Prof. BM Udgaonkar - Homi Bhabha Centre For Science Education ...

B. M. UdgaonkarEminent Scientist& EducationistEDITORSDr. Bal PhondkeDr. Parul R. ShethMr. Suhas Naik-SatamMr. A. P. Deshpande1

Cover page Picture : Mr. Laxman LondhePublisher :NATIONAL CENTRE FOR SCIENCE COMMUNICATORSVidnyan Bhavan, V. N. Purav Marg,Sion-Chunabhatti, Mumbai 400 022Phone : 91-22-24054714, 24057268Fax : 91-22-24057268e-mail : mavipa@vsnl.com&HOMI BHABHA CENTRE FOR SCIENCE EDUCATIONV. N. Purav Marg, Mankhurd, Mumbai 400 088Phone : 91-22-25580036, 25555242, 25554714Fax : 91-22-25566803website : hbcse.tifr.res.inPrinted at :JAY ARTSJui Nagar, Navi MumbaiTypesetting :AKSHAR GRAPHICSJui Nagar, Navi Mumbai2

CONTENTS Preface .................................................................................... 5 Reminiscences Dr. Wijaya Altekar ......................................................... 7 Prof. Abhay Ashtekar ....................................................... 9 Prof. Mustansir Barma ..................................................... 11 Prof. Prabuddha Ganguli ................................................. 13 Dr. P. K. Iyengar .............................................................. 15 Dr. S. K. Joshi ................................................................... 16 Prof. (Dr.) S. S. Kapoor .................................................... 18 Dr. P. Lavakare ................................................................ 19 Dr. Sanjay Limaye ........................................................... 21 Dr. Jayant Narlikar ......................................................... 23 Prof. S. B. Patel ................................................................ 25 Dr. Bal Phondke .............................................................. 27 Prof. H. C. Pradhan ......................................................... 29 Dr. Vinod Raina .............................................................. 32 Prof. Rama ....................................................................... 35 Prof. Abbas A. Rangwala ................................................. 36 Dr. D. P. Roy ................................................................... 38 Prof. Kailash Rustagi ........................................................ 41 Dr. Virendra Singh .......................................................... 43 Dr. Bikash Sinha ............................................................... 45 Dr. K. Subrahmanyam ..................................................... 46 Prof. Vijaya Varma .......................................................... 48 Prof. Balu Venkatraman .................................................. 50 Prof. G. Venkatraman ...................................................... 52 Prof. Yash Pal ................................................................... 53Marathi Section Mr. A. P. Deshpande ......................................................... 55 Mr. G. T. Kharvandikar .................................................... 59 Prof. V. G. Kulkarni .......................................................... 60 Dr. C. M. Pandit ............................................................... 643

Visuals ................................................................................... 65 Musings Why aren't we doing better? ............................................. 89 Science & Technology capability building indeveloping countries - some issues ............................. 93 National Security - Its International Dimensions :Some observations ...................................................... 103 efJeÐeeHeerþs DeeefCe G®®eefMe#eCe ë mJee³eÊelee®e keÀª MekesÀue iegCeJeÊeeJee{ ............... 115 Appendices List of papers, Edited books and other Writings byProf. B. M. Udgaonkar ................................................ 121 Prof. B. M. Udgaonkar ...................................................... 132 Seminar Programme ......................................................... 133 National Centre for Science Communicators .................. 134 Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education ................... 1354

PrefaceProf. B. M. Udgaonkar is a many facetedpersonality. He is often labelled as a ScienceEducationist. Would that be appropriate? Well,he is certainly that but not only that. The injusticein confining him to this on compartment wouldbe evident the moment we get to hear his eruditecomments on various issues, some far removedfrom the fields of science education. Or eveneducation, for that matter. His compass isindeed very wide. He is a hard core Scientistand earned a world wide reputation as atheoretical particle physicist. He is a teacher parexcellence, having taught a variety of topics notthe least reactor physics to a large group oforiginal practitioners of that discipline in thecountry. .He is an excellent science communicator.He is an international authority on NuclearDisarmament, having been very active in thePugwash movement that was awarded theNobel prize for peace. He is a good orator andhe writes very proficiently. He could be calledagent provocateur in a different sense as he isable to provoke his readers. This comes outvividy when one reads his Physics Newseditorials. He is an institution builder and onedoes not have to go beyond the Homi BhabhaCentre for Science Education (HBCSE) . to beconvinced of that. He is a good nurturer of talentboth individual and institutional. This isapparent from a large number of students anddisciples who have occupied prestigiouspositions both here and abroad. Besides theHBCSE, Institute of Physics (IOP), Bhubaneswarand Marathi Vidnyan Parishad (MVP) were puton firmer footing by him. He started severalnovel programmes in University GrantsCommission (UGC) by establishing ProgrammeAdvisory Committees in different subjects topromote quality teaching and research atvarious universities in India. He has a uniqueknack of spotting the right person for the rightjob. Were it not for this extraordinary faculty ofhis one would not have seen scientists likeAbhay Ashtekar, Mustansir Barma and SanjayLimaye what they are today. His command ofthe English language is superb and he has takenpains to develop it right from his school days.He is a thinker with wide interests. He is justnot a laboratory or armchair scientist but he hasmoved widely in the society and his thoughtson Science and Society are well appreciated. Ata casual encounter one may find him to be arather serious introvert. But once you get toknow him one finds the witty, even mischievousside to his persona. Above all he is very honestand transparent in his personal and publicdealings. So how would one finally describehim. Perhaps simply as a fine human being.Prof. Udgaonkar has always shunned5

publicity. He has preferred to do his workpatiently and diligently away from the limelight.That is perhaps the reason he has remaindedunknown to many and none of hisanniversaries were publicly celebrated. TheNational Centre for Science Communicators,has benefited from his advise right since itsinception. So the Centre along with HomiBhabha Centre for Science Communicators,which is a brain child of Prof. Udgaonkar ,decided to felicitate him on his completion of80 years of very fruitful and accomplished lifeby organising a national seminar on, ‘ScienceEducation-Challenges in Quality’. We are indeedgrateful that he readily gave his consent.Heartfelt thanks to you. Prof. Udgaonkar.On this occasion, we are also publishing aSouvenir comprising three sections. The firstcontains a total of 29 articles from his students,colleagues and admirers. A series of rather rarephotographs taken on various occasions adornthe second section and a small number. just four,selected from a large written output forms thethird. Besides ,his brief biodata and a list of hispapers-articles and books can also be found inthe souvenir.We thought of bringing out this Souvenirand requested all the probable contributorsrather late. just in the middle of July. But I mustacknowledge the instant and heartwarmingresponse. I sincerely thank them all Mr.Laxman Londhe, a science and science fictionwriter is also an artist and has drawn a watercolour sketch of Prof. B. M. Udgaonkar whichgraces the front cover of this Souvenir. Dr. BalPhondke along with Dr. Parul Sheth and Mr.Suhas Naik-Satam have edited the souvenir.A. P. DeshpandeChairmanNational Centre for Science Communicators6

My BrotherDr. Wijaya AltekarThose who know Bhalchandra M. Udgaokarknow that he had a brilliant academiccareer. But only a few may know that very earlyin his life he must have decided to make a careerin science and was highly motivated. A senseof overall perseverance in overcoming personalchallenges during early phases in his careerhelped him achieve his chosen end. We weresix siblings and “Dada”, as we brothers andsisters call him, is the eldest. Our father was adoctor. Besides practicing medicine he was adedicated social worker, working for the upliftof downtrodden women. He had a very firmbelief in the value of education, which heimbibed into his children. Dada’s sharp intellectand dedication to studies was obvious right fromhis school days, He was a student of the KingGeorge High School, as it was known then. Ithad a large number of students and everystandard usually was divided in four or fivedivisions with a total of close to two hundredstudents. He always used to secure first rankamong them all. Consequently, he won ascholarship throughout his school career. It wasa matter of great pride for my sister and me, tobe recognised as ‘Sister of that scholar’!language was a great achievement for a boycoming from a middle class Maharashtrianfamily. Though equally adept at all schoolsubjects his forte was Physics and Mathematics.So much so, that he would solve all the questionsin a Mathematics paper and challenge theexaminer to correct any ten out of the twelveanswers! His college career was also embellishedwith a first class with distinction throughout.It was a moment of tremendous joy forthe entire family when Dada cleared thematriculation examination of the BombayUniversity with flying colors. He came first inthe city of Mumbai and second overall in theUniversity, which then included the erstwhileSindh province with Karachi as its capital andparts of the present day Kamataka. He joinedthe science course in Elphinstone college. Sinceour father was a doctor everybody thought thathe would study medicine, but he chose Physicsand Mathematics. After Inter Science also hesurprised everybody. In spite of obtaining a firstclass first position, instead of going forengineering he decided to go for B.Sc.! Of coursehe knew what he was doing.Realising the importance of Englishlanguage in higher education he paid specialattention to its study. He and his friend made ita point to practice speaking only in English. Inthose days of mainly vernacular schools and justa few convent schools, mastering the EnglishNext year when he was still a teenagerstudying in the Junior B.Sc. class our parents,not yet even fifty, died unexpectedly. We wereall very young, shocked, helpless andbewildered. The month was January. HoweverDada kept the company of his books and7

appeared for the B.Sc. examination in just twomonths time and finished with usual credits. Inanother two years he obtained the M.Sc. degreewith his accustomed first class with distinction.At this stage, with his record-breaking careerhe could have secured a cushy job anywherebut that was not his aim. Many a person’scareers are thwarted owing to theresponsibilities of younger siblings. But he neverlet his courage and aim falter or leave him. Infact he appeared for an interview for the postof an officer in Imperial Bank of India (now,State Bank of India). During the interview Mr.Chandaverkar asked him knowingly “Mr.Udgaonkar, do you think you would really takeup this job with the Bank”? Of course Dadarefused the offer! Within few months he wasselected in the Tata Institute of FundamentalResearch by Dr. Homi Bhabha himself and therest is history.Tel. : 022-262805168

Professor Udgoankar,An Exceptional MentorProf. Abhay AshtekarMy interaction with Professor B.M.Udgoankar was limited to just a year andhalf, from about February of 1968 to August of1969, during which I was an undergraduate atthe Institute of Science in Bombay. However, itleft a deep mark on my inner attitude towardsphysics and scientific research. I write thistribute with a deep sense of gratitude.During the academic year 67-68 I was ajunior B.Sc. student and one day ProfessorUdgoankar walked into our class andsuggested that those of us who had a NationalScience Talent Scholarship could go to TIFRonce a week for physics discussions. We wereoverjoyed that someone of his stature wastaking such keen interest in our careers. Fourof us from the Institute of Science and two fromother colleges then started meeting at TIFR oncea week. Each meeting lasted a couple of hours.Professor Udgoankar introduced us toProfessor Yash Pal and his then studentRamnath Kaushik, who later became theDirector of the Indian Institute of Astrophysics.At least two of the three of them participatedin each meeting. Generally they asked probingquestions and made us think in ways we werenot used to. They also suggested problemswhich we tried to solve there and then, oftenwith hints from Ramnath. This was a novelway of doing Science for us and for the firsttime I got a taste of how to think ‘from scratch,’and began to understand why certain problemsand issues were more interesting than others,although at face value they all seemed equallydeep or mysterious.Towards the end of that academic year westarted reading Feynman’s Lectures. Thisbecame the primary activity during the firstsemester of my senior B.Sc. year, 68-69.Professors Udgoankar and Yash Pal insisted thatwe also do problems given in the books. Someof them were hard for us and took a lot of timeand energy. There was one, in particular, whereI first got the same result as the answer at theback of the book, but then realized that I haddone something conceptually sloppy. When Iredid it more carefully, I got only half the answerin the book. This was puzzling and disturbingand so I reported it in our next meeting. Aftersome discussion Professor Udgoankarconcluded that the person who had given theanswer in the book probably did the sameconceptual error that I had first made. This gaveme confidence and I decided to write toFeynman, telling him the whole story. Feynmanactually replied (see attachment) saying that thebook was wrong! This little episode bolsteredour confidence enormously.Newton’s gravitational constant has thesame dimensions as the second time derivativeof inverse density. During the summer vacationof 68 I started thinking about cosmologicalimplications of a possibility that Newton’sconstant was not a true constant but related tothe mean density of the universe in this way.Using simple mathematical formulas describing9

the evolution of the universe that I found in semipopulararticles, I then worked outconsequences of this rather ad-hoc hypothesis.Some of them seemed interesting. So when theacademic year began, I gathered courage andshowed them to Professor Udgoankar. To mypleasant surprise he took it rather seriously andintroduced me toProfessor S.M. Chitre. He in turn wentthrough my calculations and madeconstructive, critical comments. Although mymanuscript was far from being a publishablepaper, Professor Chitre thought that the ideaswere interesting and the reasoning showed aknack for doing original research. This reactionof seasoned scientists gave me clarity as well asa big psychological boost. The episode alsosolidified my interest in cosmology and generalrelativity.Soon after, therefore, I went to the UnitedStates Information Service in the Bombayconsulate and looked at brochures on Ph.D.programs in physics. I found just two whichspecialized in these areas: Maryland andAustin, Texas. I applied to both. Mary-landreplied saying that did not consider studentsfrom India unless they had a M.Sc. But, as Ilater learned, largely because ofrecommendation letters from Professors Chitreand Udgoankar, Austin took a risk and offeredme graduate admission and assistantship.Throughout the application process ProfessorUdgoankar took time to discuss career pathswith me, weighed the pros and cons of joiningTIFR versus going to Austin, and finallyadvised me to go, largely because he thought Ineeded solid graduate course work, which wasnot readily available in TIFR at the time, andbecause I showed keen interest in generalrelativity which was not represented at TIFR.As it turned out I stayed only briefly in Austinand transferred to the University of Chicagoto work with Professor Geroch in the newRelativity group that Professor Chandrasekharhad just created. I then had the good fortuneof seeing Professor Udgoankar again, albeitbriefly, when he came to a particle physicsconference in Chicago in 72-73.I have always felt tremendously fortunatethat Professor Udgoankar decided to takeinterest in undergraduates at BombayUniversity precisely the year I went to Bombayfrom Kolhapur to join the Institute of Science.As years pass, I find it increasinglyincredulous that he was so generous with histime for undergraduates of me. Three othersfrom our group of six have gone on to leadproductive scientific careers - Ajit Kembhavi,an astro-physicist; S. Krishnan, a biophysicistand Sanjay Limaye, an astronomer/meteorologist. So the ‘yield’ was high. To allof us, the TIFR sessions Professor Udgoankararranged were precious; they exposed us toexciting frontiers and gave us a taste forcreative thinking which, alas, was all too rarein our undergraduate education. Thesestimulating contacts came just at the righttime. They let us take our first flights into theexciting frontiers of physics. They taught ushow natural and simple it is to spread one’swings, and what a great joy it is to fly highover intellectual landscapes of Science. Notsurprisingly, that thrill and joy has beenaddictive. Although nearly four decades havepassed, it still continues to bring the deepestjoy and satisfaction.A million thanks, Professor Udgoankar!Institute for Gravitational Physics and Geometry& Physics Department, Penn Statee-mail : ashtekar@gravity.psu10

My Recollections ofProfessor B. M. UdgaonkarProf. Mustansir BarmaIt was some time in the second half of the1960s, and I was a student enrolled in the B.Sc.course in Physics at St. Xavier’s College,Mumbai. Several of my classmates and I hadrecently bought the bright red 3-volume‘Lectures in Physics’ by Richard Feynman. Wewould make sporadic attempts at trying to reallyunderstand what Feynman says — a task thatproved quite difficult, despite the deceptivelyinformal and chatty style of the author.It was some time in our penultimate yearin college, I think, that we learned about aninformal study group being formed at the TataInstitute of Fundamental Research, forinterested students to come and discuss theFeynman lectures and accompanying exercises,on Saturdays. We had heard that thediscussions would be organized by a couple ofprofessors at TIFR, and a bunch of us students,from various colleges, showed up. This was thefirst time I met Prof. Udgaonkar, who, alongwith Prof. Yash Pal, conducted the discussions(most ably assisted by Kailash Rustagi and P.K. Babu, who were then graduate students atTIFR). I did not explicitly recognize it then, butI was a beneficiary of Prof. Udgaonkar’s longstandingengagement with physics educationand pedagogy.The discussions went well, and we students(who included Adi Bulsara from St. Xavier’s,Madhav Marathe from Ruia College, and AbhayAshtekar from the Institute of Science) got a lotout of it. Prof. Udgaonkar made sure that all ofus participated. I remember that I was sent upto the blackboard by him, and was asked tomake a binomial expansion with a smallparameter x. I was very nervous, but managedto write down the first couple of terms, underthe firm but friendly gaze of Prof. Udgaonkar.The strongest impression that remains in mymemory of these discussions, four decades later,is that Prof. Udgaonkar would always guide thediscussion towards trying to get to the essenceof the phenomenon under discussion, behindthe mathematical formalism. In retrospect, thesediscussions were very important for me — notonly from the point of view of solving theexercises that go with the Feynman lectures, butalso, more importantly, to get a glimpse of howphysics works, and how a physicist thinks.My next encounter with Prof. Udgaonkarhappened about a decade later, towards the endof 1976, when I first joined TIFR as a postdoctoralfellow. I joined the Theoretical Physics Groupat the Institute, which was headed by Prof.Udgaonkar. An important activity of the groupwas the Theoretical Physics Seminar, held everyFriday at 4 p.m., and Prof. Udgaonkar wasalways present, seated in the front row. Duringthis time, his engagement with physicseducation continued, and I remember refreshercourses for college teachers organized by him,held in the ground floor lecture halls of theInstitute. Within TIFR, he initiated several newprogrammes. These included the VisitingStudents’ Research Programme (VSRP) in which11

students from all over the country visit TIFR forseveral weeks during summer, and get a handsonidea of research by doing projects, in additionto attending lectures. This programme has beena great success, and continues till today. He alsoinitiated a joint teaching programme incollaboration with the University of Poona.Although this programme did not continue formany years, it did produce some outstandingstudents who have gone on to make a mark.During these years, I came to know Prof.Udgaonkar rather well, through the followingcircumstance. I lived off-campus, and wouldwait every morning to catch the TIFR bus fromthe stop near the Naval Canteen. Very often,Prof. Udgaonkar (who lived further away)would be driving in to work, and would honk,stop and pick me up on the way. In the 10minute ride that followed, we would talk aboutvarious subjects. I learned a lot during thesedrives — as the subjects ranged over a largenumber of topics, including new developmentsin physics, students and education, Pugwashconferences and more.Another capacity in which I, and manyother academics at TIFR, benefited from Prof.Udgaonkar’s perspicacity, was in theestablishment of a co-operative housing societyin Vashi, in Navi Mumbai. Prof. Udgaonkarwas the driving force behind the founding ofthe society in the early nineteen eighties, wheremany ex-TIFR members now live. He was thefirst chairman, and his guidance was invaluable,both in the formative stages and in the yearsthat followed.Prof. Udgaonkar’s interest in physicseducation continues unabated even today.Earlier this year, I met him at the Homi BhabhaCentre for Science Education at a functionorganized at the end of a camp organized bythe centre to train and select students for theInternational Physics Olympiads. Over theyears, all of us in the TIFR family have benefitedenormously from Prof. Udgaonkar’s clearthinking, commitment and wisdom. Personally,I greatly value my association with him over thepast four decades starting from my college days,and would like to wish him all the very best onthe occasion of his eightieth birthday.Department of Theoretical PhysicsTata Institute of Fundamental ResearchHomi Bhabha Road, Mumbai 400 005e-mail : barma@they.tifr.res.in12

Handcrafting a futurefor tomorrowProf. Prabuddha GanguliReminiscing on the decades gone by, I fondlyrecall my first meeting with Professor B. M.Udgaonkar, as an undergraduate student. Wewere a handful of students in Mumbai keen toexplore the facets of science beyond our formalcurriculum. An obvious option was to form ascience study group with a mentor who wouldshow us the path to tomorrow. “You shouldmeet Professor Udgaonkar in TIFR and he isonly a phone call away”, said one of ourteachers. What followed then is irreversiblyetched in our minds.A warm and encouraging voice at the otherend of the phone invited us to visit theenchanting TIFR campus for a discussion. Thencame the moment of truth… we were inProfessor Udgaonkar’s office engulfed by hiscalm reassuring warmth - a feeling that runsthrough me even as I re-live that excitingmoment. Within minutes was born our NationalScience Talent Scholars’ Science Study Groupwith an umbilical link to Professor Udgaonkar!Despite his intense academic pursuits andcommitments in national S&T activities, heexcavated time for the young hungry minds. Hisunstinting support and guidance in our mostformative years when it was needed andmentoring us with the involvement of severalfaculty members in TIFR, gave us the uniqueplatform to glimpse the exciting scientificlandscape and chart our paths to the future. Nowords of gratitude are adequate to express ourgratefulness to this man who has silently andcontinually been responsible for kindling thespark and fueling the curiosity flame in severalhundreds of juvenile minds.Years later I was one of those privileged fewto have joined the graduate school in TIFR topursue a PhD programme in the School ofPhysics. The TIFR campus opened floodgatesof opportunities to proximate with ProfessorUdgaonkar. He steered our enthusiasm tocontribute to developing science curricula andteaching materials and methods forimplementation in diverse institutions inMumbai. During the early 70’s severalcatalysing factors were created in TIFR, whichmatured in an environment that was conducivefor the evolution of science teachingprogrammes with intense involvement of many.Interestingly these efforts especially thepassionate involvement of Dr V.G. Kulkarni’steam in Mumbai’s Municipal Schools, andastute visionary leadership of ProfessorUdgaonkar, went into fruition with theestablishment of the Homi Bhabha Centre forScience Education.The decade of the 70’s also experienced thestart of innovative activities in science educationwith TIFR connections, such as “KishoreBharati” one of its activities being christened asThe Hoshangabad Science TeachingProgramme, The Satellite InstructionalTelevision Experiment (SITE), and The BombayAssociation for Science Education (BASE). Formany of us who got involved with such13

programmes, derived a lot of energy and vigourfrom Professor Udgaonkar, in addition toestablishing viable infrastructure, the challengewas to garner appropriate resource persons andProfessor Udgaonkar’s contributions in thisdirection are noteworthy.Professor Udgaonkar’s innovative skillsbroke new grounds in the creation of innovativeoptions within the University GrantsCommission (UGC). He was able to break awayfrom traditions and introduce a scheme in whichfaculty members from the Delhi Universitycould go on a sabbatical for extended periodsunder the UGC to participate in theHoshangabad Science Teaching Programmethereby creating a sustainable and formallyrecognised conduit for University partnering aneducational programme in Rural India. Thiswas the first step of its kind then in India. Theseinitiatives have paved the way to a host ofnational schemes that followed.The hallmark of a thought-leader andreformer is when he is able to seed his thoughts,nurture, grow and harvest them in irrigated andun-irrigated minds. Working with him closelyon several occasions was a treat as we were ableto experience his insight into situations as hesaw them, strategies as he crafted them,implementation plans as he sewed them in placeand above all giving all he did a soft butdetermined human face.An ignited mind continually radiates toinfluence the environment. ProfessorUdgaonkar is a legend with a difference - manso kind and approachable ever willing to giveeverything from his garden of choicest thoughtsand experience to anyone with a mission.The world of science and education hasbeen enriched with his immeasurablecontributions and we pray to The Almighty tocontinue showering him with good health sothat our world continues to derive inspirationfrom Professor Udgaonkar for all the yearsahead.e-mail : pgang@mtnl.net.in14

My ColleagueDr. P. K. IyengarUdgaonkar and I were colleagues at TIFR in the early 1950s.That was the time when Homi Bhabha recruited non-PhDholders in Physics each year, to be trained in to research and formthe backbone of the work of the DAE. This was in contrast to theconcepts in higher education practiced by the university system atthat time. It is therefore not surprising that Prof. Udgaonkar whojoined TIFR with an M.Sc degree, has shone so well in theoreticalphysics, elementary particle physics, physics education and inpromoting new applications of science in social life. It was a uniqueopportunity for many of us to freely discuss, take lecture notes fromhighly qualified visiting professors at TIFR, and start working inexperimental physics with a modern emphasis on localinstrumentation, and try to do everything we can, for the first time inthe East of the Suez!I have personally known that Home Bhabha liked Prof.Udgaonkar and respected his abilities. He sent him abroad on severalmissions, the first one being to Saclay in Paris, to the French AEC.Here he became an expert in theoretical reactor physics and built upa group in that area. This group eventually, under B.P. Rastogi, movedto Trombay and became the Theoretical Physics group in BARC.It is a pleasure to remind oneself that this familiarity,steadfastness in pursuing the interests of the country in the field ofatomic energy has continued and Prof. Udgaonkar has supportedBARC immensely in every instance of major events. He had, of course,wider interests, which resulted in the seeding of the Homi BhabhaCentre for Science Education, and activities in the UGC and in thePlanning Commission. I want to remind people that it is the qualityof pure science that enables one to rationally analyse situations andtake the right decisions that makes one’s life worthy of emulation.I am happy to contribute this small reminiscence on the occasionof the 80 th birthday of Prof. Udgaonkar.e-mail : pk.Iyengar@mtnl.net.in15

My Reminiscences ofProfessor B. M. UdgaonkarDr. S. K. JoshiIt is a satisfaction and pleasure for me to godown the memory lane and record here somerecollection of time spent with Professor B. M.Udgaonkar over a period of four decades. Thememories of times spent in the company offriends and scholars like Udgaonkar are aharvest of old age for me.When did I first meet Udgaonkar? The firsttime I saw him was in the summer of 1966 atthe Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) inChicago. I had gone to Argonne as a summervisitor from the University of California (UC)at Riverside. I was a visiting lecturer at UCRiverside during 1965-67. In summer of 1966 Isaw an announcement of a seminar by B. M.Udgaonkar at Argonne. Udgaonkar was thenheading the Theoretical Physics group of theTata Institute of Fundamental Research,Mumbai, a national centre for basic research.The topic of Udgaonkar‘s seminar (Regge PolesPhenomenology) was quite outside the domainof my interest (Solid State Physics), but I wentto the seminar because Udgaonkar whose nameI heard back home was the speaker. His seminarwas well received and after the seminar therewas prolonged discussion. Because of myshyness I did not go to him and introducemyself, and most probably he did not notice mealso.Our next meeting was some four yearslater at the University of Roorkee (UOR). I hadjoined Roorkee University in 1967 straightfrom University of California, Riverside asProfessor of Physics and Head of at theDepartment at a relatively young age of thirtytwo years. Due to the dedicated effort ofyoung faculty members of the Departmentwho were a motivated lot, the Departmentvery quickly earned quite a reputation forresearch and teaching. The departmenthosted the 1969 Nuclear Physics and SolidState Physics Symposium of the Departmentof Atomic Energy from December 28 to 31,1969. Professor Udgaonkar also came toRoorkee during the symposium because hewas already interested in problems of highereducation. He wanted to visit universities andunderstand the problems faced by them. Heorganized an evening session in Roorkeesymposium for a discussion on how tostrengthen Physics research in India. Thesession was successful and participantssuggested the formation of an Indian PhysicsAssociation (IPA) to deal with issues ofresearch and education in Physics. The IndianPhysics Association was finally formed in1971 and Professor Udgaonkar was theobvious choice for leading it as the founderPresident. The Association started publicationof Physics News, a quarterly with Udgaonkaras editor. Frontier fields of physics werepresented in a simple language for students.Editorials of Physics News written byUdgaonkar touched on national issues, andwere popular with the readership. The IndianAcademy of Sciences, under the leadership of16

