will make this a

robot a special case. It was instructed very

clearly in the will that no one should touch the

mother chip, memory chip and the special

executive circuits of ‘platinum’ (the name of

the robot as Miss Niharbala christened it!).

And with all the restrictions imposed it was a

formidable task to repair the robot without

changing those vital parts. But some old people

were so fussy about their emotional attachment

to their machines. Names like Nirob-296,

Natasa-4600, Nibid-348 were given under the

global identification number at their

christening ceremony and a quick search in the

‘meganet’ would bring out all information

about them; right from their parent’s names tothe dishes they like; and anyone can trace them

if interested. But those Miss Niharbalas, Mr.

Timothys and Miss Belucis! From those

names, you can’t differentiate them from a

place or a genetically modified fruit. Like their

names they too were unsystematized.

Miss Niharbala had some electronic

formulas patented under her name and

royalties of those made her a wealthy person.

She died at the ripe age of hundred twenty

three. She divided her wealth into two halves

and donated one half to planetary welfare

society and the other half for the maintenance

of ‘platinum’, this robot. She insured the

maintenance work of this robot to consumer

federation and their company was made

responsible for the maintenance work. If any

untoward incident happens with this robot the

company would have to pay some big bucks

to consumer federation and that would not be

less than few millions of global currency.

For long thirteen years Miss Niharbala

stayed in a ‘limousine’ flat of ‘The Lex

skyscrapers’ and the robot was her company.

She was practically forgotten by everybody in

the neighbourhood. Nor they had any interest

Science Fiction





in her. Let alone that residence, there was

probably no one in the world who knew her or

had any remembrance of her. Global

identification holders get news of their first

degree relatives through world wide family

network service. If some of the relatives die,

they can pay homage to the deceased through

the net. Funeral service agencies take care of

the dead body and do a fine job of disposing

the body as wished by the deceased. But Miss

Niharbala did not go for any such deal. So,

Platinum had to arrange for her last rituals and

all decisions were taken by him.

As per the will, after Miss Niharbala’s

death, Platinum was restored to an old house

and there it developed the problems. Its data

processing became remarkably slow. The

monitor went blank. The solar panels seemed

to be working in an inefficient manner. His

sentinel circuits reported all these to the

company and immediately it was transported

to the main workshop by their emergency jet

bus.

There, Nirob-296 examined all its

main circuits and failed to discover any flaw

in them. The robot could process commands.

Only the monitor was blank and some clear

liquid was discharging through the mother

chip outlet. That was a big question. Where

from was the liquid coming out? Discharging

batteries are history. All the robot’s electronic

parts were made of dehydrated metal and the

body was composed of polyvinyl cotton

fibres. Nirob-296 was having an irresistible

urge to kick platinum directly to the giant

electronic incinerator. However, the reality

was--he had to do everything possible to make

the robot useful again to save his company

from losing money. The company asked help

from a robo-psychology farm. Nibid-348 was

the robo-psychology expert sent for the work.

Nirob-296 did not like these experts as they

had little knowledge about the robotic

engineering, but walks off with a heavy purse

after giving some jargon filled reports.

However, in this special case he really hoped

that Nibid-348 had some answer.

Then onwards, both were working

together with ‘platinum, the ailing robot’. As

the monitor was totally blank, it was not

possible to get any feedback from it. So,

Nibid-348 was trying to recover the robot’s

log book. Probably the log book had some

recordings to help them. They could have

some clue about platinum’s whimsical

circuits.

They attached the individual circuits

to their mainframe through auxiliary output

sockets and were recording everything. They





also collected that mysterious liquid pouring

out from the micro chip and sent for analysis.

“Why Miss Niharbala gave it such a fancy

name? Platinum!”

“Wasn’t she hundred and thirty years old? In

her hay-days platinum jewelleries were

fashionable and expensive stuff. Then it was

not possible to do atomic reconstruction of

aluminium to platinum. One had to extract

platinum from the ores!”