Professor S. Ramaseshan had improved thecontent and quality of journals brought outby it. The Indian Academy of Sciences incollaboration with Indian Physics Associationand Indian National Science Academydecided to publish a journal of physics calledPramana.Udgaonkar started writing and lecturingon education and development, and challengesof higher education. It was in the fitness ofthings that he was appointed a member of theUniversity Grants Commissions (UGC) inJanuary 1973 for a period of three years. Hecame to the commission as a member from thebest centre of fundamental research in India,that is TIFR, Mumbai, and he had hadextended stays at the topmost institutions inthe world like Institute for Advances Studies,Princeton, Lawrence Radiation Laboratories,Berkely, Centre d‘ Etudes Nuclear, Paris etc.He, therefore, persuaded the Commission(UGC) to constitute Programme AdvisoryCommittees (PAC) for different disciplines,whose mandate was to promote qualityteaching and research, in universities and tosanction research projects to teachers withspeed.The first Physics PAC was chaired byUdgaonkar and I was a member. Thus startedour close and lasting affinity. Working with himin the PAC was an education for me. A largenumber of schemes for promoting research andquality teaching were introduced by Udgaonkar. Whenever I came with good suggestions, heencouraged me and implemented them througha Commission decision. Udgaonkar veryactively participated in setting up of HomiBhabha Centre for Science Education (HBCSE)at TIFR. Today this centre is serving the causeof promotion of science education in anadmirable way.I got an opportunity to work withUdgaonkar again from 1983 to 1990, first in theDepartment of Atomic Energy (DAE)Committee which recommended the take overof Institute of Physics (IOP) Bhubaneswar bythe DAE, from the State government.Udgaonkar was the first Chairman of theCouncil and I was a member from 1985 to 1990.His chairmanship and Professor TrilochanPradhan‘s leadership of IOP put it on the wayto becoming one of the leading centers ofresearch in physics in India.I learnt a lot from the meetings he chaired.He showed how it pays to be a patient listener.He was always soft spoken and persuasive,critical and analytical. He was friendly but firm.He was objective in his decisions. He expressedhis opinions clearly and honestly but with aspirit of courtesy and humility.I shall always cherish my association withProfessor Udgaonkar during the seventies andeighties. May God Almighty make him live a100 years and we pray for his health andhappiness.e-mail : skjoshi@mail.nplindia.ernet.in17

Our Dear and ReveredSenior ColleagueProf. (Dr.) S. S. KapoorProf. Udgaonkar was my teacher of Quantum Mechanics inthe training school of the then called AEET-Atomic EnergyEstablishment Trombay. But the memory of those lectures isstill quite vivid in my mind, which speaks amply about howgood and influential a teacher he is. It is then not surprising tome that he has distinguished himself not only as an eminentscientist, but also as an outstanding educationist by making amark on science education in the country through his innovativecontributions.During these last five decades I have had many occasionsto talk and interact with Prof. Udgaonkar. In particular, duringthe period of 1983-89, when Prof. R. P. Sharma and I wereengaged in the setting up of the BARC-TIFR Medium EnergyHeavy- Ion Accelerator (MEHIA) facility at TIFR, I had morefrequent interactions with him, and had greatly benefited byhis encouragement and guidance. In those days, he wasproviding us much motivation to see that the super-conductingLINAC booster, which was being set up indigenously issuccessfully completed. I am sure he will be very happy to seethat today the MEHIA facility has become a world class heavyionaccelerator facility, and the TIFR has become a renownedcentre of heavy-ion accelerator based research.Prof. Udgaonkar has not only been a distinguished researchscientist in theoretical physics, but has also left a deep impactin the field of science education by his valuable contributions tothe cause of improvement in the quality of science education inthe country. Of course, taking a lead from his work, there is alot which yet needs to be done to improve the quality of educationin the country. I hope the upcoming conference will also addressitself to these issues to arrive at some concrete suggestions forthe future.INSA Senior (Emeritus) Scientist, BARC(Ex-DAE Homi Bhabha Professor & Director,Physics Group, BARC)e-mail : kapoorss_2002@yahoo.com18

Professor B M Udgaonkar –An Erudite Educationist at Heart!Dr. P. J. LavakareIcame to know Prof. Udgaonkar first at theTata Institute of Fundamental Research(TIFR), when I started my research career in thesixties. At the time he was already a recognisedauthority in theoretical particle physics at theinstitute. Not being a theoretical physicistmyself, I never had the opportunity of workingwith him. But over the years, I noticed that apartfrom his research activities, he had startedtaking a lot of interest in teaching, particularlyat the postgraduate level. It is this aspect of hispersonality that attracted me to him much moreand I started interacting with him more in thisarea where I found a common wavelength withhim.It was rather unusual, if not appalling, fora research scientist from TIFR to be takinginterest in University education, whereunfortunately research was not the focus of theacademic life. Prof. Udgaonkar took a lead intrying to bring TIFR scientists closer to the highereducation scene in Bombay University. Hefought a long battle to bring TIFR closer toeducation in India. This surely would haveaffected his concentration in research. But in theend his concern for education was recognisedby the management. TIFR took a bold step insetting up the Homi Bhabha Centre for ScienceEducation. Efforts of Prof. Udgaonkar and lateDr. V. G. Kulkarni, who spearheaded theCentre, came to fruition with the setting up ofthis Centre. The Centre is now playing a majorrole in encouraging science talent and scienceteaching in the country. We owe to Prof.Udgaonkar, our sincere gratitude, for thisunique contribution to the country.Over the years, as I left TIFR, I continuedmy association with Prof. Udgaonkar in analtogether a new facet of his career. His interestsin Science had by now expanded beyondResearch and Education. He was looking atScience and Technology as a tool for nationaldevelopment. He got deeply involved in theInternational Pugwash Movement of worldscientists who were concerned about the misuseof Science and Technology that had threatenedworld peace. This movement was initiated bygreat men like Bertrand Russell and AlbertEinstein, who appealed to humanity to look atscience as the means for promoting peace andadvocated disarmament at global level.Prof. Udgaonkar was attracted to this newimplication of Science and took active part inthe Pugwash Movement together with severalother Indian scientists from the country. He wasalways very outspoken at these Pugwashconferences and often criticized the westernworld for showing a sense of hegemonic attitude19

towards the ownership of science and notshowing adequate concern for thedevelopmental needs of the third worldcountries. He took the Pugwash agenda beyondthe disarmament issues and highlighted theimportance of development of the third worldcountries through Science and Technology. Hepointed out the inadequacies of the methods ofcollaboration, between the developed and thedeveloping countries in the field of Science andTechnology. In his strong commitment forinternational collaboration, he wanted the worldto follow guidelines that would be equitable toall. He went ahead and involved some of us informulating and convincing the western worldto adopt the now well-known “Pugwashguidelines for international collaboration inScience and Technology”.Prof Udgaonkar has been very erudite andforceful in his writings, which could not be easilyignored by the western world. I do hope thatthe spirit of ‘Science Education with Research’that Prof. Udgaonkar has evoked on the IndianScience scene will continue and I am sure hewill have a lot more to contribute to this field ashe enters a new stage of his life in his eighties.Without his knowing perhaps, he has beenmy ‘guru’ when it comes to Science Research,Education and Development. On my birthdaytoday, I have the pleasure in writing these fewwords and accepting this role that Prof.Udgaonkar has so beautifully outlined.I wish him a long life and hope he willcontinue to write many more of his forcefultreaties on various issues related to Science.e-mail : lavakare@vsnl.com20

Thank you Prof. Udgaonkarfor your investment inthe studentsDr. Sanjay S. LimayeSometime during early 1968, I was called intothe office of Prof. V.T. Chiplunkar at theInstitute of Science in Mumbai. Although I hadno reason to worry, being called into the officeof the Head of the Physics Department wassomewhat unusual. Not entirely immune fromthe age appropriate tendency for mischief, I wasnevertheless a good student, and so I walkedinto his office wondering what the reason couldbe. Prof. Chiplunkar, in his calm steady voiceexplained that he had received a visit from Prof.Udgaonkar of the Tata Institute forFundamental Research (TIFR) in Colaba toinvite bright students for a once weekopportunity to interact with the physicalscientists and engage in Physics projects, andwould I be interested in going. This was such awonderful chance to visit TIFR not just once,but weekly was so exciting, that I immediatelysaid yes. After almost forty years, I can see thatthis impacted my own career in a way that Iwould have not predicted myself then.Unlike most other students of the time, I hada somewhat different, perhaps fortunatebackground. I had joined the Institute of Sciencethrough a happenstance that was in itself,somewhat unusual. Having been schooled inDelhi, I was not able to enter Delhi University orany other engineering colleges (e.g. the IITs) afterHigher Secondary for technical reasons. Havingbeen selected for a National Science Talent SearchScholarship offered by the Govt. of India, myparents allowed me to leave home and enroll inBombay for college to pursue science instead ofengineering when I was barely sixteen. Comingfrom a scientifically literate family (both my fatherand grandfather were research chemists),scientific research was not new to me, but Physicswas. The culture of research had changed in theyears since the grand days of Physics, from beingmore individual to group oriented as the requiredfacilities were expensive to build and maintain.And in the previous summer, I had attended aSummer School for Science Talent Scholars inBangalore, which had further raised my curiosityin Physics, particularly Radio Astronomy – atopic, which was being researched at TIFR.The weekly visits soon started – there werejust a few of us – a few from the Institute ofScience, and S. Krishnan from Ruparel College.We would board the white (BARC-TIFR) shuttlebus near Oval Maidan and ride to the institute,or take the BEST Route 123 to R.C. Church andgo to Navy Nagar. The first visit to TIFR wasquite memorable – first arriving at the GuardCabin by the road – who must have wonderedwhat four young lads were doing there, andthen entering the beautiful well kept grassyopen space by the sea – it was visually veryattractive indeed. The building itself presenteditself an example good architectural design withvisual appeal contrasted with the grandsomewhat gothic stone building that housed theInstitute of Science. I don’t recall much of the21

first session with Prof. Udgaonkar, and Prof.Yash Pal, but remember them introducing to thestaff and informing us that we could visit thecafeteria, attend seminars at TIFR and couldparticipate in some small projects on our knownwith their guidance. We were mostly interactingwith the High Energy Physics Group, which wasundertaking high altitude balloon flights fordetection of cosmic rays. Then young scientists,S.V. Damle, later a Professor at TIFR and R.K.Manchanda were two with whom I had manyencounters much later at conferences in mycareer.One of the problems that I initially tried tosolve was an optical one – the geometry ofparticle tracks imaged at close distance in a glasscylinder from two orthogonal directions. Thecylinder was one of two identical glass chamberswith aluminium plates at each end and an outleton the wall, to become a bubble chamber (firstdeveloped by Luis Alvarez, who later wasawarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for it. Later,he became more famous along with his geologistson, Walter Alvarez and other colleagues for thediscovery of the Iridium layer at the cretaceoustertiary,or KT boundary that led to theirsuggestion of an asteroid impact nearly 65million years ago). The particle tracks createdfrom elementary particle interactions with thefluid in the chambers would leave bubbles,which would be photographed by two cameras,and the task was to re-construct the threedimensionalpath from images of the bubblesalong the track. I recall having intensediscussions with Abhay Ashtekar about theimpact of parallax, being somewhat moreexperiment oriented, whereas he preferred fartheoretical problems. We had an opportunityto experience the “lab culture” bay having towork with the technical staff in the workshopslocated in the basements as well as attendingthe scientific seminars – (one the morechallenging and tedious seminars I recallattending in the packed auditorium was onegiven by Sir Fred Hoyle, which in itself wassomewhat educational, although in ways hewould not have guessed!).While there was no formal program, thesevisits exposed me to many aspects the cultureof research in physical sciences and had theopportunity to observe closely the dedication,the persistence and the joy of success.Experiences that even having grown up withaccess my grandfather’s chemical researchlaboratory, I was not able to experience as I wasa mere child then. These experiences wereuseful in my career in exploring the solar systemthrough space exploration.The foresight of Prof. Udgaonkar and hiscolleagues in investing in the youth was extraordinary indeed at the time in what was afterall, a government laboratory. Given the presentgreater need for capable scientists for India’snumerous research laboratories, such efforts areessential for attracting young, talented studentsto the field so that the investment in themproduces a tangible return that will impact thecountry. The contribution of their expertise,knowledge and time was very valuable indeed,and I am grateful for the opportunity. There wascertainly no hesitation on my part to impartsimilar opportunities to high school studentswhen it became possible for me to do so. Beyondthat, the communication of exciting researchand exploration results and working withteachers for professional development hasbecome routine for me. I find it inspirationalthat Professor Udgaonkar is still engaged activeat the Homi Bhabha Centre for ScienceEducation. It is a pleasure to thank him on theoccasion of his 80 th birthday.Space Science and Engineering Center,University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, USAe-mail : Sanjay_L@ssec.wisc.edu22

My Greetings to Bhal…Dr. Jayant NarlikarIam happy to associate myself with the happyoccasion when friends and admirers ofBhalchandra Udgaonkar are celebrating hiseightieth birthday. I am proud to count myselfas one of them. As I will be abroad at the timeof celebration, I am sending my greetings to Bhalin advance of the occasion.My association with Bhal dates back to thelate sixties. I had seen his name on the scroll ofhonour at Mumbai’s Institute of Science, in alist that carries names of my father and HomiBhabha. But the chance to meet him arose whenI dropped in to see him at the Tata Institute ofFundamental Research (TIFR), on one of myvisits from Cambridge. I was then contemplatingjoining TIFR, and had found that a discussionwith a scientist already working there might beuseful. Indeed I found the chat useful in formingmy overall picture of what life in Mumbai,working in TIFR would be like.When I joined TIFR, I was given an officeon the fourth floor next to Bhal’s and it wasalways a pleasure to drop in on him for someadvice or other. For, I found him to be afountainhead of experience and wisdom. In hisviews he was quiet but firm: not offering themunless specifically asked for. We discovered anolder link. I was trained in the campus ofBanaras Hindu University and there my familyknew Bhal’s in-laws. His father in law was thedistinguished historian A. S. Altekar, andShreedhar, ASA’s youngest son had been myschool-mate.As I got to know TIFR better, I began toappreciate the role Bhal was playing as a seniorfaculty member. Whereas most of ourcolleagues were concerned only with their ownresearch, very few of them realised orappreciated the importance of teaching. Bhalwas one of the latter. He took interest in thegraduate school programme, planning courses,interacting with research scholars, and also inthe initial interviews that selected them. Sadly,the then constitution of TIFR did not permitinteraction with undergraduates. But still Bhalkept in touch with the bright physics studentsfrom Bombay University. Even today I meet(now distinguished) scientists who hadinteracted with Bhal as undergraduatestudents.As a member of the University GrantsCommission, Bhal had to deal with importantpolicy issues of universities. There he broughtto bear on the problems the inputs from workingin a research institute like TIFR. In the UGC,such inputs are always valuable whether inmatters of degrees, courses or syllabi.He was always trying to build bridgesbetween universities and TIFR. I wasassociated with the teaching collaborationbetween Pune University Physics and TIFR inthe mid-1980s. This involved selection of somebright students for the Pune University M. Sc.Physics course, awarding them scholarshipand also having some TIFR scientists teachingcourses in the M. Sc. programme. I believe Bhal23

lectured on dynamics while I took the courseon electromagnetic theory. This involvedspending 3-4 days in Pune each week, stayingon the university campus and interacting withthe students. I found the experienceexhilarating and was sorry that theprogramme did not continue for variousreasons. I think one of the reasons was thatthe TIFR faculty did not share enoughenthusiasm for such teaching.I think it was Bhal’s active encouragementat the other end of the student spectrum thatled to the flourishing of the Homi BhabhaCentre for Science Education. Aimed at schooleducation, the Centre concentrates on teachertraining in science, the writing of goodtextbooks and enhancing the role ofexperiments. With Bhal on the GoverningBoard, the Director of the Centre, V. G.Kulkarni could reach out for higher and higheraims.I end this tribute to BMU by recalling hissuccessful presidency of the Marathi VidnyanParishad, when he introduced several newprogrammes and diversified the scope ofactivities of the Parishad. This was one instanceof his concern for bridging the gap betweenthe ivory-tower scientist and the common man.Although he worked a lot for enlightening thegeneral public he himself shunned publicityand was more comfortable working fromsidelines.I wish him many years of active andsatisfying life ahead.IUCAA, Punee-mail : jvn@iucaa.ernet.in24

Prof. B. M. Udgaonkar -A "Live Wire" personalityProf. S. B. PatelIt was the year 1966. Some of us at theRamnarain Ruia College had fallen in lovewith Physics and took admission to the M.Sc.class, with Nuclear Physics as our specialsubject. One day, our teacher, Prof. R. D.Godbole, called some of us aside and told thatwe shall be meeting Prof. B. M. Udgaonkar,Head of Theory Group at the TIFR, to discussaspects of our M. Sc. programme in physics.There was no University Department of Physicsthen and we had to run from one college toanother to attend the lectures….. and sometimesall the effort would be wasted as for some reasonthe lecture could not take place. We met Prof.Udgaonkar at his Anand Bhavan residence andunburdened ourselves! His charmingpersonality captivated us and from that day hebecame our friend and mentor. He took our“outburst” (read opinions) very seriously andhis positive attitude filled us with a sense of hopefor the future.Prof. Udgaonkar around that time was alsoa member of the UGC and played a very activerole in the commission. I remember once whenin the UGC office in Delhi, I had an opportunityto talk to Prof. Rais Ahmed who was then theVice Chairman of the UGC. At the mention ofProf. Udgaonkar’s name his face lit up and hesaid spontaneously “Prof. Udgaonkar is themost live-wire personality I had ever comeacross!” As I saw more facets of Prof.Udgaonkar’s personality, I realized how true thewords of Prof. Rais Ahmed’s were!Prof. Udgaonkar’s contributions to thefunctioning of the UGC were enormous. The FIP(Faculty Improvement Programme) for collegeTeachers was essentially his baby. As aprecursor to the FIP, he introduced theSabbatical Programme for college physicsteachers in Mumbai, under the UGC umbrella.A college physics teacher could thus get anopportunity to spend an year or more at the TIFRand get involved in frontline research. The UGCwould pay salary of the substitute teacherappointed by the college, during the entireprogramme. Some of us, thus got anopportunity to earn a Ph. D. in physics fromthe TIFR graduate school and we could feel anacademic breeze blowing in the corridors ofcolleges affiliated to the University of Mumbai.I must add here that Prof. Udgaonkar insistedon completing all the course work requirementof the TIFR graduate school, before eventhinking of getting registered for the Ph. D.programme! This clearly shows his penchant forquality.Prof. Udgaonkar realized that the qualityof education depends critically on two pillars:one quality of the teachers and two the degreeof autonomy given to the teachers andinstitutions. He pushed the idea of“Autonomous colleges” through the UGC. Thisgreat step gave an opportunity to many collegesto raise the standards of their academic effortsthrough the academic freedom given toteachers to be innovative and responsible.25

Many teachers could achieve their fullpotential. Unfortunately, so far, colleges inMumbai have not been able to take advantageand academic initiatives, in this visionary effort,pioneered by Prof. Udgaonkar and hiscolleagues at the UGC.Another very exciting activity initiated byProf. Udgaonkar, in which many of us gotinvolved, was the “Wednesday meetings” atthe TIFR. Every Wednesday, many of us—mainly college teachers—visited TIFR and afterattending the colloquium, Prof. Udgaonkarconducted a session in which we discussedquantum mechanics. Each Wednesday, one ofus would prepare a short presentation on atopic from the “Quantum Mechanics” byMerzbacher and our group of about 15-20would discuss it with Prof. Udgaonkar, whoalso could persuade some of his colleagues atTIFR to participate in the discussions. Thesediscussions were exciting and some time wouldeven go on for 2 or more hours. Everyoneenjoyed this activity and looked forward toWednesdays. Even senior teachers like, Prof.R. D. Godbole, Prof. V. M. Palekar and Prof.Madhu Dandavate (who became the cabinetminister for railways in the Janata Govt.),participated in these Wednesday meetingswith great enthusiasm. Prof. Udgaonkar,strived hard to raise standards, wherever hewent. It is due to his encouragement, I couldget involved in post-doctoral research at theLawrence Berkeley Laboratory, University ofCalifornia at Berkeley. My researchinvolvement at TIFR and later at Berkeley,changed my entire outlook towards researchand teaching.Later in 1972, he could persuade hiscolleague, Prof. M. C. Joshi to join the newlyformed University Department of Physics at theKalina Campus of Mumbai University. In facthe was the moving spirit behind the launchingof the Department. How some of us wish thatthe University had accepted all his suggestionsat that time by showing academic flexibility—by capturing his vision, we could have reachedfar greater heights!Prof. Udgaonkar is a great, highlymotivating teacher. In the second year of ourM. Sc. programme he taught us some aspectsof particle physics, and I vividly remember hisbeautiful exposition of the “boot-strap” idea,a frontline topic in those days. He couldmotivate many of his colleagues from TIFR andBARC to participate in teaching, e. g. Dr. AjayDivetia, who designed and headed theCyclotron project at Calcutta, taught us acourse on experimental physics. Theestablishment of the Homi Bhabha Centre forScience Education is another testimony of Prof.Udgaonkar’s relentless efforts in the field ofeducation.On the occasion of his 80 th Birthday, Iwould like to salute Prof. Udgaonkar and wishhim and his family a very good health and activelife ahead.Formerly, Head of the Physics Department,University of Mumbai, Vidyanagari,Mumbai 400 098e-mail : shriprakash.patel@gmail.com26

Fine Human beingDr. Bal PhondkeIdistinctly remember when I first met ProfBhalchandra Udgaonkar, though I am notsure he does. But then how could he? For I wasone among some fifty odd Physics trainees fromthe fourth batch of the Atomic Energy TrainingSchool whom he had come to teach ReactorPhysics. He was to give a series of lectures onthat topic which was new to us. We were amixed bunch drawn from all over the country,some from renowned universities others fromnewly established ones in the hinterland. Whilemost of us had already acquired a master’sdegree some others had joined straight after theirB. Sc. Still. none of us had studied ReactorPhysics till then. This was because the disciplinewas so new that it had not yet been included inthe university curricula. Even on the world stageit was still being developed.Yet, Prof Udgaonkar made it all sound verysimple. His talks were very lucid and easilycomprehensible though he had notcompromised on the rigour anywhere. Hecaptivated us all and the topic soon acquiredan aura of enchantment. He was able to conveyto us all the thrill of this still emerging disciplineand its utter charm. He was able to infect uswith his own enthusiasm and excitement. I didnot realise it at the time but with the benefit ofhindsight I now see that he was able to achievewhat he did because he enjoyed studying thefield himself. More importantly he took pleasurein teaching. When the series of lectures came toan inevitable end I was at once glad and sad;glad because I had just experienced how a truemaster can inspire his disciples and sad becausethat dream-like experience was over. It isentirely due to his teaching that I have notforgotten the elements of Reactor Physics theoryeven after almost fifty years when I first learntthem. Nor have I forgotten that enthrallingexperience.It was only later that I learnt that it wasnot his field of active research that beingtheoretical particle physics. Had I chosen that Iwould have continued to meet him from timeto time. But after graduating from the TrainingSchool I opted for Biophysics and went awayfrom TIFR as also from interaction with ProfUdgaonkar.Interestingly our paths crossed again whenI had left BARC and active research to take upjournalism. My decision to leave BARC andaccept the invitation to become Chief Editor ofScience Today was one of the most difficult onein my personal life and professional career. Ithad not gone down well with my scientistcolleagues. To a man everyone had warned methat I was committing professional harakiri.That was because most scientists then lookeddown upon science popularisation. Theythought that it was demeaning of a scientist tostoop down to that level.Prof Udgaonkar was among the very fewwho actively encouraged me and complementedme. He said that he wished more would follow.For, he considered science popularisation as27

science education by other means. It was a nonformalform of education according to him, Hesaid that everyone thinks that boys and girls inthe class rooms alone are students to whomscience has to be taught. Nothing can be furtherfrom the truth. Science, he said, has to be a wayof life. Its constituency, therefore, extends farand wide. Planners, policy makers, legislators,industrialists, entrepreneurs, bankers,housewives, man in the street and scientists too,just about everyone needs that education. Hisencouragement and advice helped me chalk outa new and different profile for the magazineand take it to a wider readership. Throughoutall this his love for science and science educationbecame very apparent.Prof Udgaonkar is one of those rare personswho has shunned the limelight and haspreferred to do seminal work quietly and byremaining in the background. Thereby, he hasmade those whom he gave his unstinted supportexcel and give off their best. I hope that hewould be around for a good many years moreto build another generation of thinkers andintellectuals.There are a number of qualities that hepossesses that have remained unappreciateddue to his unassuming and humble disposition.But above all he has always impressed me as avery transparent and fine human being, aspecies that is seriously threatened withextinction.e-mail : balphondke@gmail.com28

Professor B M Udgaonkarand HBCSEProf. H. C. PradhanIt was between 1965 and 1970, in the middleof a thriving research career, that ProfessorUdgaonkar started taking active interest ineducation. This, I believe, arose out of his deepsocial commitment, which was moulded as hewas growing during the days of India’s freedomstruggle. This commitment combined with hisexperience at the leading institutions in the U.S. , where universities are the main seat ofresearch, and hence research and highereducation are integrated, propelled him. Prof.Udgaonkar was responsible for the growth ofthe graduate school and the Visiting Students’Research Programme (VSRP) at TIFR. It wasnatural that this interest soon extended todevelopment of graduate studies at theUniversity of Bombay, where he had studied forhis B. Sc. and M. Sc. I was a M. Sc. student atthe university around this time and I distinctlyremember how excited and thrilled my fellowstudents and I were, when at the behest of ourteachers, Prof. Udgaonkar gave two lectures onelementary particles for us. I also recollect theconversation we had with him about our M. Sc.course at the university and the surprise anddismay he felt when he came to know that eventwenty years after independence the universityof a premier metropolis of the country did nothave an independent Department of Physicsand that M. Sc. courses at the university werebeing run by affiliated colleges with studentshopping from one college to another for theirlectures, just as they did when he himself was aM. Sc. student almost two decades earlier.Thanks to his efforts, a Department of Physicsdid get established at the university four yearslater.His restless and ever-questioning mind ledProf. Udgaonkar to think of the comprehensiveproblem of improvement of science educationin the country, and this drew him to schooleducation. With the help of Prof. V. G. Kulkarniand Dr. R. G. Lagu, colleagues at TIFR, he beganorganizing innovative teacher-trainingprogrammes for municipal schools of Mumbai.The Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education(HBCSE) grew out of the need forinstitutionalizing these efforts. Sir Dorabji TataTrust generously supported the new venture.Prof. V. G. Kulkarni decided to forsake hisburgeoning research career in nuclear physics,gave up an impending visiting position inCanada and became the founder-director of theCentre. This is the genesis of HBCSE. The Centreowes its existence to Prof. Undgaonkar’s visionand efforts. Established in 1974, the Centre wassupported as a project by the Sir Dorabji TataTrust until 1981, when the Department ofAtomic Energy, Government of India took itover and it became a part of TIFR. Over the yearsHBCSE has grown to be a unique centre in thecountry devoted to the cause of science and29

mathematics education. Acclaimed nationallyas well as internationally, it has diverseactivities, principal among which are teachertraining,student talent nurture, curriculumdevelopment and research. These activities areguided by the twin principles of equity andexcellence cherished life-long by Prof.Udgaonkar.To complete the story one must add thatProf. Udgaonkar was, while setting up andnurturing HBCSE, simultaneously pursuing hisinterest in higher education. He was a memberof the University Grants Commission (UGC)and was responsible for the establishment ofmany teacher and student training and otherneed-based programmes at the UGC includingthe setting up of the Western RegionalInstrumentation Centre at the University ofBombay.Professor Udgaonkar was the Chairmanof the Homi Bhabha Centre from 1975 to 1991.He was the mentor to Prof. V. G. Kulkarni,who continued to be HBCSE’s Centre Directorup to 1994. At every stage when HBCSE tooka major initiative, be it an academic project orbe it setting up a new campus, Prof. Kulkarnisought Prof. Udgaonkar’s guidance andcounsel. He helped Prof. Kulkarni to move toa new location at Nana Chowk when HBCSE’sactivities grew up beyond what could beaccommodated in three rooms of TIFR.Similarly, when at the next stage of expansionof activities, HBCSE dreamt to set up its ownnew campus, without Prof. Udgaonkar’s activeintervention the dream could not have becamea reality. The search of a site for the newcampus went on for almost five years. HBCSE’simpressive campus at Anushakatinagar standsas a testimony to the untiring efforts Prof.Udgaonkar and Prof. Kulkarni took for all theseyears.One of HBCSE’s major projects in the initialyears was the language project. Under thisproject, textbooks of science for classes V, VI andVII prescribed for Marathi medium schools bythe State Government of Maharashtra wererewritten with only their language simplifiedand nothing else changed. These rewritten bookswere printed and used in a large number ofmunicipal schools of Mumbai covering about15, 000 students. The results of this educationalexperiment proved beyond doubt the merits ofsimplified language in textbooks: Not only didit improve students’ comprehension of thesubject in a major way but also, it changed forthe better the classroom communicationbetween students and teachers whichsubstantially depends on the textbook. Prof.Udgaonkar was the inspiration behind theproject. He was instrumental for the initiationof another project concerning an issue close tohis heart. This was the SC/ST project, in whichthree successive batches of about 40 SC/STstudents from municipal secondary schools ofMumbai were given academic and motivationalinputs for a few hours once a week, over anextensive period (three years for every batch).The result convincingly demonstrated that ifthose inputs, which are available form theirhomes to students from privileged sections ofthe society, are given to the SC/ST students.They do equally well.It was again Prof. Udgaonkar whosuggested a then young member of the Centre,now Prof. Jayashree Ramadas, to take upresearch in learning, in particular, study of the30

work of the famous cognitive psychologist, JeanPiaget. HBCSE today has a very active researchprogramme in cognitive science. Prof. ArvindKumar, the present Director of HBCSE,conducted for thirteen years without a break aunique talent nurture programme forundergraduate students in physics, the HomiBhabha Study Circle, in which the students usedto meet for a 4 -hour session per week to discussand solve problems in core areas of physics suchas quantum mechanics, classical mechanics,electromagnetic theory and thermodynamics.The study circle was a precursor to the latereminently successful student talent nurtureprogramme of HBCSE like the Olympiadprogramme and the National Initiative inUndergraduate Studies (NIUS). The idea of thestudy circle came from similar efforts of Prof.Udgaonkar. He had conducted a similarprogramme earlier at TIFR.Prof. Udgaonkar has an innate sense ofmoral responsibility, which he hasmeticulously guarded throughout his life. Evenduring his long tenure as Chairman of HBCSE,since he was not a member of the staff ofHBCSE, he never interfered with HBCSE’s dayto day activities. After his retirement from TIFRin 1991, he handed over his Chairmanship toProf. Virendra Singh, Director TIFR. Prof.Udgaonkar maintains regular contact withHBCSE and is always available to us for adviceand discussions. We all seek his counsel andconsidered opinions on a variety of matters,academic and non-academic. Yet till todayProf. Udgaonkar’s principle of noninterferencehas operated unfailingly andimmaculately.His eminence as a distinguished seniorscientist and educationist of the country haslent all HBCSE’s activities a kind of credibility.But this has never found expression in hisbehaviour, not even in any casual conversation.In fact, it is his eminence combined with hissense of social commitment and moralresponsibility and his genteel manner ofexpressing them, that attracted Prof. V. G.Kulkarni and Dr. R. G. Lagu earlier and Dr.Arvind Kumar later to the endeavour of scienceeducation. This charisma, if I may say so,continues even to date, though without everbeing explicitly evident. Younger members ofHBCSE regularly keep discussing andconsulting Prof. Udgaonkar about theirprojects and research, and this includes diversetopics such as history and philosophy ofscience, theories of learning, activities in schoolscience and mathematics laboratories andOlympiads. We, all members of HBCSE, feelfortunate, proud and privileged to have Prof.Udgaonkar with us. We wish him continuedfulfilling, active life for many many more years.HBCSE, TIFR, Mumbai 400 088e-mail : hcp@hbcse.tifr.res.in31

In Support of ReasonA Tribute to Prof. UdgaonkarDr. Vinod RainaThe lament in Pete Seeger’s persuasive songof the 60’s – ‘Where have all the flowersgone?’ – continues to nostalgically haunt manywho plunged head first in support of peace atthe height of the cold war’s frightening portentsof violence that exemplified soon after the secondworld war, by insane deaths in Vietnam. Thelingering feeling of the imminence of brutal useof science that continued to persist post August1945 when Hiroshima and Nagasaki became theindelible symbols of the destructive power oftechnology stirred many to seek sense andrestraint within the scientific enterprise. Prof.Udgaonkar and his involvement with Pugwashsymbolised that.The proponents of the use of science forimproving the conditions of the poor andmarginalised, and as a source of ‘reason’ thathad the potential of countering bigotry,prejudice, superstition, hatred, intolerance andreligious violence were most forcefully voicedby Meghnad Saha. Unsurprisingly this cameto be known as Nehruvians rather thanSahaites given the fierce support Nehru hadfor the scientific enterprise, and of course hisexalted stature. In this first decade of twentyfirst century, as science has advanced as neverbefore, we are witness to a bewilderingphenomenon, of the undiminished brutality ofscience in support of war – in Bosnia, Iraq,Afghanistan and elsewhere. Also theincreasing retreat of reason in a World isdominated by religious fanaticism, and thecommodification, privatization andmarketisation of science for personal profitrather than for public good. Reason enough,perhaps, to turn to that pro-reason lyricist,Javed Akhtar, to pen a new song – ‘Where haveall the Nehruvians gone?’Well not quite ‘all’ since we have Prof.Udgaonkar amongst us. This conference in hishonour signifies that an endangered species theNehruvians might have vanished. Perhaps not!He, along with Prof. Yash Pal would perhapsrank as two infectious 80+ ‘young’ romanticswho in spite of all the destruction and violencethat engulfs us; a lot aided by advancements inscience, have refused to part with the hope thatscience can benefit, both in improving theconditions of the deprived masses, and as afountainhead of reason, to confront irrationalityand injustice. If some find their romanticismnaïve, so be it, since the World would seem tohave a great deal of need for precisely suchnaiveté.The advances in Soviet science wereconclusively demonstrated by it winning thespace race with the launch of the Sputnik in1957. In spite of having many tiers of cordialrelationships, many of these advances did nottravel to India directly from the USSR, perhapsbecause of language barriers and came throughthe West. One of them was to spread reason,rationality and the method of science at thegrass roots through science education. After theinitial attempts in Bombay municipal schools,32

the effort took roots in the far awayHoshangabad district of Madhya Pradeshthrough a series of coincidences to which Prof.Udgaonkar was central. A generation, or more,younger than Prof. Udgaonkar, I was initiatedinto the Hoshangabad Science TeachingProgram (HSTP) from its beginning in 1972,while pursuing research. Since I was workingfor a physics Ph. D. , he, as an establishedphysicist in fields similar to what I was workingin was already like a distant guru to me (I wasat Delhi University while he and Yash Pal wereboth at TIFR in Bombay). Summer courses intheoretical physics were an avenue for distantgurus and chelas to come together during thosedays.But I got to know him more closely becauseof the HSTP. As a staunch supporter of theinitiative, he along with the other pro-reason‘Nehruvians’ like Yash Pal, P. N. Haksar,Obaid Siddiqui, M. G. K. Menon, Arjun Singh,Rais Ahmed, D. Balasubramaniam, PushpaBhargava amongst others, played a key role inthe evolution and expansion of HSTP. Formany of them, who may not otherwise havebeen involved at the grassroots on a day-todaybasis as many of us were, HSTP wasperhaps much more than a school scienceprogram. It was more like the fulfillment of thenationalistic dream of spreading reason andrationality across rural India. Perhapsunknown to him, Prof. Udgaonkar’sunflinching support to what we were doing,many a time in hostile situations, was a sourceof immense strength and inspiration. This wasbecause often the oceans of irrationality andprejudice, at the governmental and societallevels would depress us and yet we had towade through.His most active support, however, came atthe time of founding Eklavya. By 1980, eightyears after the programme was initiated, a smallgroup of us were prepared to resign our jobsand give up science research careers to workfull time to spread the HSTP beyondHoshangabad, and bring reason and rationalityin teaching social sciences and language too. Forthis it was decided that a new group, later oncalled Eklavya, should be set up. But we had noclue where we would get funds and othersupport. There were other doubts too. Wouldexpansion greatly reduce the quality of HSTP,rendering it ineffective?We went around the country meetingsupporters to seek their advice. I distinctlyremember some of us meeting Prof. Udgaonkarfor this purpose in a room where he wasstaying at the CSIR Guest House next to thescenic Lodhi Gardens in Delhi. As for the fearof dilution, his advice was candid – “Till theslope of the quality of the effort is evenmarginally greater than that of the mainstreamsystem, go ahead. Don’t clamour for higherslopes in the beginning, you can’t work on thatpremise in large systems”. And he energeticallyhelped in the effort to raise funds and othersupport – from the DST, UGC and otheragencies. Finally, through an initiative of M. S.Swaminathan, who was a member of thePlanning Commission then, and M. G. K.Menon, the then Secretary, Department ofScience and Technology, DST agreed toprovide founding finances to Eklavya in 1982,using the logic that since Madhya Pradesh didnot have a State Council for Science andTechnology then, the new Institute wouldtemporarily fulfill that gap.As I said earlier, most of the Nehruvianslooked at HSTP in a much larger perspectivethan a school science programme. As aconsequence they were prepared to fund fromthe Government; an institution none of the33

Government bodies would have anyadministrative control over! Such faith inautonomy was soon to be tested in 1984 whenthe gas disaster claimed thousands of lives inBhopal, where Eklavya was headquartered.While being funded by the DST and working incollaboration with the Madhya Pradeshgovernment, Eklavya took on the scienceestablishment and the MP Government openlyfor their professional, administrative and legallapses in the biggest science-society issue everfaced in peace time. Later, Eklavya exposed thetechnical flaws in another major Nationalinitiative, the Narmada dams. All this whileHSTP was running in the government schoolsof MP! It is people like Prof. Udgaonkar, whomust be given tremendous credit for creating,nurturing and supporting an environmentwhere differences based on reason and logicwere encouraged, and hypocrisy, intellectualdishonesty and sycophancy were shunned.Because of such positions that Prof.Udgaonkar held in relation to science-societyissues, it was not a matter of dispute whentwenty six people’s science organisations cametogether in the aftermath of the Bhopal gasdisaster to invite him to become the NationalConvenor of the Bharat Jan Vigyan Jatha in1987. This was the biggest event sinceindependence for linking up with the massesthroughout the country on issues ofdevelopment and reason. When the five nationalJathas converged at Bhopal in November thatyear, with 7, 000 science activists in a historicassembly, it was the leadership of Prof.Udgaonkar and his insistence on inclusivenessthat encouraged the various organisations tolook beyond a loose and friendly tie-up.Consequently, the All India People’s ScienceNetwork, a formal federation of science groupsof the country was formally inaugurated nextyear in 1988 at its first Congress in Cannanore(now Kannur), with Prof. Udgaonkar as itsfounding President.The pre-independence nationalistscientists like P. C. Ray, Mahendra Lal Sarkar,Meghnad Saha, amongst others, laid thefoundation for viewing science as somethingbeyond a laboratory pursuit, an ivory towerpreoccupation. In post-independent India,Prof. Udgaonkar would rank amongst theforemost, a person who not only dreamt butalso worked to utilise the politicalindependence from colonial rule in order tocreate a self-reliant and rational India. As thetwenty-first century progresses, with scienceadvancing in leaps and bounds but gettingdivorced from human progress and withdefinite signs of retreat from reason, the valueand contributions of persons like him appeargreatly amplified.A true tribute to him would be to workharder to reverse the current trends in therelation between science and society and strivefor human progress based on equality anddemocracy, the precondition for both being asociety based on reason and logic.e-mail : vinodraina@gmail.com34

A Devoted EducationistProf. RamaBhal Udgaonkar had already been at TIFRfor a couple of years when I joined. At thattime, the Institute was small, and every bodyknew every body. My interaction with Bhal wasminimal initially, both professionally andsocially. But 40 years together in a small placeis indeed a long time. Gradually, things becamebetter, we developed general interest in eachother’s work and social gatherings became morefrequent. I observed that Bhal, unlike some otherfriends, was not used to dramatising. He wasnot quite the quiet type either. His utteranceswere sober and well researched.Towards the later part of his career, hedeveloped interest, I should say; devotion inmatters of wider national importance whereeven a small contribution means a lot.I would like to point out one incident forwhich I should be grateful to him. Oneafternoon, he called me and said, “We haveinitiated a programme aimed at providingresearch exposure to bright young collegestudents during their vacation time. Would youlike to take one student?” And I said, “Yes”. Iwas thinking of developing a new type ofNeutron Moisture Gauge at that time.Within fifteen minutes after the call, a boynamed Palekar came to see me. I explained tohim what I was planning, and gave him someliterature on the subject. Next morning, hecame with the drawing of the apparatus. It wasgood. I told him to go to the workshop and getit made and let me know if he required anyhelp. After five or six hours he came back witha nice looking housing ready to take thecomponents in. How he managed this, I do notknow and I never asked. I was amazed andmuch impressed; ready to proceed further butPalekar did not turn up for a week. Instead,there came an envelop containing the papersthat I had given him and a letter of apologythat he will not be able to carry out the projectsince he was sick and was advised bed rest forsix months. By then a bond of understandingand affection had already developed betweenthe two of us. I made some suggestions /offerswhich he declined. He studied at home for sixmonths and still he topped the M. Sc. (Prev)exam of the University and again topped theM. Sc. (Final) exam the following year. Ourassociation continued for about two decades.Thanks to that call from Bhal Udgaonkar. Iwish Bhal well. And also Palekar wherever heis.e-mail : rama139@yahoo.com35

The Doyen of ScienceEducation in IndiaProf. Abbas A. RangwalaIfirst met Prof. Udgaonkar in 1963 when hecame back to TIFR from USA. Prof.Udgaonkar’s reputation had preceded hisreturn and I was hoping that I would be able topursue my Ph. D. degree under him. Iapproached him with some trepidation but heput me at ease and agreed to be my guide. Hewas more than my Ph. D. guide; I consider himas my mentor. He was always accessible andconsiderate, even affectionate. I got my degreeunder him in 1968-69.During the period I was working for myPh. D. , he often discussed teaching in theuniversities and University of Mumbai (thenUniversity of Bombay) in particular. At thattime there was no University Department ofPhysics in the University of Mumbai and therewas some talk of establishing one. The teachingat master’s degree in the University was carriedout by pooling together teachers from variousaffiliated colleges; the theory classes beingconducted in the evenings and at differentcolleges on different days. I have somerecollection that Prof. Udgaonkar was one ofthe persons the University authorities wereconsulting for the creation of the department.But for some reasons the University wasdragging its feet, which used to annoy him.Finally, the University Department of Physicscame into existence in early 1971 with Prof.M. C. Joshi of TIFR as the Head of theDepartment. The first set of recruitment ofteachers was carried out in October 1971 andthree of us who joined, Prof. Arvind Kumar,Prof. H. C. Padhi and I, all had done their Ph.D. work at TIFR.Prof. Udgaonkar’s interest in teaching atthe university level was there almost right afterhis return from USA. Often he would quiteseriously ask questions like, “Why can’t we haveuniversities like Harvard, MIT, Stanford orBerkeley? What prevents us from creating suchuniversities?” He was also concerned about thekind of physics textbooks and ask, “ why can’twe have a course like Berkeley Course inPhysics?” I remember his once telling me thathe would consider J. D. Jackson’s book onClassical Electrodynamics as equivalent to 20research papers. I believe it was in the early1970’s that he was on UGC’s planningcommittee and there he was instrumental ingetting funding for various universities forresearch and teaching. I also believe that he wasthe prime mover in the introduction ofUniversity Leadership Programme (ULP)instituted by the UGC under which UniversityDepartments would get funding both fortraining teachers in the colleges as well ascreating faculty positions in the UniversityDepartments which were to be regularized inthe next five year plan. Our Department wasone of the early beneficiaries.There are two events of that period thatstand out in my memory in which36

Prof.Udgaonkar was one of the central figures.The DAE had sanctioned money (10-15 crores)towards creation of a Pelletron facility. Prof.M. C. Joshi was keen that this facility be housedat the Mumbai University campus at Kalina.Prof. Udgaonkar and others, from theirexperience of dealing with the University, wereskeptical about the University’s capability ofhandling this kind of project in view of its rigidbureaucratic structure and outmodedaccounting procedures. The Pelletron finallycame up on the TIFR campus and theUniversity lost its bid.The second event of 1970 was of moreacademic nature. The falling standards ofteaching and research, which have recentlyattracted considerable attention in the elitescientific circle, was realized by Prof. Udgaonkarand some others way back in the 1970’s. In aneffort to improve these, TIFR approachedUniversity of Pune and the TIFR-PuneUniversity joint teaching programme in physicswas initiated. At that time I had asked Prof.Udgaonkar as to why TIFR by-passedUniversity of Mumbai which was in the samecity. His reply, based again on his familiaritywith the academic bodies of the University, wasthat the University of Mumbai lacked theacademic flexibility required for such aprogramme and that, he thought, University ofPune was more flexible in its academic outlook.Thus though Prof. Udgaonkar had closeassociation with both the Mumbai Universityand the Department of Physics, he never let hisemotions overtake the rational; he always keptin mind what was in the best interest of a projector a goal.In the year 1981 our Department celebratedDecennial Year of its establishment and, amongother activities, the Department planned a seriesof ten lectures. The first speaker in this serieswas none other than Prof. Udgaonkar. In thislecture he ranged widely over roles ofuniversities, research institutions and the UGCin teaching and research; a cause to which hehad very ardently devoted his time and energysince early 1970s.The crowning achievement of Prof,Udgaonkar in the area of education, in myopinion, is the establishment of the HomiBhabha Centre for Science Education. I believehe put all his weight and authority behind itsestablishment and the Centre is now the premierinstitution of its type in the country. It hasprovided sterling service primarily in the fieldof school education. But there are others whoare better placed to write about this gloriousachievement of Prof. Udgaonkar.Prof. Udgaonkar’s concern for scienceeducation and research has spanned over 40years and I salute him for his unwaveringenthusiasm and tireless pursuit to follow hisdream and vision.e-mail : abbasrummana@gmail.com37

A Hundred Years ofParticle PhysicsDr. D. P. RoyIt all started with the Rutherford scatteringexperiment of 1911, bombarding á particleson gold atom. While most of them passedthrough straight, occasionally a few weredeflected sharply. This is like shooting bullets ata hay stack and finding that one of them deflectssharply to hit a bystander or to put inRutherford’s own words - ‘deflects back to hityou on the head’. This would mean that thereis a hard compact object hiding in the hay stack.Likewise this experiment suggested that thereis a hard compact nucleus inside the atom,surrounded by the electron cloud. Later, in thethirties the nucleus was found to be made up ofprotons and neutrons. They are bound togetherby the strong nuclear force mediated by theexchange of ð meson, just like the nucleus andelectrons are bound in an atom by theelectromagnetic force mediated by the photon.Now, one can easily see from the energymomentumconservation that the exchangedmass between the interacting particles has tobe imaginary (m 2 < 0), while of course photonand ð meson have real mass. But such exchangesare possible in quantum theory, thanks to theUncertainty Principle, ÄE ~ h/Ät, which allowsnonconservation of energy over a limited timescale. Quantum field theory gives an equivalentprescription, preserving energy-momentumconservation but changing the mass-square ofthe exchanged particle continuously frompositive to negative values, which is called itsvirtual mass. Prof. Bhabha was one of thepioneers in this field. In fact he is responsiblefor giving the name meson, since the ð had anintermediate mass between the electron and theproton or neutron. These latter ones are calledby the generic Greek names lepton and baryon,meaning light and heavy particles respectively.He started the tradition of particle physics inIndia in the late thirties and continued it intothe fifties along with his experimentalistcolleague, Prof. Menon.This tradition was carried forward by Profs.Udgaonkar and Virendra Singh into the sixties.This was the era of hadron physics. Hadron is acollective name for both types of stronglyinteracting particles, mesons and baryons,having integral and half integral spinsrespectively. Several dozens of mesons andbaryons with various masses and spins hadbeen discovered by then. It was clearly nottenable to describe them all as fundamentalparticles. Nor was it possible to identify a fewas fundamental ones, of which the others wouldbe composite states. Even the mass hierarchywas not relevant, since for strong interaction thebinding energy can be as large as the rest massenergy, so that a relatively light particle can bea bound state of two heavy ones. This lead to anew paradigm, which their mentor and theleader of this school, Prof. Chew from Berkeley,called “Particle Democracy”. That means thereis no distinction between constituent, compositeand exchange particles; each hadron plays allthe three roles. Thus in contrast to atomic andnuclear physics, where one uses the masses ofthe constituent and exchange particles along38

with their couplings to compute the masses andcouplings of the composite states, one coulddetermine here all these masses and couplingsin terms of one another using a set of consistencyconditions. This was the Bootstrap principle. Ofcourse in practice one had to make certainsimplifying approximations, which determinedits range of applicability. Both Profs. Udgaonkarand Singh had achieved international distinctionin this field.When I joined Prof. Udgaonkar as a Ph.D.student in 1964, I had already published a paperin this area. But he explained to me that this is awell explored area, whose merits and limitationsare pretty clear by now. So he suggested me towork instead on Regge poles, which was stillrelatively new and hence potentially moreinteresting. The basic idea of Regge poles is asfollows. We have seen that the exchangedparticle has a negative mass-square, whichvaries continuously with the kinematics of theinteracting particles. The spin of thefundamental particles, however, remainunchanged. In contrast, for composite objectsthe spin increases with mass as we know fromatomic or nuclear physics. The same shouldhold for hadrons. So the spin of the exchangedhadron should go down continuously with itsvirtual mass-square and eventually becomenegative. This object of simultaneously varyingspin and mass-square is called Regge pole. TheRegge poles provide a simple and predictivemodel for high energy scattering of hadrons.Prof. Udgaonkar had done an elegant analysisof high energy scattering cross-sections usingRegge pole exchange in the previous year withProf. Gell-Mann from Caltech. But havingsuggested me this field he left it entirely to myown devices to explore it to find suitableproblems and solve them. However, he used tosit down with me to go through the drafts toappraise himself of the results and help me inimproving its presentation, highlighting themain points with precision and clarity (withoutever consenting to put his name on them ofcourse). I am indebted to him on all the threecounts. Firstly, Regge poles became a thrust areaof particle physics for a decade. Andindependence in research gave me confidenceto move into the new era of particle physics,which took over the field thereafter. Finally thepresentation skills I learned from him wereessential in an intensely competitive field likeours, in order to get one’s works read and takennotice of, particularly from a far off place likeIndia.The new era of particle physics was triggeredby the electron-proton scattering experiment ofStanford in 1968, which was similar to theRutherford scattering experiment, but at a muchhigher energy. And the result was also similar.While most of the electrons passed straightthrough the proton, occasionally a few weredeflected sharply. This suggested that the protonitself consists of three hard and very compactparticles called quarks. The name quark wasadopted from a James Joyce novel by Prof. Gell-Mann, who had envisaged these constituentsonly as a mathematical device to simplify thedescription of hadrons. But this experimentshowed them to be real physical objects. This wasfollowed by many other experiments of this kind,which showed that all the hadrons are composedof quarks. In other words they are simply “quarkatoms”. Moreover the basic strong nuclear forcebinding these quarks is a long-range forcemediated by a massless particle like photon, calledgluon (for its binding property). The short-rangeð meson exchange force, binding protons andneutrons in a nucleus, is similar to the residualVan der Waals force between atoms, which bindsthem in a molecule.We know now that there are three pairs ofquarks: up, down, strange, charm, bottom and39

top. Similarly there are three pairs of leptons:electron, ì and ô along with their associatedneutrinos. The lightest pair of quarks, up anddown, are the constituents of proton and neutron.So together with the electron they constitute allthe visible matter of the universe. The heavierquarks and leptons decay into the lighter onesvia the weak nuclear force and so do not occurfreely in nature, just like the heavy transuraniumelements. But they can be seen in cosmicray or particle accelerator experiments. Theneutrinos are stable and come from many sources- accelerators, cosmic rays, atomic reactors andthe sun - but are relatively hard to detect becausethey have only weak interaction. All theseparticles have spin half and are collectively calledmatter fermions. We have seen them all by now,the last one being the top quark, which is about200 times heavier than the proton. Likewise wehave seen the carriers of all the three basic forces,which are all spin one particles called gaugebosons. While the photon and gluon are masslessparticles, the carriers of the weak nuclear force,called W and Z bosons, are about 100 timesheavier than proton. These matter fermions andgauge bosons constitute what is smugly calledthe Standard Model of particle physics. But thepicture is not complete yet. A consistent theoryof their masses requires a spinless particle in themass range of W, Z and top called the Higgsboson. We hope to find it at the large hadroncollider (LHC) nearing completion at CERN,Geneva. Moreover it is widely believed that oneneeds a Supersymmetric extension of theStandard Model in order to control the Higgsboson mass in the above range. This predicts ahost of Supersymmetric particles in the samemass range, which could also be found at theLHC. But this prediction is less compelling thanthat of the Higgs boson.Finally we have seen one clear evidence ofphysics beyond the Standard Model. It comesfrom the neutrino oscillation experiments,showing that the neutrinos have tiny butnonzero masses, over a billion times smallerthan the other fermion masses. A simple andelegant explanation of this comes from the socalled See-Saw model. It assumes the neutrinosto have both left- and right-handed chiralitystates like the other fermions. However as thelatter ones carry charge, their left- and righthandedstates have the same mass because ofcharge conservation. But since the neutrino hasno charge, the right-handed neutrino canacquire an ultraheavy mass from a leptonnumberviolating interaction, which is over abillion times higher. This in turn pushes the lefthandedneutrino mass over a billion times lower.This is why it is called See-Saw model. There isa lot of current interest in studying the ultralightneutrino masses because they provide indirectevidence of physics at an ultraheavy mass scale,which could not be probed directly in anyforeseeable future. Moreover the lepton numberviolating interaction, operating at this massscale, can explain one of the longstandingmysteries of nature, i. e. why is there such anexcess of baryons and leptons in the universeover their antiparticles. This is evidently a veryimportant matter as it underlies our veryexistence in the universe.Let me conclude with a popular saying thatthe only way you can repay your debt to yourparents is by passing on the same care andguidance to the younger generation. I have triedto repay my debt to Prof. Udgaonkar throughmy humble contribution in carrying forwardthe national tradition into this new era ofparticle physics, in collaboration with theyounger generation. How far I have succeededin this will be judged by the latter.Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education,TIFR, Mumbai 400088.e-mail : dproy1@gmail.com40