“Oh! Now I get it. That’s why one of my aunts

used to call her boyfriend ‘sweet platinum’.”

“Sweet platinum!”

Both burst out laughing.

After some effort they were able to extract a

portion of robot’s log book. But astonished;

they were to find that the log book was written

in an unusual style. There was no mention of

the hardware commands that the robot

followed. Nirob-296 got upset with those log

book entries as there was nothing of his use.

But the robo-psychology expert Nibid-348 got

curious and began to analyze.

The log book was neither complete nor its

entries were technical. Those entries made

them to decide that the platinum was an

extremely slow data processor and had serious

flaws in decision making. There was no

complex neural networks calculation, no CN

(Computational Neuroethology) process codes,

not those ‘fuzzy’ logic numbers, not even

simple logical arithmetic calculation. It

resembled the diary of a moronic individual.

The first entry read – “ My first day with Miss

Niharbala. She has scheduled her

medication, diet list and the time to ready her

bath water. My job is this much. She says

after I learn this much, she would allow me

to other things.”

Another entry was – “ Miss Niharbala has

asked me for a complex task. I have to make

her understand the meanings of the

advertisements aired in the television. One

advertisement is this – a teenaged girl is on

the road. She walks past a handsome guy. But the guy appears least interested in her.

Then the name of the company comes up

which manufactures synthetic retina. What

that commercial tried to convey? Changing

to a synthetic retina would help? But, whom

and how...

I watched today’s episode of the tele-opera

‘criminal diary’. Daniel -88 shot Selsi-22.

Selsi-22 died in the hospital. The doctor

treating Selsi-22 was apprehended by the

police for his negligence. That was better. It





would be pathetic had Daniel been detained.

The doctor should be punished! ”

Nibid-348 had difficulty putting his mind on

those. It was childish. But he went on. “I

went to the zoo with Miss Niharbala. I enjoyed

the ride. The four-footed small animal yelling

‘meow’ was wonderful. Miss Niharbala told

me it is a cat and in her childhood days those

were pets. How soon that species has become

rare! We had some fish meat for him, the

animal was delighted in that…..”

The next few texts of the robo log book gave

Nibid-348 an impression of the strong bond

shared between platinum and its master.

“Today is Miss Niharbala’s birthday. We

ordered a medium sized cake. We had with us

the cat and a bird called parrot brought from

the zoo. We enjoyed a lot. Miss Niharbala

and I shared some steps too. It was a dance,

Miss Niharbala told me. It was much fun.”

“…. I did not quite like that. A young fellow

around seventy came to meet Miss Niharbala.

He was not very interested in her. More he

was busy with the new intergalactic game

downloaded from the game library. In this

game all you have to do is to target a certain

planet and send commands to it. Depending

upon the response type, you score. These

games are really destroying the earth. Half of

the population is glued to the monitors in

some amateur computer game club.”

A faint smile flickered on Nibid-348’s lips.

The robot’s logs were like an editorial of the

philosophy pages of a news feeder. How the

‘self-thinking software’ got installed to this?

Who could do that? Even its writings were

not in the characteristic artificial robotic

language, more it resembles a human written

document. Infected by ‘human simulator

virus’? There was no chance. Any virus

infection was already ruled out. What could

have happened? It was a challenging task for

any budding robo-psychology expert like

Nibid-348. He had collected some data

processed by the platinum and was trying to

analyze even in his free time. He consulted

the robo-psychology forums in the network

and none could offer any help.

Nirob-296 was trying to do it all over again.

May be something were there that they had

ignored. He decided to examine every

processing pipeline of platinum’s mother

chip. He began sending photon commands to

each pipeline and measured the output. And

everything was just perfect but slow.

Nibid-348 continued with another recovered

log of platinum’s electronic memory.





“Miss Niharbala’s hand was torn following a

fall from the tread mill. I repaired that by the

stapler. Her heart’s accessory electronic

conduction system is in a poor state.

Probably the batteries need to be changed. I

have to communicate with the central

information system of her insurance

company. Luckily her artificial kidneys are

working perfectly.”

Just then another log was transferred to the

main computer from platinum. It was entered

on the eve of the day of Miss Niharbala’s

death. Both Nibid-348 and Nirob-296 got

interested as that was the last day that the

robot functioned properly.

“….. Miss Niharbala is not able to lift herself

since yesterday. She said it was paining all

over. She was too weak to sit up. She wasspeaking in gasps. I sent emergency report to

the insurance company. Their virtual doctor

checked her and gave me some commands.

But it did not help her. Towards evening a

team of doctors came and fitted her with lot

of gadgets. Now they can monitor her

directly from the global therapeutic agency’s

central help line. They are sending me

commands after commands and I am

executing them. Her automatic intra-venous

lines are pumping her with medicines. But

she shows no sign of improvement. In stead

her face appears paler. She is not making any

sound. Eyes had sunk in. Her urine collection

bag is empty for last few hours.

Is she going to talk ever…?

If not how long she will go on like this...

What is there next? …The worst that

happens….

Is Miss Niharbala heading towards that?”

After that no more log entries could be

recovered. Nibid-348 and Nirob-296 tried all

they knew. But platinum had no more

records. The pouring of liquid from his

mother chip outlet increased.

Did Miss Niharbala take revenge on the

company by installing some malware to the

robot? After all, she was an accomplished

electronic engineer in her youth. But that

seemed unlikely. Miss Niharbala had nothing

against their company nor did she have the

necessary expertise to tinker with an

advanced robot circuit.

“Can this be a case of robo-autocide?” Nirob-

296 asked. Sometimes some robots destroy

its own circuits by putting extra load of

processing despite having commands to

prevent such a thing. It remained a mystery

how that happens. Nonetheless such cases





existed. Nibid-348 had a few such robo-

autocide and most had some serious logical

fault in their circuitry. However, a large

number of such robo-autocide cases remain

unsolved. But at least they had some answer

to suggest in all of those. But with ‘platinum’

it was not fitting well. He explained to Nirob-

296, “I admit such cases are increasing these

days. But there is nothing to suggest such an

event here. Such robots become totally

invalid and don’t even power on. This one

has only become slow and its monitor has

gone blank as if it does not want to

communicate anymore.”

Both were at their wits’ end. A huge amount

of global currency was at stack. They can add

some command at a previous date and can

make the robot invalid proving it to be a case

of robo-autocide. This could save them the

currency without any legal problems. Last

year they had to do such a thing.

They looked at each other. Silent nods

were exchanged. They decided to do the

same. They had to look after their and the

company’s sake. But that needed absolute

secrecy. A trickle of the news to the

paparazzi software would bring doom to their

careers and to the company. However, both

of them were competent enough to

accomplish that absolutely believably. They

would not keep any loophole in preparation

of the report. They were confident that a

robo-autopsy expert would be fooled too.

Just at the moment the report buzzer beeped

and informed them the arrival of a new

report. They turned their attention to the

report. It was the chemical analysis report of

the mysterious fluid coming out of

platinum’s mother chip. It read –

The chemical analysis of the fluid sent for

examination reveals that the composition of

the liquid is identical to TEAR.

There was a long list of the substances

extracted. Both Nirob-296 & Nibid-348 were

not interested in the composition as they were

just oblivious about those chemicals. They

concentrated on the interpretation. TEAR?

What is that? Some abbreviation?

Nibid-348 silently invoked his virtual

palmtop. Opened the encyclopaedia entry

page and in its search field he entered –

‘T…E…A…R’.

Translation: Dr. Uddip Talukdar

*The original story in Assamese was

published in the Puza edition of Assamese

weekly Sadin, 2004 and is a part of the

recently published creative fiction – Jatra by

the author.