Learning with BMUProf. Kailash RustagiIt is with great pleasure that I recall myassociation with Professor Bhalchandra M.Udgaonkar. For over 40 years he has been andcontinues to be a role model. Although my ‘job’at TIFR was over when I finished my Ph. D. in1970 my association with BMU has continuedand I have never hesitated to seek his adviceor even take up an issue with him. He has beena teacher, a mentor, a very patient andsympathetic listener – someone you couldalways count on! Somehow one knows that onewill be taken seriously and straightforwardly.Sometimes after a meeting you may come backwith a broader perspective even if not wiser!There was always that other possibility thatyou might have overlooked. I first met ProfessorB. M. Udgaonkar some time in July 1965 whenwe were looking for placement options aftercompleting the one year course at the AtomicEnergy training school. Then as now heinspired confidence. To put things inperspective, then, as now, this is an importanttime in a career in DAE except that in thosedays TIFR also took their young researchersfrom the Training school. When I first met himI wasn’t quite sure what I wanted do, but anapparently easy and serious discussion withhim was enough for him to ask me to seeProfessor S. S. Jha, who equally thoughtfullyexplained to me what this “new” field ofnonlinear optics is. I think both had receivedsort of good reports about me from ProfSengupta, who had taught us in TrainingSchool. Both were very open minded andprecise, offering no career inducements excepta good chance to become a good physicist. Yetit inspired confidence that you would be caredfor and that you were with excellent teachers.It felt good joining. TIFR building was thennew, very comfortable and posh! To keep ourfeet grounded the hostel was equally bad, muchbetter for the pigeons who shared the roomswith us! In the next few years, I saw BMU sometimes as head of the theory group mostly withsome “student” complaint and always had afeeling that I have been listened to andsomething will be done even if no promiseswere made! In retrospect, it is clear that youwere “guided” without appearing to. Hetaught us an excellent course on Relativisticquantum mechanics giving glimpses of thehigh standards in clarity and depth. As aphysics teacher he was incisive and providedgreat insights without the hype. Today, manyof us feel we have been lucky to get this feelingof quiet confidence and high standards thatthese early years in TIFR gave us and BMU wasvery much one of those who transmitted thisfeeling! Perhaps, the most interestinginteraction with BMU was an initiative that hetook in 1968 or so. He had some bright youngstudents from Mumbai colleges come to TIFRonce a weak for Physics discussions. Quite likewhat Prof Arvind Kumar has been doing inthe last two decades or so. We, i. e. these B. Sc.students and some of us, the Ph. D. students,41

and BMU would sit in the seminar room AG80and solve some problems from Feynman lecturenotes. Some of these students, Abhay Ashtekarand Mustansir Barma among them, have sincemade a name for themselves! Personally I thinkit was wonderful in enhancing our visionbecause the discussions were forever probing.BMU would intervene only to point out yetanother implicit approximation or anothertwist to the problem or to clarify or emphasizethe point made by one of us. Among otherthings, this was also when I learnt thatteaching and learning are two sides of the samecoin. Surely, it was a model for conductingtutorials! Nearly four decades have passed andstill when I met BMU in a seminar recentlythere was a chit from him with a penetratingquestion! Same smile and the same incisiveness.Some things never change and we are indeedgrateful for that.In between I sought his advice once everyfew years, read with great interest his editorialsin Physics News and had many discussions withhim on the tea table and elsewhere. Preparingfor a talk some time ago, I read these editorialsagain. It is striking how much of good sensethere was in those editorials- thoughtful, honestand provocative. Also there was no hiddenagenda and no give-me-this !To sum it, thank you very much ProfessorUdgaonkar for being what you are. Here iswishing that you may continue to enjoy goodhealth and continue to inspire new generationsof scientists, students and teachers for manyyears to come!Physics Department, IITBombay,Mumbai 4000076e-mail : rustagi@phy.iitb.ac.in42

Prof. B. M. Udgaonkar –My DadaDr. Virendra SinghWhen I joined the theoretical physics groupat TIFR in 1957, as a young researchstudent, the institute was located at the OldYacht Club at the Gateway of India. Bhabhawas the only Professor of theoretical physics buthe was much too preoccupied with setting upAtomic energy establishment laboratories todirectly interact with young students. I first metKundan Singwi, who was looking after thegroup, and, at his suggestion, I met Udgaonkar.He immediately decided to take my studies inhand. To begin with, he asked me to go throughthe delightful Yale lectures of Enrico Fermi on“Elementary Particles” which were full of hisspecial “back of the envelope” calculationaltricks, of which he was a master, to get the orderof magnitudes estimates of physical quantities.Thus began our long fruitful association.Udgaonkar next asked me to calculatepion angular distribution in hyperon decays.I found that the distribution does depend onlyon the hyperon spin but not on its parity, aresult he had himself derived few monthsearlier but where others had scooped him. Allthe same it made me feel that I was gettinginto the current research. I then undertook asystematic study of elementary particlephysics and of quantum field theory. By theend of two years in the group, I had publishedtwo independent research papers; one onpseudoscalar meson theory in Nuovo Cimentoand the other on ground state energy of a Bosegas in the Physical Review. Udgaonkar feltthat the time was ripe for me to go to aresearch group, active at the frontiers of thefield, in USA to do my Ph. D. for furtherdevelopment. I was sent to Berkeley, whereGeoffrey Chew was the leader of a verydynamic S-matrix research program, to workin his group.Udgaonkar also came to Berkeley, afterabout one year, to work in the same group. Wesoon collaborated on a paper on pion-nucleonscattering and thus began a phase ofcollaborative research. He also published somepapers by himself and one of these on highenergytotal cross sections became quite wellknown. Apart from writing many jointresearch papers we also enjoyed a number ofother activities. We, together with his family,took a number of memorable car trips to visitvarious nature parks on the west coast of U. S.A. including Yellowstone, Mount Zion andBryce Canyon and Yoshemite. In a lighter veinI recall a culinary experiment by him. Heemptied a can of “cream of mushroom soup”into some rice and let it bake in the oven. Itturned out delicious. It was at Berkeley thatstarted calling him Dada (and his wife, Padma,as jiji). I also became attached to his two youngchildren. Eventually many others also came toaddress him as Dada as it somehow seemedappropriate to do so.From Berkeley he went to Institute forAdvanced Study, Princeton, while I went tojoin Gell-Mann’s group at Cal. Tech. Pasadena43

for one year so that we were exposed todifferent research atmospheres. After that hecame back to TIFR, while I did that afterspending one more year at Princeton in 1964.During our stay in U. S. A. we hadinnumerable discussions on how to develop astrong and leading theoretical physics groupat TIFR. After coming back we devoted ourenergies fully to this task. Within three to fouryears he passed the responsibility of lookingafter the theoretical physics group to me. I didthat for some twenty years. Our active phaseof research collaboration extended over 1960-66 and was very fruitful. It covered Regge Poletheory, bootstraps and symmetries and otherS-matrix topics.Around mid sixties, Udgaonkar startedgetting involved with the problems of scienceeducation and science development in thecountry. Later his interests further diversifiedto include problems of world peace. As memberof University Grants Commission of India, andas a member of Pugwash committee he playedinfluential role in these new areas as well. Prof.Udgaonkar analysed the problems of scienceand society also with the same kind of rigour asneeded in any other scientific research problem.He has always tried to live a rational life. Healso has an unusual talent to spot and assessfuture potential in young persons and did allhe could to encourage them and realise theirfull potential.Prof. B. M. Udgaonkar has been a teacher,philosopher-guide, research collaborator and afriend to me for about half a century. I am happyto pay my tribute to him and wish him and hisfamily all the best in coming years on his 80thbirthday.Tata Institute of Fundamental Researche-mail : vsingh@theory.tifr.res.in44

Professor B. M. UdgaonkarDr. Bikash SinhaIfirst met Professor B. M. Udgaonkar whilevisiting TIFR in the early seventies from King’s,London. To some of us he was a bit of a legend.He was a student of Homi J. Bhabha intheoretical physics; particle physics inparticular, and of course a collaborator ofMurray Gell Mann, the legendary “discoverer”(if that is the right word) of quarks. Of coursethere are no free quarks. At the time, however,he was already deeply committed to scienceeducation and dissemination of science tocommon people. However, all I remember of thebrief encounter during my visit to India is hischarming smile and inquisitive eyes.Around 1976, I joined Bhabha AtomicResearch Centre and almost immediately gotvery excited about Indian Physics Associationand more specifically Physics News. I alwaysenjoyed editing and seeking out articles for thiskind of journal, at the Presidency College,Calcutta; at Cambridge, U. K. and now, Ithought what a wonderful opportunity thiswas, IPA and Physics News.Of course Professor B. M. Udgaonkar(BMU) was the central inspiration for such an“Indian” adventure for me, new and delicious.Together, we used to collect articles with greatdeal of persuasion and difficulty, trying to makePhysics News more attractive and interesting.If the lights down my memory lane haven’tfaded totally, BMU and I, once in a while usedto go to the Printing Press in Sassoon Dock,cutting through the stench of Bombay Duck bysheer will power. None of us complained. Ilearned the tremendous joy of setting the pressin tiny little metallic words (remember 1970’s)making dummies and then ultimately thejournal. BMU made me feel that the wholebusiness is not only worthwhile but also excitingand very important.I came to Calcutta in 1984 and lost touchwith BMU. Curiously enough, my friends, if Ican call them were actually of that age group,B. V. Sreekantan, BMU, young S. M. Chitre andso on.During my frequent visits to Bombay fromCalcutta once in a while I used to participate inthose very intellectual coffee sessions on Sundayat the Jehangir Art Gallery with BMU, ProfessorPandit and other TIFR faculty members – a mostwonderful experience with a degree of intensespontaneity which I do not encounter today, justsheer joy of informed and intelligentconversation with no particular motivation.Slowly but surely BMU faded away fromTIFR to retire in Vashi, I hardly saw him exceptin occasional conferences at TIFR. I wasdelighted when I heard that his brilliant son gota good position at NCBS, Bangalore. Thememory of the cruelest blow that Udgaonkarshad to bear when their only daughter suddenlypassed away in the U. S. flashed through mymind. It must be a source of satisfaction for bothof them now that the son is in Bangalore and ina good faculty position, erasing somewhat thegrief they bore all along.I recall and will always remember ProfessorB. M. Udgaonkar as a person of sharp intellectand perception, charming yet tremendouslypersuasive, a man with a shy and engagingsmile.Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics & VariableEnergy Cyclotron Centre, Kolkata.e-mail : bikash.sinha@saha.ac.in45

Bhal Udgaonkar andthe Pugwash movementDr. K. SubrahmanyamShri Ashok Parthasarathi, then convenor ofthe Indian Pugwash Society in August 1974,inducted me into the Pugwash Movement. I wasthen the director of Institute for Defence Studiesand Analyses and he asked me to attend thePugwash workshop on nuclear deterrence inKyoto in Japan. Bal Udgaonkar was a muchearlier entrant into the Pugwash Movement. InJanuary1976 Madras Pugwash Conference, I didnot come across him since he was perhaps in aworking group dealing with development andtechnology transfer while I concentrated on thenuclear issue.It was in August 1976 that I met him alongwith Ashok Parthasarathi as we travelled togetherto Muhlhausen in East Germany with anovernight halt at Amsterdam. As a severe diabeticI suddenly developed hypoglycemia on arrival atAmsterdam airport hotel. I remember the extremesolicitude displayed by both Ashok and Bal to lookafter me. They did not leave my side till I regainednormalcy and had enough to eat. AfterMuhlhausen I met him in successive PugwashConferences and stuck up a strong friendship witha top ranking scientist who was by nature veryamiable, a good conversationalist and radiatednatural friendliness. Ashok, Bal and myself shareda common worldview on nuclear weapons. Wewere for total nuclear disarmament but so long asthe weapons were in the hands of a few dominantpowers Indian security imperatives demandedthat India should keep its nuclear option open.This view was anathema to the leadershipof the Pugwash Movement. In those days theyconsidered the Nonproliferation Treaty as theirmajor contribution to international nuclearpeace and stability. Contrary to the popularimpression, the Pugwash movement at the timeconsidered nuclear disarmament as utopian andarms control and mutual deterrence as the mostpragmatic paths to global stability. I rememberin 1982 in the Pugwash Conference in Budapestraising the issue of nuclear disarmament andone of the senior most leaders of Pugwash toldme sternly “Subrahmanyam, for next fifty yearsthere can be no talk of nuclear disarmament. ”Most of Pugwash discussions on the nuclearissue took place within the framework of bipolardeterrence.On this issue, there was significantagreement between US-led Western bloc and theEastern bloc led by the Soviet Union. In suchcircumstances the Indian group often found itselfas the lonely opposition. However, that did notdissuade us from expressing our views on theglobal nuclear hypocrisy. Ashok and Bal werefrom the scientific community and therefore hada wide-ranging interest in many subjects. Since Iwas the strategist, expressing opposition to thecartelised nuclear dominance, it became mostlymy area of responsibility. By nature I am anassertive person and I usually call a spade aspade. The same is true of Ashok. Bal, on the otherhand, was a person who never raised his voice,was always smiling and put across even the mostcontroversial things in very low key.46

Ashok as the convenor of the IndianPugwash Society was represented in thePugwash Executive Council. Again he used toplay the role of one-man opposition in a largelylike-minded group. When Ashok handed overthe responsibility of the convenorship to me in1980, I took his place in the Executive Council.I attended a couple of meetings of the ExecutiveCouncil. It was at Budapest in 1982 that DrMorton Kaplan the then Secretary-general ofPugwash approached me and suggested thatthey would like the Indian representative in thePugwash Executive Council to be a physicist andwhether they could have Bal. I jumped at theidea and readily agreed. What he was tellingme was whether they could have the gentle,soft-spoken Bal instead of an assertive personlike me. I also knew that Bal, in spite of hisgentility was no pushover and could hold hisown. So Bal became a member of the PugwashExecutive Council.Even within Pugwash things began tochange. There were people like Joe Rotblat, oneof the signatories of the Russel-Einsteinmanifesto who always had a more progressiveand flexible view on the doctrine of nucleardeterrence. By 1985 came the Gorbachev-Reagan declaration that a nuclear war cannotbe won and should not be initiated. In 1986Gorbachev joined Rajiv Gandhi to call for anuclear weapon free and nonviolent world. By1988 Rajiv Gandhi submitted his comprehensiveDisarmament Plan to the UN Special session onDisarmament. Still, the mainstream opinionamong the Pugwashites especially among thosefrom Europe and North America was thatnuclear deterrence was existential and theworld had to live with nuclear weapons.However, a major change took place by1990 when the leading members of thePugwash, Professor Joseph Rotblat, ProfessorJohn Steinberger and Professor B M Udgaonkarjoined together to edit the book “A NuclearWeapon Free World - Is it desirable or feasible?”It was brought out in 1993. Through thismonograph the Pugwash joined the debate onthe desirability and feasibility of a nuclearweapon free world, I am not privy to thediscussions that took place among thecontributors to the volume. But Udgaonkarargued the case vigorously for a nuclear weaponfree world. Professor Rotblat also came out infavour and formulated the concept of societalverification to monitor a world free of nuclearweapons. This monograph will be a lastingcontribution of Udgaonkar to the PugwashMovement. It was also a recognition of long andpatient arguments of Bal over the years withinthe Pugwash Executive council.After the end of the Cold War and reductionof nuclear weapons in the arsenal of majorpowers international interest on a nuclearweapon free world diminished and thePugwash itself was more focussed onNonproliferation than elimination of nuclearweapons. Recently, however, in the light of thedisclosures about A Q Khan’s nuclear walmartand the possibility of nuclear weapons andmaterials falling into the hands of terrorists,interest has revived in nuclear weapon freeworld. Four well-known American Statesmen,Secretary of State Kissinger, Secretary of StateGeorge Schulz, Defence Secretary William Perryand Senator Sam Nunn, wrote an article in theWall Street Journal on 4th January 2007,exhorting the US to take the initiative to movetowards elimination of nuclear weapons. BalUdgaonkar can recall with satisfaction his ownplea some 14 years back.e-mail : ksubrahmanyam51@hotmail.comambimini@gmail.com47

Professor BM Udgaonkar – onhis 80 th BirthdayProf. Vijaya S. VarmaIt was the summer of 1967. I had just joinedthe Department of Physics of the Universityof Delhi as a CSIR Pool Officer after finishingmy PhD in theoretical physics. I had also justgot married. When I learnt that the Departmentwas organising a summer school in theoreticalphysics in the salubrious climes of Dalhousie, Ithought it would be a great opportunity forcombining a honeymoon with learning newphysics - escaping the horrors of a Delhi summerto boot. I therefore decided to enrol as aparticipant.I have many happy memories of thatsummer school - making new acquaintancesand reviving old friendships as I had been awayfrom Delhi for 5 years working on my PhD. Fora young Pool Officer, the high powered physicscommunity that had gathered at Dalhousie wasvery intimidating company. ProfessorUdgaonkar was part of the group of participantsfrom TIFR. It was his quiet, gentle manner whichattracted my attention and among all theparticipants it was to him that I went for adviceon a paper I was working on then on N/Drelations. I had submitted it to the PhysicalReview Letters and it had been returned withthe referees’ comments which I didn’t knowquite how to handle. I decided to ask ProfessorUdgaonkar for his advice on what to do as heseemed to be the most non-intimidatingparticipant of the summer school. Even thoughwe had met for the first time at Dalhousie, henevertheless carefully read through mymanuscript. After two or three days he gentlyinformed me that he thought the referees’comments were valid and that instead ofcontesting them I should carry out the programthey were suggesting if I wanted the paper tobe accepted for publication. In the event, I neveractually published that paper, but that incidentmarked the beginning of my friendship withProfessor Udgaonkar.The next occasion on which we met was afew years later at another summer school, thistime organised by TIFR. The then famous duoof Chew and Low were lecturing and I decidedto attend. Professor Udgaonkar was again oneof the participants and it was a pleasure torenew my acquaintance with him and get toknow him better despite his quiet reservedways. The school itself was relativelyuneventful except for a cricket match betweenthe TIFR crowd and the rest. It was playedwith a tennis ball on the forecourt of the hotelwe were staying in, on what was a smallshingle-covered clearing, probably meant forknocking a ball around. The TIFR team weredetermined to show the rest that they were thebest but we of course had other ideas. Thematch was closely contested. When it came tomy turn to bat, I found that the leg sideboundary was invitingly close. So when48

Professor Udgaonkar, who was one of the TIFRteam’s star bowlers, came on with his gentlespin, it was too big a temptation to resisthoisting him over square leg for a successionof sixes. I thought I was well on the way toscoring the first century of my life when SharatPatil, the umpire chosen for the game, gave meout thinking the ball had hit the rock face atthe back of the crease which was serving asthe wickets, whereas it had only spun off theedge of my bat. Such unfortunately are theways of life and I still dream of the centurythat ought to have been. The nice thing aboutthe episode was that although ProfUdgaonkar’s bowling, of which I think he wassecretly very proud, received such harshtreatment at my hands that day, he did notallow it to affect our friendship in the slightest.Since those days we kept running intoeach other at seminars and conferences eitherin Delhi or Bombay and I always made it apoint to keep up my contact with him. Ourassociation has been long but always low-key.We never spent any great deal of timediscussing our research interests and we metnot so much as professional physicists but asfellow practitioners of a shared discipline. Wespoke more about the teaching of physics,particularly in schools, than about research intheoretical physics. Professor Udgaonkar wasaware of my involvement with the developmentof the Physics curriculum for the HoshangabadScience Teaching Programme and wheneverwe met he was always eager to learn aboutwhat had happened since our previousmeeting. Although many of my colleaguesthought it a waste of time and energy forresearch physicists to be involved in schooleducation, Professor Udgaonkar by hisreactions and his own interests clearly was ofthe opposite view. He certainly felt thatprofessional physicists must engage with theproblems of teaching science properly inschools, with adequate room forexperimentation in the curriculum, so that onecould attract and retain the best young mindsto the practice of the discipline. In all myinteractions with him, I always found him tobe polite, unassuming and humorous — in factthe epitome of the perfect scholar gentleman.He was ever the unassuming academic andtalking to him you were never made aware ofthe fact that he was a respected professor atone of the renowned centres of physics researchin the country. It is only now that I realise thathe is actually 14 years older than me becausenever in our meetings did he assume the mantleof the senior academic, always interacting withme on an equal footing. It has been a pleasureto recall and record my memories of ourinteractions stretching over so many years ofour lives and I wish him all the very best onthis occasion celebrating his 80 th birthday. I amsorry not to be present at the celebrations onaccount of previous commitments that havemeant that I will not be in the country at thetime.Dean Planning (Retd)University of Delhi, Delhi 110007e-mail : varma2@gmail.com49

Prof. B. M. UdgaonkarProf. Balu VenkatramanIt is a pleasure to reminisce my association withProf. B. M. Udgaonkar on his eightiethbirthday. We had similar ideas on many aspectsof scientific research and science education.Prof. Udgaonkar and I were associatedwith our several colleagues in TIFR and the thenAEET, during lecturing times at the TrainingSchool, which was started in 1957, the year Ijoined AEET, but placed in TIFR just as Prof.Udgaonkar was. Eventually both of us weretransferred to TIFR. I believe he provided theleadership in the AEET training programme,and was chosen by Dr. Ramanna to do so, aseven then he evinced keen interest ineducational activities.Though our fields of expertise were quitedifferent, we shared many common interests,especially with respect to the young people whowere joining TIFR. Those of us led by Prof.Udgaonkar were strong votaries of the graduateschool programme in TIFR; it was a long strugglesince many experimental programmes neededa large number of scientific assistants who werekeen to attach degrees to their qualifications.Many of us felt that such needs can be takencare of by special recruitment and different typesof recognition. The graduate school styled onthe US model, with senior scientists participatingin giving advanced courses, was felt by manyof us to be a necessity in maintaining a constantflux of young minds, whose precociousness andvivacity would be a catalyst to maintain theinstitute at the frontiers of research.Some of us were advocating that only a fewof the successful graduate students shouldcontinue to be in TIFR and this was mostunacceptable to many. We believed thatinbreeding was detrimental for an institute likeours. Many experimentalists felt that this waytheir programmes, which by their very naturehad long gestation periods, would not be viable.It took several years for the graduate schoolprogramme to stabilise. As a corollary, the TIFR-Pune University joint programme in physics alsobegan and Prof. Udgaonkar was the mainmentor for that. . In both, the TIFR and PuneUniversity joint programmes the real problemwas to find teachers – many were not willing.Some amongst us gave courses almost every yearbut I know a few who have never given a singlecourse. Unfortunately the Pune programme hadto close down mainly due to logistic reasons.Prof. Udgaonkar also played a catalytic role inplacing some good TIFR scientists at theuniversities and IIT.Prof. Udgaonkar, Prof. R. Narasimhan,Prof. R. R. Daniel, Prof. Yash Pal and a few morewere invited by Prof. M. G. K. Menon to form adiscussion group, which would meet everyWednesday evening. There was no fixed agendabut we used to discuss many aspects dear to us:education at school, college and higher levels;whether India should develop and test a nuclearbomb (Dr. Bhabha had then just made anannouncement that India could test a nucleardevice in a short time after a green signal was50

given), population control etc. Both Prof. Menonand Udgaonkar were part of the Pugwashmovement. We used to prepare position papersand Prof. Udgaonkar prepared one on thenuclear issue. One should recall that Prof.Udgaonkar was in the Reactor Physics groupof AEET before he switched over to the theorygroup at TIFR.We worked together for a few years asmembers of the Board of Research in NuclearSciences of the Department of Atomic Energywith him as Chairman. I was the Chairmanof Basic Sciences Committee 1 of theDepartment of Atomic Energy. Again wefound ourselves on the same wavelength andit was this committee, which initiated the SirK. S. Krishnan career awards of the DAE. LateDr. N. Satyamurthy and I were asked toreview the existing scheme of DAE fellowshipsat the Universities which seemed to be notfulfilling their stated goals, and come out withfresh proposals to rejuvenate the existingsystem or replace it with a more purposefulone. After extensive discussions with manyscientists including Prof. Udgaonkar, we cameout with the career award scheme now inoperation, and Prof. Udgaonkar supported itwarmly.Both, Prof. Udgaonkar and I participatedin many of the activities of the Nehru Centre.Dr. H. N. Sethna was instrumental in ropingus into this. Both of us were involved inorganising a seminar on education in 1976. Healso contributed a few articles to Science andSociety, a monthly published by the NehruCentre.Finally I come to his contribution toSchool Science Education, which is dear toboth of us. Many of us felt that unless schooleducation is improved considerably, for allsections of the community, the real potentialof the young mind would go untapped. Werealised that it was a stupendous task; but thatshould not deter us from the little that wecould do on a voluntary basis using TIFR’sstatus as the focal point. After somediscussions, a group of us decided to organiseschool exhibitions, lecture demonstrations atTIFR etc. and then BASE (Bombay Associationfor Science Education) with teachers fromvarious schools and a few members from TIFRwas formed.Prof. Udgaonkar, Prof. Yash Pal and a fewothers like Dr. V. G. Kulkarni felt that weshould get more directly involved in theeducational planning and development ofmany aspects of the curricula of the schooleducational system. They were encouraged todo so by Dr. Madhuri Shah, the then dynamicEducation officer of the Mumbai MunicipalCorporation. She later on became Vice-Chancellor of SNDT University and Chairmanof UGC. She gave the group led by Dr.Kulkarni and Prof. Udgaonkar an office in theirGrant Road complex and this was the start ofthe Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education.I do not remember when this name was given– from the beginning or later. Thanks to Prof.Udgonkar’s strong patronage and Dr.Kulkarni’s dynamism we now have a fullfledgededucational research centre wellsupported by the Department of AtomicEnergy. This is a fitting tribute to the abidinginterest and the proactive role Prof. Udgaonkarhas played in the cause of education, especiallyscience education at all levels.e-mail : savi_bvraman@yahoo.com51