Author’s Biography:

Dr. Bhaskar Thakuria was born in Guwhati

in 1976 and brought up in Assam. He has

obtained MBBS degree from Guwahati

Medical College, Guwahati in 1999 and

MD Microbiology form Assam Medical

College, Dibrugarh in 2006. Presently he is

working as an Assistant Professor at

Himalayan Institute of Medical Sciences. He

has a ‘Jatra’(The journey) to his credit, a

collection of creative fiction . Playwright and

director of three full length plays staged

under the banner of ‘aarohi’ named Pratyush

(The Dawn): A play exploring the volatile

youth mentality.


Website: http://aarhi.com/ http:// /bhaskar-beberibang.blogspot.com/

1729 (number)

1729 is known as the Hardy–Ramanujan

number after a famous anecdote of the

British mathematician G. H. Hardy regarding

a hospital visit to the great Indian

mathematician Srinivas Ramanujan. In

Hardy's words:

“I remember once going to see him when hewas ill at Putney, I had ridden in taxi cab

number 1729 and remarked that the number

seemed to me rather a dull one, and that I

hoped it was not an unfavorable omen. "No,"

he replied, "it is a very interesting number; it

is the smallest number expressible as the sum

of two cubes in two different ways."

The two different ways are these:

1729 = 13 + 123 = 93 + 103

"In the fields of observation, chance favors only the mind that is prepared”

Louis Pasteur





Meet the Scientist Professor János Mink

(Interview by Dr. Saitanya K Bharadwaj)

Professor János Mink is the Head of

Department of Molecular Spectroscopy

Chemical Research Center of the HAS,

Budapest, Hungary; And Professor of

Chemistry, Faculty of Information

Technology, Research Institute of ChemicalAnd Process Engineering, University of

Pannonia, Vesprém, Hungery.

Dear Esteemed Northeast India Research

forum members. I had a privilege to meet

Professor János Mink from Hungary. I was

attending some of his lectures on Infrared and

Raman Spectroscopy. I am motivated withhis research on fundamental chemistry. Then

I take an appointment with him and inform

about our forum and newsletter, NEQUEST.

Here is some of conversation and message

from Prof. Mink.

Q. Please let us know about your

research area.

I am basically a spectroscopist, we are

working on Molecular Vibrational

spectroscopy, both experimental and

theoretical. We try to understand the

Vibrational behavior of almost all molecules,

complexes even biological system.

Q. What made you interested in this

field?

I started my research career in late 60’s. I

was one of the younger scientists in the

Central Physical Institute, Hungary

Academic of Science. That time they brought

a new IR machine and I was in-charge of

that, then I started recording spectra and tried

to educate myself to understand the

Vibrational behavior of molecules.

Q. Vibrational Spectroscopy is very

old technique to characterized

molecule. Do you think it need

more research effort?

Although it is old technique, the

instrumentation was not so developed as

today. In last 50 years lots of development

has been done on IR instrumentation. FT was

a great addition to the spectroscopy.

Sophistication of instrument made it possible

to solve very fine problems today. For

example, In 80’s it was reported by an

Interview





Americans that Emission IR spectroscopy has

limitation to certain molecules, however we

have showed that Emission IR spectroscopy

can be use to characterize with correct

method. We worked on the most popular

Zeise’s Salt and by changing the counter ion

we were able to make it soluble in organic

solvent and studied the properties of the

complex, also able to record the polarized

Raman Spectra. Vibrational Spectroscopy is

like “Working Horse”. You can use it to

characterize even nanomaterial, polymer,

biomolecules etc.

Q. In this regard, I would like to know

how IR is helpful to characterize

the big molecule such as polymer,

DNA etc. because they will have

thousands of modes of vibration as

we know from 3N-6 rule.

Yes you are right, but polymer are just

repeating unit of monomer, hence we have to

consider just vibrations of monomer. In case

of biological molecule, we will have fine

spectrum for each functional group. With fine

tuning and high resolution and high S/N ratio

we could identify the tiny change in thesystem.

Q. What do you expect from Ph.D

student

My coworkers are involving in both

experimental and theoretical. Ofcourse, one

cannot be perfect in both; however one

should know what the theory behind his

experiment is or the chemistry. Theoretical

explanation or idea help to get better result

experimentally. I always ask my student to

interpret the spectra, “Spectrum without

interpretation is nothing other than a toilet

paper”. I always suggest my students to “feel

the flavor” of spectroscopy, also ask a

computer chemist to make KBr palate, and

ask to share/discuss their experience among

themselves.

Q. How long you are going to continue

your research ?

I am enjoying my work, so I have not thought

about it. I am lucky to have good health. As

long as I have good health I will continue.

After all, health is everything. One more

thing I believe “If you keep busy yourself,

you are slowing down your ageing”.

Q. Who are the scientists influence you

most?

Prof. Pentyne, Prof Gritho, Dr. Goggein,

Prof. Hermann, Prof. Brightinger, Prof.

Sanstörm are some of the important persons.

Q. Have you been in INDIA?

Yahh, several times!!! I have been invited

continuously for the “Conference of





Vibrational Spectroscopy” from few years.

However sometime I could not attend the

same due to hectic schedule. I also gave

lectures on 28th February in IISc Bangalore

several times on Raman Spectroscopy.

Q. What is your plan for the

“International Year of Chemistry

2011”?

We are planning to install IR technique in the

hospital; hence Infra-Red doctors are

coming!!!

Q. Please give some suggestion to the

N.E Indian Scholars/Students?

Whatever you do, do with maximum

effort/input, in that way you can compete,

Give questions yourself and find the answers.

Be honest to Science, be objective. You may

have 1% possibility in one day, but 99% can

come in other day, so donot give up!!! You

are working in poor laboratory does not mean

that you can not learn anything, distillation

also a learning technique. Try to confine your

research into your availability, try to extract

maximum from it. All the best to you all!!!

Short Biography

The Hugerian Spectroscopist born in 13th

April, 1938 at Mohács, Hungery. He started

his scientific career at Central Research

Institute of Physics in 1962. After receiving

Doctor of Science in 1980 from Hungerian

academy of Science, he moved to University

of Bristol as postdoctoral fellow. He was also

a visiting professor in Erlangen-Nürnberg

University (82-83); University of Windsor

(88, 94); McGill University (89, 94); Marie

Curie University (90); Technical University

Munich (90-91, 95, 96); Royal Institute of

Technology, Stockholm (93, 97); University

of Luleå (99, 2000); Stockholm University

01, 04, 06, 07). He is an author of more than

235 scitific papers in high ranking journals.

He has been a member of editorial boards of

Croatica Chemica Acta (89 onwards), Asian

Journal of Spectroscopy (93 onwards),

Applied Spectroscopy Review ( 96 onwards),

Journal of Raman Spectroscopy ( 2000

onwards), Specrochimica Acta (82-98). He is

also member of several national and

international scientific committees. His main

research area is “Application of Infrared and

Raman Spectroscopy in Analytical

Chemistry, Surface Science, Catalysis, Self

assembling Molecular Systems etc. He also

works in Theory of molecular structure,

structural study of organometallic complexes

and solvated systems. Recent advances from

his laboratory are the Medical diagnostic and

biological applications of FTIR and Raman

Spectroscopy and Microscopy.





Dear Editor,

(N.E.Quest Vol. 4, Iss. 4, Jan 2011)

First of all congratulation for your

effort in bringing out the recent edition of N. E.

Quest. However, I would like to clarify a point

that came to my notice and feel that it will be

better to discuss on it.

Regarding the Indian National language

there has been a misconception that Hindi is

our national language. Even in some of the

school books also the same thing has been

depicted and taught which is not correct.

Hindi is our Official Language or in

other words we can say our Raj Bhasha.