An Eminent TeacherProf. G. VenkatramanMy inability to contribute a written tributein no way diminishes my profoundrespect for Prof. Udgaonkar, especially as ateacher, for I still recall vividly the extendedseries of lectures. He delivered them in the onlyauditorium TIFR had (in the OYC) at the time. Iparticularly recall his exposition of the way thegraphite moderator is arranged in a graphitereactor. The particular point Prof. Udgaonkarmade was that there were many corners whereone could use less than ultra nuclear puregraphite and get away with it, because thesecorners had less weightage in contributing toneuron moderation. This was a very subtle point,not found in any book.I do not know whether others attendingthose lectures appreciated this salient point,but as I was then closer to reactors thanmany, the exposition made a deepimpression on me. All of which goes to show,professor’s deep commitment to teaching,among other things. Apart from this, I alsorecall the mutual concern we shared over theyears about the need to advance physics inIndia in a highly structured and integratedway, rather than in terms of merelyimpressive personal flashes. Prof. Udgaonkarunderstood better than many that a largepart of the advances come through massiveand highly structured collaborative efforts,as one sees best in CERN.e-mail : gvraman108@gmail.com52

Bhal UdgaonkarProf. Yash PalWhen I think of my science friends at theTIFR with whom I have enjoyedcommuning, the name of Bhal Udgaonkar popsup quite often. Bhal was a theoretical physicistwhile I worked with instruments and my theorywas mostly confined to phenomenology. Havinghad exposure to a decent level of theory Ienjoyed conversing with Bhal, but with littleworthwhile contribution from my side. We hadjoined TIFR the same year and very soon ourtime was taken up with concerns for growinggood science in India.Bhal pointed out and I agreed that sciencein any discipline does not grow in a universitydepartment because viable groups of sizebeyond a critical level are not established. Wethought that some concentrations of expertisewere essential. This is one of the notions I latercame to moderate and modify when I soughtcriticality not in a single department but inconglomerations like the Interuniversity Centres.But holding such discussions was an intensepreoccupation for both of us.Under Bhal’s initiative we set up acontinuing interaction with students and someteachers of Bombay colleges on a continuousbasis. Students used to come to TIFR or,sometimes, we went out to give a set of lectures.It was very rewarding, many years later, to getthe news that one of the student participantswho had later become a very distinguishedscientist recalled that these interactions hadplayed a seminal role in developing his interestin doing deep physics.Bhal was always engaged, a bit like me butwith better capability of working out details. Ashead of the theory group he has to becongratulated for creating one of the bestschools in theoretical physics. He sought outtalent and nourished it. I often attended thetheory seminars in which new emerging talentbecame visible. I found that one could spot talentirrespective of whether or not you fullyunderstood what was being said. It seemsamazing to say this but you have to develop ataste for excellence. This is very much the waythat one can often recognise musical talentwithout fully understanding the Raga beingelaborated. Many of the members of that groupsuch as Virendra Singh, S. N. Biswas, LalitPandit, Rajasekaran, Chanchal Majumdar, N.Mukunda, Sudhanshu Jha and several othersbecame much sought after and respected friends.Special culture of TIFR at that time created thispossibility. Bhal was an important ingredient ofthat culture. Walking up or down a floor in theTIFR building to the third floor inhabited by thetheory group and just to chat with any of thembecame a way of clearing cobwebs in the brainor borrowing excitement of new thoughts justemerging.I will not talk of the basic science that Bhaldid because I do not feel qualified in this regard.But I would like to remember a number of hisother engagements.Bhal was very active in discussions related53

to the United Nations Conference on Scienceand Technology. His interventions on behalf ofthe developing world were heard with greatrespect. He was also a very active participantin the Pugwash Conferences.Considering the depth of his knowledgeand understanding and the intricacies involvedin a field where science, technology and politicaland social matters were simultaneouslyoperational I would consider him one offoremost experts to handle matter like thenuclear deal with the United States. It is a pitythat his advice has not been sought.For some years Bhal was a member of theUniversity Grants Commission. It is myimpression that it was on his insistence thatUGC for the first time introduced a budget headto support science in universities. I was abeneficiary of his efforts when I went later tohead the UGC.Many working scientists felt that Indialacked science Journals that were properly peerreviewed. Udgaonkar worked hard along withRamaseshan and Indian Academy of Sciences,to launch the Physics Journal “Pramana”.Several others followed.Science education occupied our discussionsperennially. In late sixties some of the activitiesin which Udgaonkar and I were involved alongwith several others, like V. G. Kulkarni, beganto move forward. I had moved away butKulkarni and Udgaonkar pursued this effortwith singular dedication. It was primarily dueto the efforts of Udgaonkar, assisted by VG, that“Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education”was established. This has by now become animportant and well-recognised world centre inthis area.I should not forget the fact that Udgaonkarwas the Chairman of first major Science Jathaconducted in this country. This significant eventwas followed by a much larger effort in 1992 inwhich I was centrally involved. The role of theseJathas as scientific social movements has beenimportant and many of the voluntary workersin this area were molded and honed in thisactivation, first led by Udgaonkar.I cannot think of much of my life in science,particularly the area of science-in-societywithout entangling with the life and work of B.M. Udganokar.I wish him many years of happy and activelife.e-mail : palyash.pal@gmail.com54

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Why Aren't We Doing Better?Prof. B. M. UdgaonkarIt is always good to see how others view ourpredicament, all the more so when thecommentator is a veteran and perceptivejournalist like John Maddox, and commentarycomes at a time when our country is at one ofthe water-sheds of history.The tone of the 20-page special feature in arecent issue of Nature (12 April, 1984), writtenby its Editor, John Maddox, with contributionfrom Vera Rich, is set by its title : “Science inIndia : Excellence in the Midst of Poverty”, andhis bias is made explicit in the inset entitled“India’s Inheritance of Ambivalence,” where heStates : “Among developing nations, India hasby far the best chance of succeeding. The doubtis not whether but when. The country’s greatestasset is not its natural resources (which arenonetheless vast) but the ingenuity andarticulateness of its people” (emphasis added).In search of clues to an answer to thisquestion, Maddox has obviously visited a largenumber of our institutions – as many as 20 ofthese are subjects of some discussion in thesurvey - and talked to a large number of people,from the Prime Minister downwards. The resultis an impressionistic macro-view; painted withbroad - sometimes sweeping-strokes, andpunctuated by snapshots of institutions andindividuals, often in a journalistic style (forexample, scientist X, people say, “can get awaywith murder”). One finds the familiarformidable difficulties listed : population,poverty, illiteracy, cultural and geographicaldiversity, multiplicity of languages, the problemof centre-state relationships. There is credit forachievements (“many in India overlook whathas been accomplished”): the green revolution;the space programme; urban prosperity; theability to gear up quickly to new challenges likeAntarctic research or ocean research, includingwork on deep-sea poly-metallic nodules; theislands of excellence; the fact that the principleof democracy and the conviction that scienceand technology (S & T) are indispensable fordevelopment continues to be upheld; and thevast S & t infrastructure, ranging Over widefields, that has been built up.It also brings out the weaknesses,vulnerable spots, and failures of the system : thegap between what could be and what is. Forexample, the sad situation that diseasesbanished elsewhere are still common and theinadequacy of immunisation programmes: thecontrast, between rural poverty and hightechnology; the coexistence ‘of success storiesin some sectors of the system with sheerinefficiency in others (as represented, forexample, by the situation that “the Indiantelephone system is apalling, and a bizarreimpediment to efficiency”); the tendency tospread resources thinly, which is “a recipe fordoing everything a little less than excellently”;“the peculiar difficulty that first-rate institutionsare so few as to be a veneer that barely concealsthe prevalence of the second-rate”; the poor pay‘of scientists; other impediments like ahierarchical system and the non-delegation ofauthority to spend even relatively small89

amounts, from which, scientists suffer in manyinstitutions, especially in the universities; theproblems of university structures, in general; theenormous brain-drain from “the splendidinstitutions of higher learning in science andtechnology”, (“IITs are India’s most generousgifts to the United States”).“But what’s new in what Maddox tells ussomethingwe didn’t know already?” ask myscientist friends. “Isn’t the writeup toojournalistic? Should we not have, expectedMaddox, a frequent visitor to India, with .easyaccess to individuals and institutions, to gobeneath the surface .and provide a moreanalytic survey? Why these snap-shots of someinstitutions, taken in the style of a journalist wholistens to some impressarios and does not lookbeneath the gloss presented by them?”We do not agree. An indepth review of thiskind would require an army of experts in therelevant areas, and had better be done by usourselves. In fact, instead of the self-flagellationwhich Seems to have become a’ national‘pastime, we would do well to carry out aStrength Weakness Opportunities and Threats(SWOT) analysis, ourselves, sector by sector andinstitution by institution preferably by insiders,with the help of a few outside experts.To us, the macro-view presented byMaddox is more important than the details - thedetails merely serve to provide a flavour of,certain components of our system. Especially,the strength of the system that he sees, is oftenmissed in our country, even on the part of themakers of policies and decisions - the decisionsin favour of foreign collaboration in particular,Science-based success, for which India hasbeen striving since Independence, seems to himto be within our reach. One can almost hearhim asking in exasperation : When will thesepeople recognize their strengths andpotentialities, and learn to organise themselvesmore effectively, and gear themselves not onlyfor a purposeful, attack on poverty at home, butalso for a substantial participation in thecompetitive international market of technologyintensivegoods, as Japan has done’! And do theyaccept that there are and will always be twoIndias - a developed third that is comparablewith developed countries, juxtaposed with anunderdeveloped two thirds, with very littleinteraction between the two? He does notattempt to provide what he calls “apresumptuous answer” to the, question, “Whyaren’t we doing better?” He merely points outthat the question is being raised elsewhere too -in UK, W Germany, even in USA, and leaves itto us to seek the answers.While raising such questions, explicitly orimplicitly, Maddox provides a far betterperspective than is seen in some of the, dismalcorrespondence on Indian science that hasappeared recently in the columns of Nature. Thereason is obvious: Maddox is not an emigreIndian who has to rationalise his decision to stayout of India by painting the Indian scientificscene, with a black brush - one of these thanksProvidence on behalf of the world at large thatEinstein was not born in India! Nor does he haveto react defensively, like many insider. Anoutsider, he can draw upon the perspective thathe has gained over the years as the editor of aprestigious journal. ,I have a feeling that perceptive foreignersare able to see our potential and growingstrength in S & T somewhat better than we arewilling or able to do ourselves. I am remindedof Abdus Salam’s prophesy that India willemerge as a technological, superpower by theturn of this century and, of recent article, byBertrand Goldschmidt on Indian NuclearProblems (Physics News volume 14, 1983), in90

which he. evoked the possibility that India may,in the not-too-distant future, start exportingheavy-water power reactors - a soberingbackdrop to the current public discussion of theproblems of our atomic energy programme, ofour heavy water plants in particular.It is not my intention to claim that a foreignobserver like Goldschmidt or Salam or Maddoxis more objective in his assessment than most ofus. But could it be that we are too close to thescene, or too involved with components of itand, overwhelmed by the immediate problemsand frustrations, are unable to take an objectiveview? To see the wood rather than the trees?Why, did it need an Attenborough to produceGandhi?It is interesting to note that Maddox doesnot, share the prejudice of many commentatorsfrom the West, that what they call “elitistinstitutions”, or our Government’s pursuit ofspace application and nuclear energy, are to beconsidered a laxury in the midst of poverty,squalor and needless death. He sees the logic ofthese pursuits. On the other hand, he does notseem to understand the logic of our of repeatedpolicy of self reliance which he thinks is a recipefor spreading resources thinly and thus for doingeverything a little than excellently.In the brief space available, I can onlydelineate the directions in which we have tomove if the nation is to realise its S & T potentialand bridge the gulf that separates the two Indias.These may be pertinent at a time when theseventh Five year Plan is on the anvil.First of all, one looks in vain in thedocuments of the Planning Commission for adefinition of the kind of Indian society that ourdecision making elites would like to see emergeby the year 2000. There is too much ambivalenceA bold vision and a phased action programmecalculates to realise the objective in the courseof three Plan periods, with resource allocationscommensurate with the magnitude of each task,is urgently called for. This would no doubt callfor structural changes and a redefinition ofmany priorities. S & T planning will have to beintegrated into this socio-economic planningprocess. Such integration has been talked aboutfor at least 15 years, but is hardly in evidence.The tragedy of the first S & T Plan prepared bythe NCST in 1973 haunts our memories. Yetthere continues to be a big gulf that separateseconomists and other social scientists from S &T. One has only to see the presidential addressof Kamla Prasad at the 66th annual conferenceof the Indian Economic Association under thetitle “Planning in India : Some Basic IssuesRelating to Operational and Strategic Aspects”,and the Sri Ram Memorial Lecture of ManMohan Singh, under the title “Quest of Self.Reliance”, both delivered in December 983.Neither of these seem to consider S & T an(important) ingredient of the issues involved atall.One may of course point out that addressesof many eminent scientists do not show anawareness of socio-economic problems. Trueenough. The point is that unless the gulf isbridged, the whole process of planning itself willget distorted and discredited - because in theabsence of a clear-cut strategy for building upour S & T muscles in the context of economictargets . and purposefully using the strengthdeveloped to fulfill them, neither S & T nor the. economy can progress. The Planning.Commission too, and most of the economicministries, continue to be poorly equipped forthe tasks involved.Secondly, we need a greater resurgence ofa nationalist or Swadeshi spirit. reminiscent ofthe . freedom struggle with its boycott of foreigngoods. One sees foreign collaboration lobbies91

operating every where, and self-reliance gettingseverely eroded. A senior technocrat onceremarked to us: “In Delhi one sees manyAmerican Indians. French Indians, RussianIndians but very few Indian Indians.”There has to be a close nexus between therelevant ministry, the public sector and the R &D laboratories to create new technologies andto absorb and improve upon importedtechnologies (SR Valluri SCIENCE AGE,January 1984), with the objective of using thevast Indian market as a spring-board forexporting selected technologies and theirproducts. Electronics and telecommunications,heavy electricals, fertilisers and petro-chemicals,oil exploration and production technologieswould be some examples. in view of the factthat tens of thousands of crores will be investedin each of these sectors in the next 10-15 years.We need our own equivalent of the famous MITIin Japan. There is also a need to absorb thediscipline demanded by modern technology anda far greater emphasis on quality control,efficient operation and preventive maintenance.Among the things we have to learn from theoft-mentioned example of Japan is a justifiablenational pride.And what about the educational sector?The really tertiary sector of education (postgraduateand doctoral) has to be delinked fromthe mass education sector including the firstdegree. One must move progressively towardsacademic autonomy to all colleges by the year2000, so that there may be greater qualityconsciousness and accountability andexperimentation and innovation in the collegiatesystem which has become the Achilles’ heel ofthe university system. Any new college that isstarted should be planned in such a way that itcould be autonomous form the beginning. Thefiction of university control of colleges throughinspection affiliation and common examinationhad better be discarded forth with.Once undergraduate colleges are suitablydelinked from universities and theundergraduate examination are transferred toBoards (as had already happened first formatriculation or SSC examination and then forthe HSC examination) Universities or theirdepartments will have to be strengthenedselectively and provided with suitable structuresto enable them to become comparable with themore successful national laboratories in the firstinstance, and then with universities like Oxfordor Cambridge, Berkeley ‘or Princeton, by theyear 2000. A pipe-dream? Why should it be?I am sure that once a new vision ofresurgent India is operationalised, the challengespresented in the new vision will reverse thebrain-drain.All this no doubt calls for changes in theprevalent value system in our society, variousstructural changes at a variety of levels, anddetermined efforts in spite of the vested interestsinvolved. A tall order? Not if we reflect thatnothing Jess than our. survival as a nation is atstake. The key question is, do we have the courageto take off? The alternative is to resign ourselvesto slide back from the crest of the watershed.There is no third alternative, and there areno soft options.Prof Udgaonkar, senior professor with the TataInstitute of Fundamental Research, Bombay, is wellknown for his original contributions in the field ofphysics of elementary particles, with specialreference to the Regge Theory and BootstrapDynamics. He has also been a member of theUniversity Grants Commission and special adviserto the deputy chairman of the Planning Commission(Reprinted with thanks from“Science Age”, June 1984)92

Science and Technologycapability building in developingcountries-some issuesA Dialogue between ‘Prof. Abdus Salam and Prof. B. M. UdgaonkarDuring Professor Abdus Salam’s recent visitto Bombay, on 10 and 11 January, 1981,Professor Salam and Prof. B. M. Udgaonkar hadextensive discussions on a range of issuesrelating to the scientific and technologicalcapability building in the developing countries,The discussions covered the scientific disparitiespastand present between the North and theSouth, the problems of isolation and ofinstitution building, the role of basic research indeveloping countries, the importance of buildingCentres of Excellence located within developingcountries, problems encountered in the North-South dialogue, and the importance of thedeveloping countries depending on their ownresources and working out collaborativeprogrammes, amongst themselves. Thediscussions were arranged by Times of India,Bombay, and a part of these was published inTimes of India, 25 January 1981.BMU : Prof. Salam, I would like to discusswith you a range of issues relating to thescientific and technological capability buildingin the developing countries. Perhaps we canbegin with one of the recurrent themes in yourlectures and writings-what you have called “thecycle of scientific disparities.”Salam : Yes. We were the leaders in sciencesat one time but we lost the lead. It was lostmainly because of isolation. It is incredible howthe Hindus were isolated quite early. TheChinese destroyed all the boats so that theywould not come into contact with the outsideworld. The Japanese resisted all incursions untilCommodore Perry forced them to ‘open up’, Ihave found recently that during the mediaevalperiod the Muslims also cut themselves off. Theywere really at the top at one time, before the13th century. In the 12th and 13th century, theWesterners avidly sought the science from theEast, translated it, mastered it, and startedimproving upon it, but we did not do theconverse.BMU : Why has this happened ?Salam : There are deeply internal causes apartfrom the external ones. I think in the world bfIslam, the theological and Sufistic movementstook men’s minds away from that sort of endeavouraltogether. This is my feeling, but a lot ofresearch is needed for a better understandingof what happened. In any case, the fact ofisolation is totally indisputable. The Portuguesedeveloped a new style of navigation which didnot follow the coast or the ocean currents-as didthe old style of navigation. They went by cuttingacross the currents and came to India, but wemade no attempt to pick up the newnavigational advantage, or the science whichwas behind it. Another example: MaharajaJaisingh was a remarkable man. He tried tocorrect the old astronomical tables compiled inthe 15th century, and he did correct seriouserrors of the then Western tables for eclipses ofthe sun and the moon. But he made no attemptto learn the theories of Galileo.BMU : Yes. Also, while planning and93

constructing his observatories (Jantar-Mantar),he did not take cognisance of the discovery ofthe telescope.Salam : Yes. He was totally unaware of thetelescope. But, perhaps we cannot blame himfor that, because telescopes in observatoriescame a few years later, after his death. However,the theories of Newton did exist. He was notinterested in. them.There was also a certain degree ofarrogance amongst us. Our people becameextraordinarily introverted and arrogant. TheBritish Ambassador at the court of Ottomanwrote in 1800 A.D.: “No one has the least ideaof navigation and the use of the magnet. Traveling,that great source of expansion and improvementto the mind, is entirely checked by theirarrogant spirit and by the jealousy with whichintercourse with a foreigner is viewed in a personnot invested with official character. Thus,the man of general science is unknown. Anyonebut a mere artificer who should concernhimself with the founding of cannons, buildingof ships or the likes, would be esteemed to be alittle better than a mad man. They like to tradewith those who bring to them useful andvaluable articles without the labour ofmanufacture”.BMU : Unfortunately, the same sort of attitudewith regard to import of manufactured articlesand technology persists in the developingcountries even today.Coming back to the shifting of the centreof gravity of intellectual pursuits, especially inscience, one finds certain shifts even in modemtimes: e.g. the centre of gravity of scientificresearch in the 1930’s was in Europe, to a considerableextent in Germany. It then shifted toUSA. More recently, the Europeans have madevery deliberate efforts to reestablish a Europeanidentity by creating several European Agencies.For example, the European Nuclear ResearchCentre (CERN), the European Space Agency,the European Molecular Biology Organization,and various European research journals. Withthese efforts, they have succeeded to aconsiderable extent in shifting the centre ofgravity towards themselves. There have alsobeen, in the industrial field, mergers of smallcorporations into large ones, sometimes acrossnational boundaries, and joint ventures andother reorganizations so. that they may be ableto compete with the American corporations-tomeet the American challenge. Do you think thatthese developments have any lessons for theThird World?Salam : Yes. If a deliberate effort is made in aconcerted way by the Third World, we canequally win back, if not the supremacy, at leastsome sort of equality and decency.When I go to a hospital and ask for medicationfor saving my life, it always enters mythoughts whether this potent medicine hasanything to do with our fathers or forefathers.Did we make the slightest contribution? Do Ihave the right to accept it just because I can payfor it, or because those people are kind enoughto let me have it? One’s self respect and decencysuffers. I feel amazed that other people do notsuffer in the same way. We have such a habit ofbegging. Our ambassadors go and say “Youmust give us technology, because we aredeveloping, and it is a moral right in the universethat you should help the developing countrieswith technology transfer.” God damn it. Let ushave some self-respect. Let us create somethingourselves.BMU : I agree. I have always felt that there isvery little altruism in such matters, and that wehave to make deliberate efforts ourselves to buildup our own S & T capability. What are yourideas about capability building ?Salam : There are no two ways about it. Wehave to spend money and efforts on thesematters. There is no reason why we should notsucceed.BMU : For years, the developing countrieshave been saying that they must spend atleast94

one percent of the GNP on R & D. But, evenhere in India, R & D expenditure has barelyreached about 0.6 percent of the GNP. In otherdeveloping countries, it is much less. On theother hand, the developed countries spend 2, 3or even 4 percent of their GNP on R & D.Salam : Yes. But you are forgetting the absoluteamounts. India’s 0.6 percent of its entire GNP isstill a miserably small sum of money. The costsof science are international. They do notdecrease because you do it in Bombay and notin Trieste. In some ways, Europe may becheaper because of the availability of materialsand equipment nearby, and also experts nereby; so that less efforts and money are needed inorder to transport them. We in the developingcountries are just not doing enough.I am also more and more worried aboutscience percolating to the masses. That is asimportant as getting the cream of science andtechnology. Both are important-one is nosubstitute for the other. If you really wish tobuild a base for science, you have to do it.BMU : This is what Panditji used to call thegeneration of scientific temper.Salam : May be, he was ahead of his time!BMU : Even today, scientific temper is notparticularly conspicuous even among thedecision makers.Salam : It looks to me that you have begun tohave people in high places who are scientificallytrained.BMU : Yes. There are some scientists takingup secretarial positions in the Government, butthey are up against odds because themethodology and the imperatives of scientificplanning, and the discipline which they imply,have not yet been appreciated and imbibed bythe system as a whole.With regard to generation of scientifictemper among the masses, there are some beginningsof popular science movements in India.There is already a rather powerful movementof this kind in Kerala-the Kerala Sastra SahityaParishad. There is also the beginning of such amovement in Maharashtra: there is a group ofcommitted young people who call themselves“People’s Science Movement”.Have you any suggestions to make sciencepercolate to the common man?Salam : We have to get the co-operation of alltypes of people. Let me not talk about India. InPakistan, I have been trying to interest thescholars of Islam. Religion is a very, verypowerful, potent force, and so far as Islam isconcerned, science has been emphasized againand again as a method of acquiring knowledge- I think the same is the case with the Hinduscriptures. If we can get these people in religiousseminaries to take up the movement of scienceon our behalf, it may help. On the other hand,to get them into this way of thinking is not aneasy job.BMU : Would it also imply that the scientistsmust not confine themselves to the walls of theirlaboratories and universities, but take interestin social problems, especially those which canhelp the penetration of science into the society?Salam : What you referred to a moment ago,scientific planning and methodology, that is theheart of the matter.BMU : That would be at a rather sophisticatedlevel. The other problem we talked about is at amore general popular level.Salam : Yes. For example, in our countries weuse the human labour inefficiently. The sweeper,for example, is using a methodology which helearnt as a craftsman generations ago, and hehas never had the opportunity or the time, orthought for himself, how to improve his way ofdoing things. You will have to get down to thatlevel.BMU : True, but unless people who have ascientific training and way of looking at things,interact with such people and educate them tolook at their own occupation in a different light,we cannot change them. Could we?Salam : That is the heart of the matter.95

BMU : Let me now turn to the internationalefforts in the matter of S & T for development.In your article “Ideals and Realities” publishedsome years ago, in the Bulletin of AtomicScientists, you had referred to the 1963 UNConference on the Application of S & T for theBenefit of Less Developed Areas. At that time,the developing countries had pressed for thecreation of a World Science and TechnologyAgency-a Technological Development Authority-supported by an International Bank forTechnological Development. This proposal wasturned down by the developed countries. Doyou think that the UN Conference on Scienceand Technology for Development (UNCSTD),which was held in Vienna in August 1979, hasmade any progress?Salam : The whole UN system, quite honestly,has been vitiated totally by numerous factors. Iwas a member and then the Chairman of theUN Advisory Committee on Application ofScience and Technology to Development(UNACAST). We drew up a World Plan ofAction for S & T. After three meetings, I said: “Gentlemen, we should disband. All that wecould do has been done already. We were askedto write a report, which has been written. Wecannot supervise any action.” But UNcommittees have a life of their own. TheCommittee did nothing of any significanceafterwards, except for preparing for the 1979Conference: and that was a fiasco.I think the developing countries have toforget about the rich countries. They are simplynot interested in us. May be the climate willchange, but I see no signs.BMU : I very much share your feeling.Recently I was discussing this problem with aneminent visiting educationist from the richNorth, and he frankly remarked that, except forits oil resources, the Third World just does notexist for these people. There is however animportant implication-that the developingcountries must work together. There has to be agreater economic co-operation amongdeveloping countries (ECDC), and much greatertechnical co-operation among developingcountries (TCDC) too. But these have yet to takeoff.Salam : We have not even formulated theconcept in detail. We have never formulatedjoint projects among developing countries.BMU : Do you feel that in order to makemeaningful progress beyond the rhetoric ofECDC and TCDC, the developing countriesneed an equivalent of the OECD, with its ownSecretariat? This secretariat should have astrong S & T component so as to convert whatappears like a rhetoric into a serious actionprogramme. It should also provide an intellectual,analytical backing for the North-Southdialogue which has run into a stalemate.Salam : That will be a good idea. We mustrecognise that we must take our own steps.BMU : One notices another problem. If wesucceed in creating an institution, which doesthe same kind of basic research as doneelsewhere in the world, and of comparablequality, our ‘ friends’ criticize it as a transplantfrom outside, and ask “ what is it doing for yoursociety?”. They would rather have a transplantof our bright young people into their societythan a transplant of such institutions into oursociety.Salam : Fortunately, India has come to a stagewhere it can really look at science andtechnology in a meaningful and all-embracingway. Unfortunately, that is not the situation inthe rest of the developing world.BMU : Well, India itself could have done muchmore in the last three decades, with morepurposeful planning for and through S & T. Inany case, what India has been able to do, couldcertainly also be done in smaller countries,where necessary on a regional collaborativebasis. Would you agree ?Salam : There is a very practical difficulty-aregion does not exist in the minds of people. Take96

Latin America for example. It is reasonablyhomogenous; yet an Institute in one country isnot subscribed to by other countries. The LatinAmerican Centre for Physics, therefore, has notbeen able to take off. In sociology, the first lawis “hate thy neighbour”.BMU : Who would have thought a couple ofdecades ago that the Europeans would be ableto forget their traditional rivalries andanimosities and get together in so many cooperativeprogrammes as they are doing today?I hope necessity will force the Asians, Africansand Latin Americans to co-operate also-and thatthis will happen before long.I want to come back to the question of aid.and technical assistance. There exist analysesmade in the Northern countries themselves, thatthrough the so-called ‘aid’ programmes, they getmuch more out than what they give that theyare themselves the real beneficiaries.Salam : Yes. But no one accepts this outlook inour country-so much so, that my son who isreading economics at a university college hasbeen brainwashed from the opposite point ofview. Though he is a Pakistani boy, and is myson, and I had given him all my writings, hefirmly believes that the whole aid is beingwasted. This is what he is learning as aneconomist.BMU : How do we get out of this situation ?Salam : I think our economists have to do somebasic homework. There was Keynes, who wroteso beautifully, with such martialling of facts,that he was able, slowly and gradually, to getacross his point. To my knowledge, there is nosuch intellectual work at all for the NewInternational Economic Order.BMU : I thought people like Samir Amin havedone some very useful analysis in this regard. Ihave also seen some documents from the ThirdWorld Forum. I agree, however, that there isnot enough work-and even less appreciation ofthese problems in the Third World countries,especially among the decision makersSalam : I believe-without any evidence, but Ihope it will be found-that in aiding thedeveloping countries, the rich countries will beaiding themselves in solving their present seriouseconomic problems. If an integrated approachcould be shown to work, if they are made to seethat helping us helps them as well, then theirself-interest will be aroused. If this belief can besupported by solid work like that of Keynes, weshould win the battle in a few years. I had, infact, wanted at one time to hold a Workshopon the New International Economic Order atTriests, just for this reason. Unfortunately, Icould not get enough funds. I hope I am notarrogant, but I feel that we physicists andmathematicians, because of our training, havemuch clearer comprehension of these globalproblems and of what is needed, and we couldmake a logical case better than any professionallytrained economists. Remember thatKeynes was a mathematician.BMU : What one finds in the North-Southdialogue is, that the North continues to considerit as a zero-sum game, and therefore it is notwilling to give much by way of financial ortechnical , assistance’ except in a marginalfashion. On the other hand, the South is barelygetting out of the phase of rhetorics. The WillyBrandt report does try to bring out the fact thatthe development of the South is in the interestof the North itself, and suggests variousmeasures in the common interest of both. I find,however, that the Brandt report has either beenignored or severely criticised in the North.I want to come back to the question ofhomework by the South. I believe that eventhough very useful work has been done by UNAgencies like UNCTAD, there are obviouslimitations to any work done under UNauspices. Therefore, more work has to be donefor the group of 77 by its own intellectual thinktank.This is what I had in my mind when Imade a case for a G-77 counterpart of theOECD and its various study groups. Today this97

is missing. Such a think-tank should, forexample, work out a strategy for S & T capabilitybuilding in developing countries at variousstages of development, with various types ofendowment, and with various sizes ofpopulation. I do not see why any country witha population of more than 4 or 5 millions shouldnot be able to develop to the same extent asmany of the small European countries. TheVienna Programme of Action talks aboutcapability building in rather general terms.These have to be operationalised. Don’t youthink that the time has come for the G-77 to takesuch a step ?Salam : I totally agree with you. In fact, it seemsto me that your Institute and our Centre atTrieste could probably collaborate in startingsuch a project together. The InternationalFederation of Institutes for Advanced Study(IFIAS) could have done this. Though I was oneof its founding fathers, I now find that it hasbecome far too committed to other matters.Something similar has happened with the UNUniversity also, on whose foundation committeealso I had worked.BMU : What I notice about many of theseInternational endeavours is that theseorganizations, even-though conceiveddifferently and idealistically, with the hope thatthey would help the developing countries,eventually often tend to project the developedcountries’ point of view.Salam : Yes, with a few developing countriesas guineapigs.BMU : I am afraid this is the kind of thing thatis happening.. For example, I was very muchdissatisfied with the State of the Planet Reportmade by the IFIAS. One could and did makecomments on the draft, but ultimately theReport retains a certain character which verymuch projects the Northern view of the globalproblems. I noticed a similar thing about theInternational Foundation for Science (IFS). I wasat the founding meeting of the IPS with you. Atthat meeting, I tried to make a plea that if theIFS confined itself to giving grants of 5,000 or10,000 dollars here and there, it will not solvethe problem of scientists in the developingcountries such assistance will not help thegrowth of viable scientific programmes. It willonly increase the dependence of the developingcountry scientists. They were expecting to raiserather large funds for the IFS, and I tried tosuggest that they should set apart at least halfthe amount for creating Centres of Excellencelocated within the developing countries. To mydismay, I found that they did not take anyinterest in this idea at all.Salam : They could collect only a few milliondollars, and. this was .not enough to createCentres of Excellence.BMU : That may be so, but even in thosediscussions at the meetings at Stockholm, whichwere at an idealistic level, where much largeramounts were talked about, and one was tryingto project the perspectives of the IFS and thefunds needed in the light of the perspectives,there was just no interest among our friendsfrom the North in creating such Centres ofExcellence.As I think the IFS is one of the feworganizations which still has the potentiality ofthinking along these directions.BMU : Do you think so? I did not get anyresponse then. I would be happy if their attitudehas changed.Salam : In agricultural research, they are doinggood work around the world. There is a recentproposal to have another branch of IFS inCanada. But funds are a real problem. IFS doesnot have more than a million dollars. It may takeanother 3 years to get another million. It is sodifficult to raise funds.BMU : Because it is so difficult to raise fundson the scale required to create Centres ofExcellence, one ends up by merely giving grantsof 5,000 or 10,000 dollars a year here and there.Such amounts are really like a subsistence98

allowance. They are no more than palliatives.Such programmes do not touch the core of theproblem!Salam : Yes. They merely enable scientists tosurvive.BMU : They do not help to create viable localcentres or the confidence which goes with thecreation of such Centres of Excellence-the kindof confidence, for example, which one findscoming out of the TIFR. I believe that suchCentres must be created on a large scale in ourdeveloping countries. Very probably we cannotexpect much help for this purpose from outside.Salam : For such Centres, I think we in thedeveloping countries have ourselves to make upour minds and find resources. Recently, I visitedseveral Latin American countries and tried topersuade them to establish not regional, butinternational institutes-Brazil, Mexico, Peru,Venezuela.. An International Centre onAlternative Energy is contemplated in Brazil.Mexico is setting up a Centre. In Peru, I havesuggested to them to set up an InternationalCentre for Mining Technology, and the newGovernment has accepted it. A Centre forphotovoltaic in Colombia. Venezuela is settingup a Foundation which will guarantee asubstantial income for a multi-disciplinary centre.I am trying to persuade the other OPEC countriesto get interested to set up similar centres. A centrefor fundamental research has been announcedby the President of Sri Lanka. I am sure similarsuggestions for national or international centreswill come from other countries of Asia and Africawhich I will be visiting.BMU : What this implies is that we need tocreate Centres of Excellence in various areas ofS & T, located in the developing part of theworld, and financed, largely, if not entirely,through the resources of the developing worlditse1fSalam : Resources of the country. I have takenthe view that such centres should beinternational in character, and not regional,with international staff and visitors, but largelyfinanced by the countries themselves. That is theonly way to create the type of confidence youwere talking aboutBMU : And then build network arrangementsamong these centres.Salam : Absolutely. It is a great tragedy thatthe UN University, created for such a purpose,has not taken any initiative in this at all.BMU : By the time such concepts like IFIASor the UN University get off the ground, theyget utilised by the existing system in its own way,for its own purpose, and they get distorted. Wedo not seem to be paying enough attention tosee that the distortion does not take place; orare we powerless?Salam : Partly, we are powerless; partly, weare busy men. Having pushed an idea, one oftendoes not have the time and the energy to followup. I think the only thing to do is to place theidea in the hands of people who hold similarviews. If that happens .the organizations willsurvive, otherwise not.BMU : Yes, you need people with acommitment to follow up.Salam : Coming back to the point you madeearlier about the New International EconomicOrder and the need for think-tanks in thedeveloping countries, can you think of someinstitute in India which would be doing this?This would involve a mixture of the economicscommunity and of the physical and biologicalsciences community as well.BMU : While there are various institutes ofeconomics, I am afraid I cannot think of anyinstitute which deals with these global problemsin depth, and in the broad perspective that weare thinking of.Salam : This is a tragedy. However, it takes along time to get somebody to listen to it-topersuade people to build new structures. If thereis some existing structure which could be strengthened,the process could be much more economicaland faster.99

BMU : The problem I find is that whilecountries like ours have certain aspirations withregard to science, and certain expectations fromS &; T, one misses a long term perspective, andan analysis of all the implications of S &; T capabilitybuilding and self-reliance, both for internalpolicies and external policies, including the hardpolitical decisions that are often necessary. Thiskind of thinking is barely beginning, I feel.Salam : I think you are lucky in India.BMU : May be more lucky than other countries.But even here one finds that it is a painful processto convince the decision makers that we needto think in a long term perspective and mustnot allow ourselves to be just pushed aroundby immediate problems. Planning, particularlyin the domain of S &; T, is not as strong as itshould be.Salam :: The problem in the developing countriesis not merely that the expenditures on S &; T areinadequate; even more important than this is thewill to utilize science and scientists in everysphere of national development.BMU : Let me come back to the importanceof basic research for developing countries. Onefinds that many friends from the North, andeven , experts’ from the UN Agencies, oftenadvise the developing countries that basicresearch is not for them; that since they haveenormous problems in relation to basic needswhich need to be solved urgently, they shouldconcentrate only on them and not try to buildinstitutions of basic research, whose benefits willbe seen only after a long time. I have seen thiskind of point of view being projected again andagain at international forums-Pugwash,UNESCO, UNDP, UNCSTD and so on-and onehas had to counter it strongly.Salam : Yes, and our own people getbrainwashed. I am reminded of the concept of a‘supermarket of technology , which waspromoted by Blackett. We must not forget thattechnology in the conditions of today, cannot, inthe long run, flourish, without science flourishingat the same time. One part of the developmentwithout the other is meaningless. This is reallythe crux of the problem. But they don’t seem tosee the point. I think you know the famousremark made to me when I suggested thecreation of the Trieste Centre at the IAEA in 1962.One delegate put it very clearly: “ Gentlemen,Professor Salam is asking for a Centre ofTheoretical Physics. Theoretical Physics is theRolls Royce of Sciences. But what these men needis nothing more than donkey-carts”. So it is thedonkey-cart which they think is good enough forus. But donkey-car unfortunately, can take youonly part of the way, not the whole way. Andthen the discrimination which needs to be madebetween one donkey-cart and another -thatcomes only by knowing about the Rolls Royces.Basic research provides the nation with suchdiscriminating people. It is the class ofdiscriminating people who have to be encouraged.BMU : And basic research creates a cultureof science in the country. Otherwise, one hasjust a borrowed culture, and imitation-intechnology and other areas.Salam : Absolutely. Japan, for example, has avery strong. scientific community-more than inthe West. Compared to Japan, some of theEuropean country are illiterate.BMU : Right from the beginning of the Meijiera, Japan has laid emphasis on the creation ofsuch a broad basis for science and technologySalam : A recent report of the US NationalAcademy of Sciences bewails the fact that tenyears from now, USA may be left behind. Onefinds them bemoaning that they are no longerundisputed number one in the world of particlephysics.BMU : May be this is because of the concertedefforts of Europe, to which I referred earlier.Salam : Yes, but you may ask, why are theAmericans not happy being number two? Whyhas it always to be number one for themselves?BMU : And why should the developing100

countries not aspire to number one or two atleast in some areas?Let me pursue this question about basicsciences a little further. As you know, there areseveral scientists from the developing countrieswho have done quite well in theoretical physics.But there are very few in experimental physics.This gives rise to a lop-sided development. Onemay even say. that without close interaction withexperimental physics of a high order, it isdifficult to have theoretical physics of a highorder. So developing countries must build majorexperimental facilities, e.~. accelerators fornuclear physics, even if they are costly. In highenergy physics, developing countries do nothave even a local base from which to useinternational accelerators like those at CERN orFermi Laboratory, leave alone a majoraccelerator of their own. They do not even dareto think in these directions. Do you think thattime has come for us to embark upon a twoprongprogramme? In the first place, to buildup viable teams of experimentalists locally, andto support them on an adequate scale forbuilding. instrumentation that could be used tocarry out first rate experiments at one of theaccelerators in Europe, USA or USSR; andsecondly, through these efforts, to build a basewhich can be used either for building a worldclassaccelerator as a co-operative endeavouramong developing countries, or for joining aspartners in the world-wide collaboration projecton a Very Big Accelerator that is under intensivediscussion today.Salam : I entirely agree with you. I haverecently been elected to the Science PolicyCommittee of CERN. I would be very happy to-I want to take up this question there.Unfortunately, they always say, ‘you pay for itand join’, and we are in no position to pay. WhatI would like to suggest is that they should makeonly a nominal charge for participation byscientists from the developing countries. As faras the CERN is concerned, this may not be easyit is a political decision.BMU : This reminds me of a letter I hadwritten several years ago to an eminent scientistfriendat CERN, suggesting that in view of thestrong interest shown by bright young Indiansin High Energy Physics, and the fact that inIndia they have no opportunity of interactionwith accelerator physicists, it would be veryhelpful if CERN could provide financial supportto a larger number of young post-doctoralIndian theoretical physicists, on merit, withoutthe numerical restriction that arises from the factthat we are a non-member country. This wasfound difficult to accept. As you say, it is apolitical decision. Among the difficulties thatwere pointed out to me was that the authoritiesconcerned “would not be easily convinced ofthe fact that High Energy Physics is at presentthe most pressing item in the poorer countries.”Salam : They have now accepted the proposalto have more scientists from non-membercountries. But they unfortunately make uscompete with the Americans. What I do atTrieste is to give special privilege to the lessdeveloped, and I want something similar to thatset up at CERN. You may know that Ledermannalso is planning to set up a little cell at FermiLaboratory to help the developing countries touse the accelerator there. One has to keep onpushing these ideas all the time.BMU : I have been trying to push one ideaabout a major experimental facility located in theThird World and built largely as a co-operativeendeavour among developing countries-a TCDCproject. This is the proposal for a Giant EquatorialRadio Telescope, and, associated with it, anInstitute for Space Sciences and Electronics. Itsdesign utilizes the experience of our radiotelescopeat Ooty. But it will be ten times morepowerful. Its design demands that it has to belocated at or very close to the equator. Its uniquefeatures are that it will be an instrument at thevery frontiers of astronomy, and yet one that canbe built with the knowhow that exsists within101

the developing countries, and with relativelymodest investment-about 20 million dollars overa five year period. And morever, it should haveimmediate spin-off’s for the participatingcountries in the form of competence building inimportant areas of sophisticated technology, suchas microwaves and antenna systems,communications including satellitecommunication, and so on. The Director Generalof UNESCO has taken interest in it. UNESCOhelped us to organize a Workshop and preparea project report. This has been done. The problemnow is of mobilising finances for it. The resourcesat the disposal of the Interim Fund created afterUNCSTD are so measly, that one cannot eventhink of making a proposal to them.Salam : Yes, compared to the 2 billion dollarsper year the developing countries were askingfor at Vienna, the rich countries agreed to a figureof only 250 mil1ion dollars as an Interim Fundfor two years, and I understand that only 40million dollars have been pledged so far !BMU : The situation seems to be much worsethan that. Of the 40 million dollars ‘pledged’ tothe Interim Fund, only about 10 million dollarsapparently are actually in the hand !Salam : We are trying to persuade the ItalianGovernment to finance an international solid statephysics laboratory. This laboratory will act as asort of clearing house, not only of informationbut for actual dispatch of small quantities ofmaterials to people who require them in thedeveloping countries-a kind of repository.Secondly, it will do high quality research. Thirdly,what is called ‘fatigue physics’-why devices fallwillbe a major branch in this laboratory. I knowyour views, but the Italian Government will notfinance it if it is not built in Italy. Such a laboratorycannot, by definition, be in a developing country,unless some developing country takes a lead inproviding the resources.BMU : Could you not persuade some oil-richcountry to finance it ?Salam : The trouble with the oil-rich countriesis that there is very little awareness of science.It is a long process, to infuse pure sciencesparticularly. For example, I was recentlydiscussing with a leading nuclear scientist in oneof the very rich oil countries-one who shuttlesback and forth between his laboratory and amajor laboratory in the West. When I asked himabout the plans of his laboratory, he said he wasgoing to concentrate on solar energy, and theretoo on the demonstration of devices under thefield conditions in the middle-East. , What aboutfundamental physics?’ I asked. He made a veryinteresting remark: ‘We in our country, bytradition, have been traders and merchants. Forus, what is of importance is what can be ofimmediate benefit to us. We are not interestedin basic sciences’.BMU : And this is said by a scientist!Salam : And he is their best scientist.BMU : So it is going to be a long educativeprocess?Salam : It is a long process, especially when youhave even indigenous friends using all types ofarguments. Our people have been so much brainwashed!That is why, in my speeches, I amputting a lot of emphasis on past glories. I ampretty certain that the Arab nations have thepotential. Last time, when they were great, theydid take off in an enormous way. I have a feelingthat after ten years of reminding them of theirpast accomplishments in science, by which timethey will also get tired of spending their moneyon other pursuits, they may turn to the essentials.The only worry I have is that they may haveexhausted their riches by that time. But I am notdespondent. We have some friends there. Forexample, in Saudi Arabia, they are planning forfusion research. But I have only 10 or 15 years ofactive life. I do not know whether I will see thefruits of all these preachings or not.BMU : Well, if one did only those thingswhose fruits one can see in one’s own life,humanity would not have progressed very far.( Courtesy, Times of India, Bombay)102

National Security -Its International Dimensions :Some Observations.Prof. B. M. UdgaonkarPUGWASHWhat is Pugwash? Pugwash is aninternational Non-GovernmentalOrganization (NGO) that was awarded a welldeservedNobel Peace Prize for 1995, sharing itwith its President, Professor Rotblat. Since itsinception in 1957, Pugwash has been bringingtogether scientists, social scientists, and otheracademics and distinguished people, coveringa wide spectrum of ideological and geographicalgroupings, “to appraise the perils that havearisen as a result of the development of weaponsof mass destruction and to discuss a resolution”,a call given by the Russell Einstein Manifesto.The R.E. Manifesto, the credo of Pugwash, wasissued in July 1955 and was signed by 11distinguished scientists, most of them Nobelists.It drew attention to the predicament ofmankind in very poetic language, e.g.“We are speaking on this occasion, not asmembers of this or that nation, continent, orcreed, but as human beings, members of-thespecies man, whose continued existence is indoubt....”and called upon scientists to“remember your humanity and forget the rest”.Pugwash has been influential inmaintaining a continuous focus on global issuesof peace and security raised by the developmentof weapons of mass destruction for over fortyyears. Pugwash’s preoccupations during thecold-war years were, however, largely witharms control rather than disarmament, andcorrespondingly with nonproliferation ratherthan concrete steps towards elimination ofnuclear weapons. Pugwash thinking has beenlargely North-centric (about two-thirds of themembers of its Council have always been fromthe countries of the North, and a larger fractionof the participants at the Conferences andWorkshops organized by it), but it hassometimes been amenable to persistentsuggestions from other cultures, e.g. withregard to a Draft Code of Conduct forTechnology Transfer, Guidelines forInternational Scientific Cooperation forDevelopment, a timeframe for the eliminationof nuclear weapons. Pugwash started movingslowly and haltingly toward the promotion ofthe concept of a Nuclear- WeaponFree World(NWFW), only after the end of the cold war,around 1988. By 1993, it came out with its firstmonograph on a NWFW. It took some moreyears for Pugwash to realize the need to call fora well defined time frame for achievement ofthe objective of elimination of nuclear weapons.This it did with its Quinquennial Statement ofGoals, in 1997 when a period of not more thantwo decades was mentioned for the first time.PUGWASH AND THE NPT REVIEWSI was elected to the Pugwash Council andExecutive in 1987. My primary interest atPugwash until 1988 was in issues of science anddevelopment. My serious interest in nuclearissues was triggered by a draft Pugwashstatement for the 1990 NPT Review Conference,which was placed before the Council forapproval, at the Council’s pre conferencemeetings at Moscow at the end of August 1988.103

It was surprising to find a Pugwash draftfollowing the traditional approach of theNuclear Weapons States (NWSs) to NPT : It didnot address itself to the discriminatory provisionsof NPT, it was complacent with regard to thelack of progress on the commitment made byNWSs under article VI of the NPT’ and did notmention the objective of a NWFW, nor thelogical inconsistency of the doctrine of nucleardeterrence, firmly held by the NWSs, with anuclear non-proliferation policy. It did not callfor a time-bound programme for the eliminationof nuclear weapons, and yet it called uponcountries which had not joined NPT to do so,“thus enabling NPT to become a universalinstrument of peace and security”! I raised strongobjections to the tone and content of the draft,and suggested a revision. An attempt was madeby some of the veteran members of the Councilto have the draft approved without muchchange, on the ground that there was now notime to revise it substantially. It was clear thatthey were not worried about the discriminatorycharacter of the NPT, and felt that the worldwas safe in the hands of the five NWSs, andagreed with the NWSs that it was desirable tokeep others out of the nuclear club, without anycommitment to a fading away of the club. Likemany others in the South, I could not considerthe world safe in the hands of the five NWSs,knowing the behaviour of many of them (andtheir NATO allies) during the colonial era, andeven more recently, as in Vietnam, or withrespect to Apartheid, etc.After long discussions, where somemembers of the Council supported my stand, itwas agreed that the Pugwash Executive wouldfinalize the Statement at its meeting at the endof November in London, and it was left to meto make a fresh draft. A reasonably satisfactorystatement, incorporating some of the concernsexpressed by me as also the relevantrecommendations, was finalized and issued on30 November 1988. This final statementincluded a strong assertion about thefundamental incompatibility of nucleardeterrence strategy with non-proliferation goals,in as much as there is no logical basis for denyingthe “right” to a nuclear deterrent to some Stateswhile according it to others. It also called for acomprehensive action plan, with a specific timetable,for stopping and reversing the nucleararms - race, and for a formal commitment of allnuclear weapon States not to be the first to usenuclear weapons. These objectives continue tobe elusive.It was encouraging to note during thesediscussions that though Professor Rotblat’simmediate reaction to my opposition to theoriginal draft Statement was negative, he alsoremarked that his own personal thinking wassimilar to mine. He referred to a recent paper ofhis, “The Elimination of Nuclear Weapons : Is itDesirable ? Is it Feasible ?, “ which I had not yetseen; but added that these were not the viewsof Pugwash and that he was torn between hisown views and those of Pugwash.The discussions on the Statement for theNPT Review Conference had an impact on thecustomary Council Statement issued after theDagomys Conference in September 1988, whichincluded, inter alia.i) NWFW among the goals of Pugwash (Forthe first time after being kept on the backburnerduring the cold war).ii) an assertion that the policy of nucleardeterrence was in contradiction with thenon-proliferation goals of Pugwash.My proposal that one should include atimeframe for attaining NWFW was rejected onthe ground that no one knew how to define atimeframe notwithstanding that Gorbachov hadwritten to Reagan in January 1986 proposing abroad timetable for the elimination of all nuclearweapons by year 2000, and that Rajiv Gandhihad presented to the UN Special Session onDisarmament (UNSSOD-III) in May 1988, anAction Plan for elimination of all nuclear104

weapons by 2010 AD.The ambivalence of Pugwash at this stage(Sept 1988) with regard to the goal of NWFW,could be seen from the fact that the reference toNWFW as a goal, and the above statement aboutdeterrence were missing from the ExecutiveSummary. When I raised a question about theseomissions at the next meeting, the reply givento me was that one cannot include everythingin an Executive Summary !It was clear that there were several undercurrents representing different views andinterests at Pugwash. As Secretary GeneralMartin Kaplan remarked in his valedictoryaddress at the Dagomys Conference (1988),there was tension at Pugwash between whathe called the “mainstream” or “realists” of theEstablishments representing the policies of thegovernment in power, and in the academiccircles, think-tanks and industry, and the“borderland” or “idealists” whose ideas wereoften considered as radical. The central questionat Pugwash was how to combine the realisticwith the idealistic approach. Correspondingly,I often noticed a certain amount of ambivalenceat Pugwash, even among the veterans, whichgot me worried.The London meeting of the PugwashExecutive (November 1988) also adopted aStatement for the forthcoming Paris Conferenceon the 1925 Geneva Protocol Against the Useof Chemical and Bacteriological Weapons. Theoriginal draft placed before the Executive had asentence: “the concept of retaliation in kind’ ,used as a justification to retain chemicalweapons, has no logic in this age of overkill byother means”! When someone pointed out theimplication of this sentence for those countrieswhich did not have this capacity for overkill byother means, the sentence was quickly dropped.But the draft again revealed the North-centeredthinking dominant at Pugwash.Soon thereafter Prof. Rotblat decided to setup a Pugwash Study Group on NWFW, andinvited me to join it. NWFW started becomingthe topic of one of the working groups at theannual conferences from 1990 onwards. Fromthe next Pugwash Conference, I startedattending the Working Group on Nuclear issues.I continued to press for a ‘time-bound’approach to nuclear disarmament in anothercontext: the NPT Review and ExtensionConference, 1995. Having seen the reluctanceof the NWSs to start negotiations forimplementing article VI of NPT for 25 years, theWorking Groups on nuclear issues at the 1993and 1994 Pugwash Conferences were not infavour of an unconditional and indefiniteextension of the NPT beyond 1995. Mostparticipants in these working groups favouredan extension for one or more fixed periods,linked to the completion of explicit disarmamentmeasures within each period. In fact theWorking Group made this recommendationunanimously in 1994, and observed that it waswholly convinced of the necessity of extendingthe Non-Proliferation Treaty beyond 1995, forone or more fixed periods, and opposed to anindefinite extension. The extension( s) must beof a finite duration to prevent the permanentcategorization of some nations as ‘nuclear -weapon States’ and the implicit legalization andacceptance of nuclear weapons. One or moreperiods of extension should be envisaged, linkedto the completion of explicit disarmamentmeasures.... Again the ambivalence of some ofthe Pugwash seniors with regard to thesematters was revealed by the fact that while theykept quiet when this unanimousrecommendation was being made afterconsiderable deliberation by the WorkingGroup, they opposed its inclusion in theCouncil’s post-conference Statement. Theyclaimed that the Working Group was notunanimous, that they had been opposed to it.When I asked why they had not spoken out atthe Working Group, the reply was : “oh, weknew that the Council will not accept this any105