The principal official language of the Republic

of India is Standard Hindi, while English is the

secondary official language. The constitution of

India states that "The official language of the

Union shall be Hindi in Devanagari script.

"Neither the Constitution of India nor Indianlaw specifies a national language, a position

supported by a High Court ruling. However,

languages listed in the Eighth Schedule of the

Indian constitution are sometimes referred to,

without legal standing, as the national

languages of India.

Although, it has been thought that in

the long run Hindi can be adopted as our

national language on the ground Hindi does not

belong to any particular state of India nor

belongs to any particular race and which has

born and emerged in India with amalgamation

of different languages. Although a large belt of

north India speaks in Hindi dialect but not

necessarily those are standard Hindi. Different

languages such as Bhojpuri, Sadhukari,

Maitheli etc. are called variants of Hindi and

people consider themselves Hindi speaking but

these languages are prevalent prior to the

emergement of Hindi. So Hindi does not

belong to any particular individual or

community but to everyone of India. But being

that also, still there are strong resentments and

disputes to give national language status to

Hindi.

On the eve of 62nd Independence Day

Celebration there was a long debate on this

issue over media and among thinkers, politician

and bureaucrats but still remain undecided.

Unfortunately, India does not have a

National Language of its own till now hence it

won't be appropriate to write about Hindi as

our National language. That may be one of thereasons we do not have slogan written in Hindi

in IYC 2011 poster.

The Bengali language depicted there

definitely representing Bangladesh only

because this is a country which was formed and

separated from Pakistan on the basis of

language revolution and commemorating that

21st February was adopted by UN as

International Mother Tongue Day and has been

celebrated all over the world as respect towards

the respective Mother Tongue of every

individual that belongs to them.

Reader’s Page





Only appreciation goes to Hindi Film

Industry which has contributed remarkably in

promoting and spreading Hindi worldwide.

So, let us hope that in future we may

have a language, hopefully Hindi that can be

recognized as our National Language like

we have a universal Rupee Symbol now and

represent the Unity among Diversity of India

through a common language to the entire

World.

Regards,

Biswajit Roy

Some thought on Hindi ( Invited )

India is a country of multiple cast,

religion and cultures. We need to have a

language which can bring unity in diversity and

express all the elements of composite culture of

India.

Though, the Hindi as National

Language of India has not been mentioned in

the constitution but we are fortunate enough

that the Hindi has been adopted and as National

Language in all parts of the country. It reflects

that the people of the country are proud of our

country and its all symbols, languages,

cultures. Although it has been mentioned that

Hindi as a National Language has not been

mentioned in the constitution. We may recall

pre-independence India where Hindi was a

language which has united whole of the nation

from North to South and East to west. All the

freedom fighters had a language for their

communications across the country was none

other than Hindi which has gone deep to the

heart of people of India and formed a strong

belief that Hindi is our National Language. In

fact, the bond of love is more stronger than the

bond of rules and regulation. Hence, Hindi

became the National Language due to large

acceptability and attachment of the people.

Hindi is our Official Language. The

language of official work in the Central Govt.

Offices of India for which guidelines are

available in articles (343-351) of constitution of

India. Now more than 6 decades have already

passed still we could not implement these

provisions in Central Govt. machinery. A lot

of efforts are being made to propagate Hindi in

Central Govt. Offices but we the people who

work in the Central Govt. Offices are in a mood

of easy going and would never take any

pressure to do something new. Therefore, the

English which was supposed to be subsidiary

language is still holding the place of Hindi.

We should be grateful to the people of

country who accepted and adopted Hindi as a

National Language even though it has not been

reflected in the constitution.