way” !What very much worried me was that thesewere scientists high up in the hierarchy ofPugwash, which was supposed to be theconscience keeper of the scientific community.SOME MORE REMARKS ON NPTBefore I leave the topic of NPT, I would liketo refer to a few relevant facts which should bekept in mind in the context of the pressures thatcontinue to be applied on India for signing theNPT :i) talks have been going on between UK,France and the European Union (EU) aboutthe possibility of the EU. in some wayacquiring nuclear weapons from UK andFrance, and controlling them, for commonEuropean defences. When I wrote to a highfunctionary of Pugwash expressingconcern about such a proposal andexpressing that it would not only be abackward step in the elimination of nuclearweapons, but also be a serious breach ofthe NPT, he replied that he agreed that itwould be a backward step, and that he wasstrongly against such a prospect and wouldfight it; but he “did not agree that a transferof French or British nuclear weapons to apolitically unified Europe of which Franceor the UK would be part could be construedas a breach of the NPT.” “In fact,” “headded, “when the NPT was crafted, thispossibility was explicitly envisioned andsome countries joined the NPT on theexplicit understanding that such a‘European clause’ be part of NPT” .(emphasis added).ii) it has been widely recognized that in anuclear war situation, the six co-userNATO States where tactical nuclearweapons of the USA (about 150-200 innumber) are deployed, and whose pilots arebeing trained in the use of nuclear weapons,would become de facto nuclear-weapon106iii)States and can for this reason - amongothers - be regarded as semi-nuclearweaponStates. As Van der Sijde hasobserved, “this is, in fact, not in accordancewith the NPT, and this situation has -understandably come under increasingattack by signatories of the NPT”.This situation may be considered along witha Statement made by the U.S. Secretary ofState, Dean Rusk, to the Senate ForeignRelations Committee on 10 July 1968, whenNPT was up for ratification in the USSenate. Dean Rusk said that consultationswith NATO allies had provided theunderstanding that the NPT “does not dealwith arrangements for deployment ofnuclear weapons within Allied territory, asthese do not involve any transfer of nuclearweapons or control over them unless anduntil a decision were made to go to war atwhich time the treaty would not becontrolling”. (emphasis added). Taken withthe creation and maintenance of a certaininfrastructure for the use of nuclearweapons in the NATO countries, includingtraining of their pilots, this would imply anautomatic war-time termination of twoimportant NPT obligations, namely ArticlesI and II of the treaty. The implication of thisfor the countries other than the 5 NWSs andthe NATO countries should be noted: Whilethe 5 NWSs and the NATO countries wouldhave nuclear weapons, the other countrieswould not have any nuclear weapons todeter them, if they have been already boundby the NPT. Jan Prawtiz has recentlyremarked that “the last part (of the RuskStatement) is disturbing: the NPT wouldlapse in war-time. Sweden gave up itsnuclear option for a variety of reasons, butone was that our European neighbourswould do the same. If that were so only inpeacetime but not in wartime when itwould be most needed, the Swedish

ationale would lose value”.I referred to van der Sijde’s observationsand the statement of Dean Rusk at a recentPugwash Conference (Sept 1999) andasked: if the NPT is considered as becominginoperative and useless at critical junctures,allowing Allies to acquire control of nuclearweapons, why were countries like Indiaand Pakistan being pressurized to join theNPT? A senior Pugwashite angrily replied(!) that the statements of former officers didnot represent the policy of the USGovernment, and any further discussionwas aborted!iv) Matthias Kuntzel has expressed concernabout “the German Plutonium bunker atHanau, which contains at least 2,500kilograms of Plutonium”. He points out that“there is no legitimate future for thatPlutonium stockpile, because there neitheris nor will be any commercial plant inGermany that could use it”, and recallsVictor Gilinsky’s words: “A nation with astore of separated Plutonium is a nationwith a nuclear option”. Japan’s situationwould be similar. And yet while there is somuch concern expressed in westerncountries about the possible nuclearweapon programmes of North Korea andIraq, one does not hear much concern aboutthe large stockpiles of Plutonium inGermany and Japan!v) A somewhat related question is : why is itthat it is wrong for an NPT member nonweaponcountry (e.g. Iraq or Iran) toacquire certain equipment from another(e.g. Germany), but it is not wrong for thelatter to manufacture it ? Is it just a questionof trust, since most advanced equipment!technology would be of the dual-use kind?Then who decides who is trust-worthy? Inthis context, one notes that the technologycontrol regimes like the London Club,MTCR, Wassanaar arrangement areessentially controlled by the industralizedcountries and put restrictions on exports todeveloping countries. Some of theserestriction go against Article IV of NPT.vi) We are aware, from repeated reports of U.S.Intelligence Agencies, of the on-goingChina Pakistan collaboration in the area ofnuclear weapons (and missiles), whichcontravenes Articles I and II of NPT. TheUS has connived at it. The US SenateForeign Relations Committee Chairman,Jesse Helms, has denounced PresidentClinton’s record of fudging on China’snuclear and missile proliferation activities.Zbigniew Brzezinski, National SecurityAdviser to President Carter, in a recentarticle, has remarked: “the US has neverfollowed a genuinely universal and nondiscriminatorypolicy of haltingproliferation. In fact, US policy all along hasbeen that of selective and preferentialproliferation....”vii) The Nuclear Weapon States have shownutter disregard for the Advisory opinion ofthe International Court of Justice (ICJ) that“there exists an obligation to pursue in goodfaith and bring to conclusion negotiationsleading to nuclear disarmament in all itsaspects, under strict and effectiveinternational control” (going somewhatbeyond the Article VI of NPT, in as muchas there is no link with general andcomplete disarmament). They havecontinued to vote in the UN GeneralAssembly against resolutions calling uponthem to start negotiations on nucleardisarmament at CD.viii) The NPT was never intended to be anindefinite license for a two - tier world ofnuclear haves and have-nots, but embodieda bargain in which while on one side, thesignatory have-nots agreed not to acquirenuclear weapons, on the other side, theNWSs undertook to pursue negotiations in107

ix)108good faith on effective measures relating tocessation of the nuclear arms race at anearly date and to nuclear disarmament, andon a treaty on general and completedisarmament under strict and effectiveinternational control (Article VI of NPT).Their “solemn commitments turned out tobe a sham, as Professor Rotblat hasremarked. For 20 years after signing theNPT, they competed intensively indeveloping new nuclear weapon systems.The total number of weapons tests carriedout by them was over 2000, and the nuclearweapons stockpile of the NWSs actuallyincreased from what it was at the timewhen NPT was signed (about 38,000) andreached a staggering figure of close to70,000 in the mid-eighties. Nucleardisarmament is as distant as ever.Development of new nuclear weaponscontinues. Thirty years after NPT, and tenyears after the end of the cold war, some32, 000 nuclear warheads still remain in theworld, almost the same number as whenNPT came into force. Even if the STARTprocess gets implemented, USA and Russiawill still retain about 20,000 nuclearwarheads in the year 2007. And yet theNWSs pressurize States which have notsigned the NPT to do so using a variety ofsanctions. - a sad example of “Do as I say,not as I do”.This situation led Frank Blackaby, a veteranPugwashite, and a former Director of theSwedish International Peace ResearchInstitute (SIPRI), to advocate what he called“a peasants’ revolt” - a warning to beissued by a sufficient number of Statesparty to the NPT, that given that the NWSsare in violation of the NPT, they, the nonnuclear-weaponStates, will withdrawfrom the NPT within two years, unlessNWSs agree to start genuine negotiationsdesigned to ultimately rid the world ofnuclear weapons. He added: “It is time tothink about rejecting a US - imposed treatyunless the treaty can be made to work asintended”.CTBTI now come to some correspondence I hadwith a very high functionary of Pugwash inFebruary-March 1996, in the context of a letterthat the four officers of Pugwash had decidedto send to the Prime Minister of India, Sri P. V.Narasimha Rao, in relation to India’s stand onCTBT, at the CD. The letter expressed the fearthat” the proposal by the Indian governmentthat the CTBT should enter into force only aftera commitment to the total elimination of nuclearweapons within ten years will result in thefailure to complete a CTBT”. It described theCTBT as “an essential step on the way to thetotal elimination of nuclear weapons,” andasserted that “failure to complete the CTBT thisyear would be a major set-back to the cause ofnuclear disarmament”. The Prime Minister ofIndia was therefore requested to modify hisapproach to this Issue.A draft of this letter was sent to me, and Iwas asked to give my views on the draft, andif” I would be willing to give it publicity in Indiaafter it has been sent”.In my reply to this high official of Pugwash,I expressed my strong opposition to the sendingof such a letter. I pointed to the indefinite andunconditional extension of NPT in 1995, dividingthe world permanently into’ nuclear-weaponStates’ and ‘nuclear-non-weapon States’, andimplicitly legitimizing and accepting nuclearweapons. In this situation, I thought, Pugwashmust review the situation, and clarify its ownideas on the approach to a nuclear-weapon-freeworld. The CTBT could no longer be consideredby itself. Further, I was unable to see how onecould claim that an agreement on CTBT, as soonas possible was an essential step on the way tothe total elimination of nuclear weapons, in the

absence of an explicit time-bound commitmentto such total elimination, embodied in the textof the CTBT. I pleaded that Pugwash shouldnot, by the proposed letter, appear to besupporting a world-order in which the worldwould be divided permanently into nuclearhaves and have-nots - a nuclear apartheid anda technological apartheid accompanying it. Iadded that any letter to the Indian PrimeMinister would be counter-productive, andPugwash should not throw its new-foundweight (arising from the Nobel Peace Prize ithad just received) on the side of the NWSs bywriting such a letter. It would thereby lose itscredibility in the Third World.The four officers of Pugwash sent the letterto the Prime Minister of India notwithstandingmy opposition (mid-February 1996). Thecorrespondence between this high officer ofPugwash (P) and myself (BMU) continued fora few weeks, in an effort to understand eachothers’ position. It may be instructive tosummarize its salient features.In the course of the correspondence itbecame clear that the main differences betweenour points of view related to the following:1) I could not see how the CTBT was threatenedby the action of the Indian government inlinking it up with steps to eliminate allnuclear weapons. To me it appeared to be amere assertion. If CTBT was an essential stepon the way to the total elimination of allnuclear weapons, as claimed, then the twohad to be explicitly linked: why should thenthere be a reluctance to do so ?2) P thought that the 10 year period mentionedby India was unrealistic. I pointed out thatProf. Rotblat had himself asserted, in hisNobel speech a few months earlier that “wehave the technical means to create a Nuclear-Weapon-Free World in about a decade”.Allowing for some 10-15 years for nontechnicalpolitical aspects, could Pugwashsupport a period of 20 or 25 years? Couldsuch a period be considered by theGovernment of India as a period endorsedby Pugwash? There was unwillingness onthe part of P to agree to any such period asrealistic.3) P said that dates for completion of theprocess were not really meaningful. Whatwas important for him was the date forstarting negotiations for a Nuclear WeaponsConvention (NWC), an agreement by thenuclear powers to sit down round a tableand discuss the terms of a NWC. He hadtherefore been advocating that the NWSsshould agree to put the elimination of nuclearweapons on the CD agenda. BMU remindedthat this call had so far fallen on ears thathad chosen to be deaf. Could he andPugwash therefore support the proposalmade by NAM (G-21) in the CD (in Mid-March) calling for a decision by the CD toestablish an Ad Hoc Committee on NuclearDisarmament, to commence negotiations ona phased programme of nucleardisarmament for the actual elimination ofnuclear weapons within a specifiedframework of time? No specific timeframewas mentioned in this proposal. I added thatif Pugwash did not put its weight behind thisNAM resolution, which was essentially theearlier Pugwash plea (1993-94) to give sucha mandate to the CD, I was afraid that thecredentials of Pugwash would be doubtedin the Third World, as also the motivation ofthe Nuclear Weapons Powers in rushingthrough the CTBT in its present form. Thissuggestion also could not elicit a positivereply.4) P would not make this a condition for signingthe CTBT because he saw every such treatyas a step in the right direction and part ofthe overall programme. The sequence andlinking of steps, was important for BMU,who was afraid that if the presentopportunity was not seized and an109

unconditional CTBT was accepted, theNWSs will not be in a hurry to arrive at aTreaty to eliminate nuclear weapons. On theother hand, the other States would haveforegone their nuclear option for ever.Soon later, the Canberra Commission, ofwhich Prof. Rotblat was a member, came outwith a very important guideline: “Theelimination of nuclear weapons must be aglobal endeavour involving all States. Theprocess followed must ensure that no Statefeels, at any stage, that further nucleardisarmament is a threat to its security. Tothis end nuclear weapon elimination shouldbe conducted as a series of phased verifiedreductions that allow States to satisfythemselves, at each stage of the process, thatfurther movement toward elimination canbe made safely and securely5) P’s advice to Indian govt. (as expressed inthe correspondence with BMU) was todemand a more definite statement in thePreamble of the CTBT that it is a first step inthe programme for the elimination of nuclearweapons which NWSs must pursue withvigour and urgency and that the progresswill be monitored in frequent reviews ofNPT. BMU felt that such a statement only inthe preamble would be a step-down fromarticle VI of NPT; further, experience witheven the article VI of NPT, where no timeframewas mentioned, was not reassuring.He also wondered how progress was to bemonitored, as being suggested by P, withouta time-frame against which it could beassessed. One had to learn from the fact thatNPT reviews had been useless for monitoringthe implementation of the NPT. NWFW hadto descend from the plane of pious desiresto the practical plane of a timebound actionplan.6) At the base of these disagreements, thereappeared to be a basic difference ofperspective. In a Euro-centric framework,non-proliferation was considered a steptowards elimination. The nuclear weaponStates and their allies were not toouncomfortable with a world in which theFive kept their nuclear arsenals (essentiallyindefinitely), but were afraid of any additionsto the Five. With the memories of the colonialpast, it was difficult for a person from thethird world to accept such a nuclear regime.7) Inability / unwillingness of P to put himselfin the position of some one from the ThirdWorld and ask why his country should signthe CTBT in the proposed form and give upits nuclear option in the kind of world thatexists. It was a world in which the recent‘Nuclear Posture Review of the USAenvisaged perpetuation of its nuclear arsenalinto the indefinite future and in which someof the other nuclear weapon States too hademphasized the importance of nuclearweapons in their security thinking, byresuming the nuclear weapons tests soonafter the extension of NPT in May 1995,thereby also violating the spirit of theassurances given at the time of this extension.Some of them had also recently arguedbefore the International Court of Justice thatthey were within their rights to use nuclearweapons.What distressed me during thecorrespondence was that P had no argumentsto counter my persuasive arguments in thecourse of the correspondence, and yet he insistedthat it was wrong for India to take the standshe did. It distressed me all the more that hisstand coincided with that of the NWSs.A tailpiece. India’s approach to CTBT wasdiscussed at length at the next PugwashConference (Sept 96, Lahti). After thisdiscussion, when I asked some of the membersof the Pugwash Executive if they now thoughtthat the letter to the Indian PM should have beensent, two of them (including one of thesignatories) replied in the negative! A question110

that has nagged me is why could the four officersnot wait till they had discussed the Indian standwith some of us, and arrived at a betterunderstanding of it? Why were they in such ahurry to add to the pressures of the NWSs ?There appeared to be an understanding ofthe Indian security concerns vis a vis CTBT,reflected in the Council Statement from Lahti(1996) which included, inter alia, the following:“We regard it as extremely unfortunate that theprospects for completing a CTBT were recentlydamaged by a statement arising from theattachment, to the version of the CTBT preparedin the Conference on Disarmament, of a clausethat would make the Treaty’s Entry into Forceconditional on its having gained the signaturesof 44 specific countries. We believe the best wayout of the current impasse would be if a meanswould be found to purge the Treaty of theproblematic (and unprecedented) entry - into -force clause, so that a CTBT could enter intoforce without requiring the signature of specificcountries beyond the five declared nuclear -weapon States”. The position seems to havechanged again, because the Council statementfrom Rustenberg (Sept. 1999) says: “..... all Statesrequired to ratify the CTBT should do so toensure the treaty’s entry into force at an earlydate”.It is not my intention to make a one-sidedcriticism of Pugwash. Pugwash has played avery important role during the cold war periodin bringing the scientists from the East and theWest together and through them promoting anEast-West understanding. It contributed to theevolution of the concepts of Common Securityand Confidence Building Measures in theEuropean context, and to the elaboration of theChemical Weapons Convention. The publicationof the Pugwash Monograph, A Nuclear -Weapon - Free - World: Desirable? Feasible? canbe seen as the start of a series of serious studies(e.g. several reports from the Henry L. StimsonCentre in the USA, the INESAP group inGermany, the International Association ofLawyers against Nuclear Arms, the Committeeon International Security and Arms Control(CISAC) of the US National Academy ofSciences, Canberra Commission) andStatements (e.g. by retired Generals AndrewGoodpaster, Lee Butler and 57 other flag officersfrom 17 centuries). It got a well- deserved NobelPeace Prize in 1995, sharing it with ProfessorRotblat, who has been its moving spirit for overfour decades.Pugwash has now to make similar effortsto promote the concept of Common Security inthe North-South context, especially keeping inmind that neo - colonialism in various forms istrying to revive old hegemonies, and the gapbetween the rich and the poor countries iswidening. It should at least guard againstpromotion of steps which are likely to widenthe gap. For this, the Pugwashites, especially theoffice-bearers, would have to try consciously toplace themselves in the position of persons froma third world country like India and ask whythat country outside the culture area of most ofthem should take steps that they are advocatingfor it, consistently with that country’s perceptionof its security.I joined Pugwash with great expectations.Over the years, I started seeing it as a windowon the outside scientific world, in the matter ofnuclear disarmament. It was an educative - anddisillusioning experience. I saw that evenrespected scientists and their respectable nongovernmentalorganization like Pugwash oftenexhibited blinkered views, largely arising fromtheir being situated in the five Nuclear-WeaponsStates or their Allies, where a large number of’hidden persuaders’ are active and that they(barring notable exceptions) did not makeenough efforts to understand the securityconcerns of those in countries outside thecharmed circle, or to promote an equitablenuclear order with emphasis on commonsecurity. If so, what about the scientists outside111

Pugwash, and those in the governments of theNWSs and their weapons establishments, andthe diehards in government who take theultimate decisions? One obviously has far to gobefore the peril of nuclear weapons getseliminated from the world. This has obviousimplications for the nuclear policy of a countrylike India.QUESTION OF INTERNATIONAL NORMSIt has often been argued that nonpossessionof nuclear weapons (except by thefive NWSs) has become or is becoming aninternational norm that should be followed byother countries. One has to ask what is meantby an international norm. In the context ofnuclear weapons, is the norm defined by thenumerous resolutions at the UN GeneralAssembly calling for the elimination of nuclearweapons, or declaring use of nuclear weaponsa crime against humanity, which weresupported by a large majority but alwaysopposed by the NWSs and their allies? or is itdefined by treaties like NPT, CTBT which wereachieved by arm-twisting and promises whichwere never meant to be kept? Is it defined bythe unanimous Advisory opinion given by theInternational Court of Justice in 1996 ? and bythe Malaysian Resolution at the UN GeneralAssembly, following this Advisory opinion,calling upon all states to commence multilateralnegotiations without delay, leading to an earlyconclusion of a Nuclear Weapons Convention,which received an overwhelming support at theGA ?“International norms” or “worldcommunity” are phrases that are increasinglyused to provide global legitimacy to actionsaimed at preserving the interests and thedominant position of the USA and its allies.Globalization, Liberalization, Interdependenceare, for example, phrases used to describe theWest’s attempts to integrate the economies ofthe nonwestern societies (former colonies) intoa global economic system dominated by it. IMF,World Bank, and International FinancialInstitutions are often used as tools to impose onother nations economic and other policies theWest considers appropriate. One has only toremember the actions of these institutions insupporting US sanctions against India followingPokhran - II sanctions against a country thathad not violated any international treaty oragreement. Pugwash has not expressed itselfagainst such sanctions.TREATIES LIKE NPT, CTBT, FMCT, ETCWe have a situation in which the fivenuclear weapons states retain their hugenuclear arsenals and huge stocks of fissilematerials, and even assert their right to usenuclear weapons when they feel that their vitalinterests are at stake, and yet want all otherStates to join the NPT and CTBT and theproposed Fissile Materials Cut-off Treaty(FMCT). The motivation of the five NWSs inpursuing this policy cannot but be questioned.These treaties put restrictions on the States otherthan the five NWSs, which are not balanced bycommitments on the part of the five NWSs toeliminate their nuclear arsenals in a well-definedtime-frame. Their acceptance would implyacceptance of a nuclear apartheid, in which thesecurity of some States (including the mostpowerful one by far) is to be accepted asdepending on nuclear weapons indefinitely,while other States would be denied suchsecurity. Why should a country forego itsnuclear options now, not knowing how theworld is going to develop, all the more so sincevarious recent developments amount toabandonment by the NWSs of the goal of nucleardisarmament?It is not sufficiently realized that nuclearapartheid implies technological apartheid -embargoes on the acquisition of varioustechnologies, equipments, instruments,components, materials,... India has been subject112

to such embargoes for over two decades, andhas been subjected to more sanctions afterPokhran - II, including the throwing out of somescientists from US establishments and thedeclaration of some “entities” for banningscientific exchanges, commercial transactions,etc.Denial of various technologies, even thoserelated to nuclear reactors goes aginast ArticleIV of NPT.The discriminatory character of NPT is wellrecognised. It is necessary to emphasize thatCTBT or proposed FMCT cannot be considerednondiscriminatory so long as they are notembedded in a treaty banning the production,stockpiling dissemination and use of nuclearweapons.The security implications of these treaties,for the States other than the five NWSs mustnot be lost sight of. One is led to wonder if thefive NWSs and their allies (which amongthemselves include all the colonial powers of notso long ago.) are at all serious about theelimination of nuclear weapons. It is difficultnot to think that their only interest in thesetreaties is to have one more handle to controlthe non-nuclear-weapons States, getting themto sign certain treaties which they themselveshave no intention of abiding by (e.g. NPT), andinspecting them very intrusively in the light ofthe treaty obligations, so that the five NWSs maynot have even remote fear of nuclear realiationfrom these countries.It is pertinent to ask as to whose interestsare served by such treaties, whether they reallycontribute to the objective of a NWFW, (withina reasonable period, to be explicitly specified,with an action programme), thereby enhancingglobal security and confidence building, or theyserve the hegemonistic interests of a fewpowers.We live in a grossly unequal world, and theinequalities will not disappear withoutpersistent efforts over a long period. In themeantime one must guard against measureswhich tend to perpetuate this inequality. EvenPugwash does not seem to have appreciated theimportance of this.THE ETHICAL DIMENSIONIn discussions of India’s exercise of thenuclear option, one frequently reads mentionof the legacy of Mahatrna Gandhi andJawaharlal Nehru, which, it is claimed, Indiahas given up.It is hazardous to transfer greatpersonalities like Nehru and Gandhi to a periodseveral decades after their death, and guesswhat they would have done if they were alivetoday. However, two things appear to me to becentral to their thought and action. Firstly, bothGandhi and Nehru were against racialism andcolonialism and against dominance / hegemony.In a letter to Bertrand Russell in December 1962,in the context of a proposal from the latter forthe resolution of the Sino - Indian crisis, Nehruobserved that one lesson he had learnt fromGandhiji was that one must not surrender orsubmit to what one considers evil. Secondly,while they advocated peace, they were not merepacifists, but said on several occasions thatdurable peace demanded a just and equitableinternational order. Therefore, it seems to me,that today they would have fought against neocolonialismin all its forms and would not havesubmitted to the attempts of the NWSs tomaintain their hegemony, through treaties likethe NPT, CTBT; technology control regimes likethe London Club, MTCR, Wassanaar regime,etc, whose effect is to deny various advancedtechnologies to the Third World; and the controlof international financial institutions includingthe IMF and the World Bank.Nehru was not in favour of unilateralrenunciation of the nuclear bomb by India.Bertrand Goldschmidt has observed: “In the1950s Pandit Nehru had been a leadingcrusader for stopping nuclear tests and for113

nuclear disarmament; but in 1955. when ......Homi Bhabha….. suggested to him a solemnunilateral renunciation of nuclear weapons, thePrime Minister had asked him to speak about itagain when India would be ready to fabricate abomb”.When discussing the moral responsibilityof scientists one is face to face with the ancientproblem of values in the world of fact, in a worldwhich is not governed by altruisticconsiderations, and of prioritizing values whenthe need arises. Einstein’s name has often beeninvoked in discussions of the ethical dimension.Einstein is, however, a good example of howan outstanding personality did not hold on tohis values in an absolutist or fundamentalistfashion, and was not averse to prioritizing them.Up to the advent of Nazi power in Germany,Einstein was, as he called himself, , a militantpacifist’. He was opposed to militarypreparedness and compulsory military service.The seizure of power by the Nazis in the heartof Europe, caused Einstein to abandon hissupport of war resistance and he began toadvocate rearmament in the West - a radicaldeparture from his previous views. “ ...... is onejustified in advising a Frenchman or a Belgianto refuse military service in the face of Germanrearmament?” he asked. Also, “.... so long asGermany persists in rearming ..... the nations ofWestern Europe depend, unfortunately, onmilitary defence. Indeed, I will go so far as toassert that if they are prudent, they will not waitunarmed, to be attacked they must be adequatelyprepared”. Later in 1939, he wrote the famousletter to President Roosevelt, which resulted inthe making of the first nuclear weapons. He doesnot seem to have expressed regrets about his role.Einstein had the moral strength to reversehimself in view of compelling circumstances.However, he never failed to distinguish betweenstrategy and principle. As a matter of principle,he never wavered in his profound abhorrenceof war, nor in his conviction that only thecreation of a supranational organisation wouldsafeguard the peace of the world. NWFW is stillbeyond the horizons of the NWSs. The NWSsare not even willing to allow Nuclear WeaponsConvention to be put on the agenda of the CD.Even Pugwashites (barring notable exceptions)seem to have conditioned themselves to theacceptance of nuclear weapons in the hands ofthe NWSs for an indefinite future. Peacemovements like CND, which looked verypowerful at one time, have become moribund.Unilateral military interventions, orinterventions supported by one or more allies,but bypassing the UN, have been increasing, andPugwash has not yet taken a stand againstthem. It is in this situation that a country likeIndia has to define its nuclear policy.A self-righteous pacifist approach orunilateral action does not take us anywhere. Itleaves us where we are - with tens of thousandsof nuclear weapons continuing indefinitely in thehands of the NWSs and their Allies, whichinclude all the colonial powers of not so long ago.An individual may face death bravely forhis absolute principles. Can a country, or thosewho have the responsibility for its security takea purely moral stand, on behalf of its people,which bind the future generations to aninequitable world order? That is where thenuclear option comes. There is no contradictionbetween working persistently and patientlytowards a NWFW and developing the nuclearoption in the interim, in the world as it is.Having said this, I must emphasize that,while maintaining a minimal deterrent, Indiamust pursue more vigorously than ever in herefforts to get the scourge of nuclear weaponseliminated globally.Invited talk at the Seminar on Physics andNational Security,Indian Physics Association, Mumbai,July 24, 2000(Reprinted with thanks from Physics News Vol. 32No 1 & 2, Jan-Mar 2001 & Apr-June 2001)114