Dr. O. N. Shukla,

Hindi Officer,

Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, Pune





Photographs by Ms. Smritimala Sarmah, Tezpur University

Photograph by Dr. Diganta K. Sarma, B. Borooah College Photograph by Dr. Mahen Konwar, IITM, Pune

Photography





National Conference on “Chemistry, Chemical Technology and Society”

Fellowship/

Advertisement/Opportunity





Conference on Advances in Polymer Science and Nanotechnology: Design and Structure, Bar





How to join Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, Pune

For detail please visit http://www.tropmet.res.in/How_to_Join_IITM.pdf





APPLICATIONS INVITED FOR POST-DOCTORAL ASSOCIATE POSITION, IIT Bombay

Project details: The project is supported by the Indo-French Centre for the Promotion of Advanced

Research (IFCPAR/CEFIPRA). This is a collaborative work between LEOSPHERE company, two

French research laboratories and the Indian institute of Technology, Bombay. The position is for 2 years

duration and the candidate will be located at IIT Bombay. There will be an opportunity for participatingin a field visit in France.

Position details and requirements:

Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) systems have been proven to be essential tools for atmospheric

pollution monitoring, as they provide information on particles in situ concentrations and pollutants

dilution in the atmospheric boundary layer. The precise quantification of PM based on the LIDAR signal

still remains a challenging issue with practical interest for air quality agencies. The overall objective is

to develop a new methodology for the quantification of PM mass using the LIDAR system developed by

LEOSPHERE (French SME based in Orsay, France). LEOPSHERE is specialized in LIDARatmospheric observation and commercialized Rayleigh-Mie LIDARs for real time remote measurements

of aerosols.

Specific tasks are as follows:

o Understand and assist with LIDAR operation and data reduction techniques.o Organise and assist with field experiment in India.o Identify emissions sources affecting the measurement site using positive matrix factorisation

techniques.o Explore factor analytic techniques to isolate factors containing a combination of chemical,

optical and lidar signal.o Evaluate the potential to link lidar signal to aerosol emissions with specific chemical and optical

signals.

Qualifications and experience:

The successful candidate will have preferably a PhD in atmospheric science, environmental

science/engineering, civil engineering. She/he will have a good background in remote sensing,

meteorology and aerosol science, and be proficient in programming and data analysis. Excellent

communication skills are mandatory. This job opportunity is only open to persons of Indian nationality.

Contact:

Prof. C. Venkataraman at IITB, [email protected]

Dr. B. Guinot at LEOSPHERE, [email protected]

Dr. J.-F. Léon at Laboratoire d’Aérologie, [email protected]





Details about the Northeast India Research Forum

Date of creation of the forum: 13th

November 2004

Area: Science and Technology

Total number of members till date: 387

Moderators

1) Dr. Arindam Adhikari, 2) Dr. Utpal Bora, 3) Dr. Ashim Jyoti Thakur, 4) Dr. Khirod Gogoi

Editorial Team of N.E. Quest

1) Dr. Debananda Ningthoujam, HOD, Dept. of Biochemistry, Manipur University, Imphal, India.


2) Dr. Tankeswar Nath, Tezpur University, Tezpur, India,


3) Dr. Manab Sharma, Australia,


4) Dr. Babita Baruwati, Bangalore, India,


5) Dr. Pranjal Saikia, Dept. of Chemical Sciences, Institute of Science and Technology, Gauhati

University, Assam, India


6) Dr. Abdul Wahab, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Prague


7) Dr. Pankaj Bharali, Dept. of Chemical Science, Tezpur University, Assam, India


8) Dr. Thangjam Robert Singh, Dept. of Biotechnology, Mizoram University, Aizawl, India.Email:

[email protected]




9) Dr. Sasanka Deka, Dept. of Chemistry, (Nanoscience & Nanotechnology), University of Delhi,

Delhi-110 007, India


10) Dr. Ashim Jyoti Thakur, Tezpur University, Tezpur, Assam, India.


11) Dr. Utpal Bora, Dibrugargh University, Assam, India.


12) Dr. Arindam Adhikari, Central Electrochemical Research Institute, Karaikudi, India


13) Dr. Khirud Gogoi, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, USA.


Cover Page designed by: Anirban Adhikari

ne quest vol 5 issue 1 april 2011

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