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List of Papers, Edited books and other Writingsby Prof. B. M. UdgaonkarA. SCIENTIFIC PAPERS1. Invariants of a tensor of rank two, Proc.Indian Acad. , 34 199 (1951).2. Relativistic field quantization, Proc. IndianAcad. , 36, 482 (1952).3. Polaron self-energy and Bloch-Nordsieckmethod (with K. S. Singwi), Phys. Rev. 94,38, 19544. High Energy Nuclear Physics, CurrentScience, (1956).5. Lectures on Elements of Nuclear ReactorTheory (with L. S. Kothari) (1956).6. Strange Particles Conference at Venice-Padua, TIFR, Report (1958).7. Neutron studies at Apsara (with M. G.Bhide et al. )Proc. 2 nd International Conference onPeaceful Uses of Atomic energy, 13, 120(1958).8. Hyperfragments and isotopic spineselection rules (with M. S. Swami) NuovoCimento 14, 836 (1959).9. High Energy Physics, Current Science 28,435 (1959).10. Theory of πN scattering in the stripapproximation to Mandelstamrepresentation (with V. Singh), Phy. Rev.123, 1487, (1961).11. Self-consistent model for the nonleptonicdecays of Λ and Σ hyperons (with V. Singh)Phy. Rev. 126, 2248 (1962).12. High Energy cross-sections, Pomeranchuktheorems and Regge Poles, Phy. Rev.Letters 8, 142 (1962).(Reprinted in “Complex AngularMonument and Particle Physics” Edited byE. Squires (W. Benjamin Inc. , N. Y. andAmsterdam) 1963).13. High Energy nuclear scattering and ReggePoles (with M. Gell – Mann), Phy. Res.Letters 8, 346 (1962).[Reprint in “Science of Selected Papers inPhysics” No. 147 (Physical Society ofJapan, Kyoto)]14. Vector charge and magnetic moment formfactors of the nucleon (with V. Singh), Phy.Rev. 128, 1820 (!962).15. Theory of the J = 3/2, I = 3/2, πNresonance, Phy. Rev. 130, 1177 (1963),(with V. Singh).16. Nucleon as a Regge pole and the J = 1/2, T= 1/2, πN phase shifts (with N. N. Khuri),Phy. Rev. Letters 10 172 (1963).17. The bootstrap method in the physics ofstrong interactions, Proceedings of the1963 Midwest Conference on TheoreticalPhysics (1963).18. Phenomenology based on Regge poles,Proceedings of the Scottish UniversitiesSummer School in theoretical Physics(1963).19. Theoretical aspects of high energyinteractions Proc. Of the InternationalConference on Cosmic Rays, Jaipur, Vol.V. p. 93 (1963).20. Effective range approximation based onRegge poles, Symposia on TheoreticalPhysics, Vol. 2, P. 87 (Plenum Press, NewYork 1966).21. High energy physics, Current Science, 34,2 (1965).22. Reciprocal bootstrap possibilities for121

aryons (with L. A. P. Balazs and V.Singh), Phy. Rev. 139, B1313 (1965).23. Bayron bootstrap possibilities in SU (6),(with V. Singh) Phy. Rev. 139, B1585(1965).24. Bootstraps, Seminar on High EnergyPhysics and Elementary Particles, Trieste,1965, p. 791 (IAEA, Vienna).25. Praticle Physics – A Survey, Proceedingsof the Symposium on Cosmic Rays,Astrophysics and Particles Physics,Bombay, 1965.26. Lie Group of the Strong Coupling TheoryII (with V. Singh) Phy. Rev. 149, 1164(1966).27. A simple closed bootstrap of Baryons andmesons in an SU ( 6) Model, (Institute forAdvance study Preprint, unpublished,1966).28. Regge Pole phenomenology at HighEnergies, 1966 Tokyo Summer Lecturesin Theoretical Physics, part II. , p. 22(W. A. Benjamin, Inc. , New York1967).29. Lie Group of the Strong Coupling Theory,1966 Tokyo Summer Lectures inTheoretical Physics, part II. , p. 127 (W. A.Benjamin, Inc. , New York 1967).30. Some Simple Bootstrap Models, Symposiain Theoretical Physics and Mathematics,Vol. 7, P. 117 (Plenum Press, New York1968).31. Limits of Quantum Electrodynamics, Proc.Of the Tenth Symposium on Cosmic Rays,Elementary Practicle Physics andAstrophysics, p. 436 (1967).32. Strong Interaction Dynamics andphenomenology, Proceedings of the firstSymposium on High Energy Physics, IIT,Bombay (Dec. 12-16, 19720, P. 313, withB. B. Deo, A. N. Mitra, S. M. Roy & K. V.L. SarmaB. ARTICLES SPEECHES AND NOTES ONEDUCATION, SCIENCE AND SOCIETY,DISARMAMENT ISSUES, ETC. :1. Oppenheimer, His Life and Times, ScienceToday (June 1967), pp 31-35.2. Development of Interface between theNational laboratories and Universities(with Yash Pal), Vijnan Karmee, 19, 28-29, (1967).3. A proposal for Interdisciplinary BrainstormingCamps (with Yash Pal ), VinjanKarmee, 19, 30-31, (1967).4. DNA: The Physical Basis of Life, AIRBombay broadcast, (7 July 1967).5. A Proposal for the Reorganization of theDAE Symposia, February 1968.6. The Institute’s Role in Post-GraduatePhysics Education, a Discussion Note,TIFR, (March 1968).7. TIFR and Physics Education Programmes,Physics in India, Challenges andOpportunities, pp. 303-306, UGC, (1970).8. Growth of Theoretical Particle Physics inIndia- Some Remarks, Physics in India,Challenge and Opportunities, pp 307-309,(1970).9. Theoretical Physics in India – SomeRemarks, a Note for the Ministry ofEducation, September 30, 1970.10. Srinagar Conference on Physics Educationand Research, Physics News 1, 7-10, (1970).(Reprinted in Journal of Physics Education1, 14 (1971).11. Education and Reconstruction, Challengesof the Coming Decades, Science andCulture, 36, 525-534, (1970).12. Implementation of the Scientific PolicyResolution, Economic and Political Weekly,5, 2091-94, (1970) [ Reprinted in Scienceand Culture, 37, 175 (1971)].13. Encouragement of Creativity in Under-Graduate Science Education – Some122

Remarks, Proceedings of the Seminar onCreativity and Undergraduate ScienceEducation, Aligarh, Feb. 10-12, 1972, pp.151-55.14. Teaching and Training Programmes (aDiscussion Note, TIFR, July 27, 1972).15. Proposal for a Panel of the SACC onPerspectives for Basic Research (1972).16. Higher Education and Research – Problemsand Perspectives, Physics News 4, 12-18,(1973).17. Impact of Copernicus on his Times, 500thBirth Centenary Lecture delivered underthe auspices of the UNESCO club ofMaharashtra, St. Xavier’s College,Bombay, Aug 13, 1973.18. Professor Satyendra Nath Bose – A Tribute,Physics News, 5, 68 (1974).19. Satyen Bose : Founder of QuantumStatistics, Indian & Foreign Review, Vol.11, July 1, 1974, p. 18.20. Notes for Remarks at the Inauguration ofthe HBCSE, 2nd July, 1974.21. Development of Colleges during the VPlan, - Some Thoughts, a Note forconsideration of UGC, April 2, 197422. Faculty Development Programmes Duringthe V Plan, a note for consideration ofUGC, 15 June 1974.23. Higher Education in the Seventies –challenges and opportunities, Swarajya,June 22 & 29, 1974. (Reproduced in‘Higher Education in India’, BharathanPublications, Madras, July 1974).24. UGC’s Role in the Determination andMaintenance of Standards in Universities:Some Thoughts, a note submitted to theUGC, 1974.25. Research and basic Human Needs: Closingthe Widening Gap, New Quest 1, 31-38,1977; (reproduced in Research and HumanNeeds, Ed. A. Forti and P. Bisogno,Pergamon Press, 1981, and ‘ScientificResearch and Social Goads : Towards aNew Development Model’, Ed. Fedricomayor; pp. 51-60, Pergamon Press, 1992)26. Some Thoughts on the Reorganization ofthe Course Pattern at the + 3 Level, a Notesubmitted to the University of Bombay,September 1976.27. Reports of the Education Committee onthe 10+2+3 Pattern (with M. R. Bhiday, M.D. Karakhanavala, S. S. Shrikhande andC. G. Kulkarni), Maharashtra Academy ofSciences, 1976.28. Some Thoughts Relating to the Contentsof the Foundation Courses, April 1977.29. Some Thoughts Related to the LanguageCourses, a Note submitted to the Universityof Madras (August 1977).30. Restructuring Education in Science andTechnology, paper presented at a Seminaron Alternatives in Education at the IndianInstitute of Advanced Study, Simla, 2-7November 1976.31. Basic Human Needs and the ProfessionalResponsibility of Scientists, Proceedings ofthe 25th Pugwash Conference, Madras,January 1976, pp. 433-44132. Research, Education and Propagation ofScience (in Marathi), Marathi VidnyanParishad Patrika, February 1976, pp 3-8.33. Social Relevance of Science in India,keynote address at a seminar on SocialRelevance of Science in India, SastraSahitya Parishat (Malayalam), Bombay, 28March 1976.34. Education in Developing Countries, ‘Science in the Service of Basic HumanNeeds’, (Andhra Pradesh Academy ofSciences, Hyderabad 1976), pp 227 –234.35. Development, Resources, World Securityand New Directions for InternationalScientific Cooperation: Implications for a123

Code of Conduct for Scientists,Proceedings of the 26th PugwashConference ‘Disarmament, Security andDevelopment’ Mulhlhausen, GDR, 26-31August 1976, pp. 192-220. [Reproduced inJournal of Higher Education Vol. 2 (Nos. 1and 2), 1976; and in Scientific Co-operationfor Development, Search for NewDirections, Ed. P. J. Lavakare, AParthasarthi and B. M. Udgaonkar, Vikas1980, pp. 104-54].36. Foreign Participation or Collaboration inResearch Projects in India, A note on the167 th and 200 th Reports of the PublicAccounts Committee to the fifth LokSabha, April 1975 and March 1976,Physics News, September 1976.37. Science and International Cooperation,Science Today, 11, (7), pp. 17-27, 1977.38. Implementation of the Semester system atthe Bombay University : Some Suggestions,a discussion note submitted to BombayUniversity, 24 February 1977.39. Pugwash Guidelines for InternationalScientific Co-operation for Development,1979 (as a member of the SteeringCommittee).40. Science and Technology for RuralDevelopment: Role of Institutions ofHigher Learning, Proceedings of COSTEDSeminar on Science and Technology forIntegrated Rural Development, Madras,March 7 & 8, 1977, pp. 74-105 (also, newFrontiers in Education, VII (3) 21-44, 1977).41. T. V. in India; Education or Entertainment,(with S. Ramani), Science Today, July1977, p. 7.42. Some thoughts on the UNESCOProgramme on Research and Basic HumanNeeds, Alger meeting of Working Group,9 April 1977.43. Science, Commonsense and Imagination,Diamond Jubilee Lecture at D. E. I.Radhasoami Educational Institute,December 18, 1977.44. Framework for an Action Programme onResearch and Human Needs, in ScientificResearch and Social Goals: Towards a NewDevelopment Model’, Ed. Federico mayor,p. p. 115-143, Pergamon Press, 1982.45. Science, Scientists and Society, Proceedingsof the 27th Pugwash Conference, Munich,August 1977, pp 486-493.46. Futurology, Srushtidnyan, Dec 1977(Marathi).47. Science and Technology Education,Proceedings of a Seminar on Science andIts Impact on Society – Indian Experience,the Indian National Science Academy,New Delhi, April 22-23, 1978, pp 217-226.48. Education & Productivity, Society andScience, 1, (1) , pp. 61-68, Nov. 1978.49. Restructuring the S. R. Division of PlanningCommission, a Discussion Note submittedto the Planning Commission, 7 December1978.50. Impact of Science on Human Values,COSTED Seminar on Impact of Science onHuman Values, Madras 10-12, June 1979.51. Self-Reliance in the Indian Context, Societyand Science, 2, (2), pp. 11-26, April/june1979.52. Some Thoughts on the Papers of GerdTacke, Van Den Brink and Ramaer,presented to IFIAS Core Team on the TNCProject, Toronto, 10 March 1979.53. Some comments on the Draft NationalPolicy on Education, 1979, Society andScience, 2 (4), pp. 107-117, Nov. 1979.54. 1979 Nobel Prize in Physics, Science Today,December 1979, pp 62-64.55. Scientific Temper and Public Policy,Proceedings of the International Seminaron Science and Technology and Society in124

Developing Countries, Bombay, November13-17, 1979, Eds. R. Chidambaram, H. N.Sethna, B. V. Subbarayappa and B. M.Udgaonkar pp. 1-20. (Also, Society andScience, 3, (4) pp. 1-20, November 1980).56. Scientific Temper and Public Policy, IndiaInt. Centre Quarterly, 7, (1), pp. 25-38,March 1980.57. Scientific Temper and Public Policy ,Science Today, pp. 9-15, May 1980.[Reproduced in Social Democracy,November 1981).58. Enhancing the Role of CSIR: Someremarks, Prof. B. D. Tilak FelicitationVolume, pp. 20-25, 24 April 1980.59. Higher Education and the University Acts,Shikshan ani Samaj, 3 (3), 131, 1980(Marathi).60. Institutional Framework for S & T Planningand Implementation, presented at theMeeting on Plan Frame for Science forScience and Technology (1980-85), NewDelhi 2-3 August, 1980.61. Exercises in S & T policy Formulation andPlanning : Are we Ready for a Take-off?Society and Science, 3, (3) pp. 71-82, July/September 1980.62. Science and Technology for Development:Role of Transnational Corporations,ACAST Forum, Vienna, August 1979.(with H. B. G. Casimir, B. Gyllenberg, M.Wionczek, M. Zinkin). Economic andPolitical Weekly, Vol. XV, No. 35, pp. M107-117, August 30, 1980.63. Basic Needs, Science and Technology andSocial Structures, Presidential Address toMarathi Vidnyan Sammelan, November80, Nav-Bharat, Jan. 1981 (Marathi).64. Science and Technology and InstitutionalConstraints, Science Today, XV, (2), pp.11-13, Feb. 1981.65. Hasty Conclusions? Letter to IndianExpress, 10 January 1980.66. UPSC Medium, Letter to Times of India,12 January 1980.67. Use of Regional Languages, Letter toHindu, 16 March 1981.68. The Institute of Science – yesterday, Todayand Tomorrow, Diamond JubileeCommemoration Volume 1981, Institute ofScience, Bombay, pp. 19-22.69. Presidential Address, MaharashtraAcademy of Sciences, 1980 Newsletter ofM. A. Sc. , March 1981.70. Presidential Address, M. A. Sc. , 1981,Newsletter of M. A. Sc. 3 (1), March 1982.71. What can the Academy do? Newsletter ofM. A. Sc. 10, October 1985.72. Donkey-Carts and Rolls Royces, adialogue with Prof. Abdus Salam, Timesof India, Sunday Review, Jan 25, 1981.73. S & T Capability Building in DevelopingCountries – Some Issues : A dialogue withProf. Abdus Salam, Physics News 12 (1),18-25, March 1981, (Reprinted in IFDADossier No. 29, 1982, Marathi Translationin Nav-Bharat, Jan 1982, pp. 8-25, FrenchTranslation in Perspective & Sante / , No.24, Paris, 1982. )74. Comments arising from the Dialogue withProfessor Salam, Physics News, Editorial,March 1981.75. Science & Technology in the Eighties: AreWe Ready for a Take-off? PTI Feature, ’81(PF-269).76. UNCSTD Revisted, Society & Science, 4,(3 & 4) pp. 109-124, Nov ’81.77. Enhancing the Role of Universities,‘Department of Physics DecennialLectures’, Ed. M. C. Joshi & A. A.Rangwala, Dept. of Physics, University ofBombay, 1981, pp. 1-18.78. A Statement on Scientific Temper, NehruCentre, July 1981 (with other signatories).125

79. Education in India – 2000, AIR Broadcast(Marathi), 9 July 1981.80. Models of Growth? Science Today, pp 5-6, March 1982.81. Who is responsible for the brain-drain?,Science Today, pp. 9-10, January 1983.(Reproduction of Editorial from PhysicsNews, Dec. 1982).82. Science and Technology in the NewInternational Economic Order, Scienceand Technology Policy in the 1980s andBeyond, Ed. M. Gibbons, P. Gummett andB. M. Udgaonkar (Longmans, 1984), pp.324-46. (Also, New Quest 41, 261-277,1983).83. Designing Education for the FutureGenerations, AIR Bombay May 2, 1983.84. A note on Autonomous Colleges,submitted to Chancellor, BombayUniversity, June 1, 1983.85. Religion – A help or Hinderance, Yojana,August 15, 1983.86. Review of Subtle is the Lord …. , the Scienceand the Life of Albert Einstein, AbrahamPais, December 1983.87. Science City: What is the Message? ScienceToday, March 1984, p. 16 (reproductionof Editorial from Physics News, September1983.88. Newton and Einstein (In Marathi), MarathiVidnyan Parishad Patrika, April 1984.89. Facts and Feats : Grand Unification, AIRBombay, May 6, 1984.90. Why are’t We Doing Better? Science Age,June 1984, pp. 10-12.91. Crisis in Higher Education : Remarks at aSymposium at IIT Powai, July 24, 1984.92. Some Thoughts on Hiroshima Day, August6, 1984.93. Adhyatma and Vidnyan, an interview inMarathi, by M. P. Rege (Shodh, Specialissue, 1984).94. Science, Technology and EconomicDevelopment, Inaugural Lecture of aProgramme on Science and Technology,under the auspices of the EconomicResearch and Training Foundation, IndianMerchants’ Chamber, 24 August 1984.New Quest 49, 5-21, 1985.95. Bright Students : Take up a ResearchCareer, Guest Editorial, Marathi VidnyanPatrika, September 1984.96. Review of Collected Works of MeghnadSaha, Vol1, Ed. Santimay Chatterjee,Physics News, Sept. 1984, pp. 87-90.97. Growing Science – from Bhabha’sWritings, Science Today, October 1984, pp76-79.98. a)Many Non-viable Colleges: Curse ofIndian Universities.b)Autonomy for Colleges. Way out, Timesof India, Delhi, Oct 5 & 6, 1984.99. Bhabha on Administering Science, ScienceToday, November 1984, p. 62.100. Computers in School Education, Souveniron Symposium on New Developments inSchool Education, November 1984.101. Education Policy and the TeachingCommunity, Guest Editorial in PhysicsEducation, pp. 3-6, Oct –Dec. 1985.102. Breakthrough : Equivalence of Mass andEnergy, AIR, Mumbai, March 1985.103. Homi Bhabha on Growing Science, HomiJehangir Bhabha : Collected ScientificPapers, pp. LI-LXXIX (Ed. B. V.Sreekanthan, Virendra Singh & B. M.Udgaonkar) 1985. (Also, LinkNewsweekly, Dec. 21, 1986, 29, (20), pp20-33. ).104. Ganit Prasaravishayi Kahi Vichar(Marathi), Marathi Vidnyan ParishadPatrika, pp. 245-249, Feb. 1986.105. Open World: A Vision Revisited, Invitedpaper at Round-Table Talk in126

commemoration of Niels Bohr Centenary,UNESCO, Paris, 28-29 Nov. 1985, PhysicsNews, 17 (1) pp. 4-11, March 1986.106. Relevance and Excellence, CosmicPathways, (Ed. Ramnath Cowsik), 1996,pp. 321-327 (Reproduced in ASPAP News2(2), 24, 1987. )107. Role of Education in Scientific ResearchMainstream, XXIV, (40), pp. 13-19, (June7, 1986).Also, Physics Education, 3, (3) pp. 42-51(Oct-Dec 1986). ]108. Comments at CABE meeting on 1- 2 Aug1986 (from minutes of the meeting)109. Some Thoughts on Sanskrit day, Centre ofAdvanced Studies in Sanskrit, PoonaUniversity, 19 August 1986.110. Science and Technology: Need for aMission Oriented Approach, OnlookerAnnual, 1985.111. Towards a New National EducationalPolicy, Paper prepared for a HBCSEseminar, Dec. 1985.112. Loka-Sankhya Samasya, AIR Broadcast(Marathi), Mumbai 29 October 1986.113. A profile of Science and Technology inIndia’s Economic Development, TheDevelopment Process of the IndianEconomy, Ed. P. R. Brahmananda and V.R. Panchamukhi, 1987, pp. 447-460.114. Indian Science Today – Need for a Changeof Ethos, Times of India, February 28, 1987.115. Population, Development and Manpower,Convocation Address to InternationalInstitute of Population Studies, Bombay,June 1, 1985.116. Meeting Drought: A Micro-Water-ShedDevelopment Approach (with V. D.Deshpande), AMBIO, XVI, (5), pp. 301-303, 1987.117. Future of the University system,J. P. Naik Memorial Lecture,Journal of Education and Social Change,1(1), 73-79, 1987.118. Technology Import, Letter to Times ofIndia, 16 March 1987.119. Vidnyan ani Samaj – Parivartan (inMarathi),Inaugural Address at CentenaryCelebrations of Social Conferences,Niphad, 28-29 Nov., 1987, Nav Bharat41(6), 7-14, 1988, & Yojana 16(16), 4, 1988(Marathi).120. Swayatta Mahavidyalaya, VishnushastriChiploonlamhar Lecture, Ruia College,January 24, 1988. (in Matathi)121. Scientists, Social Concern, and the Problemof Societal Action, Science for SocialRevolution – Towards a People’s ScienceMovement, KSSP, Trivandrum, 1(1), Jan-Feb 1988, pp. 3-6.122. Autonomous Colleges – Challenge andOpportunities,‘The Elphinstonian’, March 1988; TheEconomic Times, April 24, 1988,(reproduced in Physics Education, 6, April– June 1989; translation in MaharashtraTimes).123. Common Goal - Non-Aligned Movementand Pugwash, New Times, Moscow,(Special Supplement, August 1988).124. Autonomous Research Institutions andUniversities, M. G. K. Menon Festschrift,1988.125. Contributions of Science and Technologyto the Alleviation of Underdevelopment.Proceedings of the 38 th PugwashConference on Science and World Affairs,Dagomys, USSR, 29 August – 3 September1988. (Reproduced in Global Problems andCommon Security – Annals of Pugwash,1988, (Springer – Verlag), Ed. J. Rotblat &V. I. Goldanskii.126. Global Challenges and Pugwash, invited127

paper presented in a seminar in honour ofJoselph Rotblat’s 80 th Birthday, London, 29– 30 November, 1988. PugwashNewsletter, Special Issue, January 1989.127. Science and Technology and theDevelopment Process – Bridging the VisionReality Gap, In Search of India’sRenaissance, Vol. II, pp. 684-97 (Centre forResearch in Rural and IndustrialDevelopment, Chandigarh, 1992).(Excerpts reproduced in Science Reporter,February, 1990. Bengali Translation inDesh, Special Issue 1989. )128. Nehru and Science – Yesterday, Today andTomorrow, Marathi Vidnyan Patrika,January 1989, (in Marathi).129. Beyond Non-Proliferation, in Nuclear Non-Proliferation and the Non-ProliferationTreaty, Eds M. P. Fry, N. P. Keatinge, andJ. Rotblat (Springer-Verlag, 1990)(reproduced in Bharatiya SamajikChintan, 1990).130. Science and Humanism, Journal Sc. Ind.Res, 49, Dec 90, pp. 569-77.131. Concluding Remarks at the FirstInternational Pugwash Workshop on Non-Military Dimensions of Global Security,Surajkund, 24 November 1989.132. Science and Humanism, AIR, Bombay, Feb28, 1990.133. Remarks at Inauguration of an OrientationCourse for KVS/AEES Physics Teachers,Anushaktinagar, 1 March 1990.134. Imperatives of a Holistic Approach toGlobal Security – Report on the SurajkundWorkshop, invited paper presented to the6 th Pan African Pugwash RegionalConference, Cairo, March 21-24, 1990.135. Science and Technology, Societal Goals,and Planning – Some Reflections,Presidential Address to XIV Indian SocialScience Congress, Ahmedabad, Dec-12-16,1989. Bharatiya Samajik Chintan, XIII (1-4), 1990, pp. 69-78.136. Scientific Temper and Secularism, inSecularism in India, Ed. M. S. Gore, IndianAcademy of Social Sciences, 1991.137. Development and Security in the Asia-Pacific Region : Some Observations,Proceedings of the 41 st PugwashConference on Science and World Affairs,Beijing, China, pp. 140-43, 1991.138. Feasibility of a Nuclear Weapon FreeWorld : Is the Main Problem the beginningor near “Zero” ?, Pugwash Workshop on‘a Nuclear Weapon Free World – Is itDesirable? Is it Feasible ?’, Turin, May 1991.139. Intermediate Steps Towards a NWFW :Drastic Reductions, Pugwash Workshopon ‘The Desirability and Feasibility of aNuclear Weapon Free World’, London,Dec 14-16, 1991.140. Some thoughts on Mathematics Educationin India, Proceedings of Second Indo-USWorkshop on Mathematics Education,Goa, Feb. 3-13, 1992, pp. 24-30.141. An interview in Bakhar, Diwali, 1992(Marathi)142. Approaches towards a Nuclear WeaponFree World, (with C. Raja Mohan and MajBritt Theorin) A Nuclear Weapon FreeWorld – Is it Desirbale ? Is it Feasible ? Ed.Joseph Rotblat, Jack Steinberger andBhalchandra Udgaonkar (Westview Press,1993). Pp. 201-220.143. Scientific Research – AutonomousResearch Institutions and Universities,Higher Education Reform in India :Experience and Perspectives, Ed. SumaChitnis and Philip Altbach (Sage, NewDelhi, 1992), pp 245-76.144. An Intimate View of Indian Science, aReview of Growing up with Science inIndia by B. V. Thosar, Weekend Observer,128

May 23, 1992.145. Pugwash and the NPT, Address to thePlenary Session on ‘Non-ProliferationTreaty after 1995’, Proceedings of 43 rdPugwash Conference, Hasseludden, , June1993 pp. 189-93.146. Technical and Socio-Political Requirementsfor a Nuclear-Weapon Free world,Proceedings of the 43 rd PugwashConference Hasseludden, June 1993, pp.244-53.147. Nuclear Proliferation Concerns and theNPT, New Quest, 102, Nov-Dec 1993, pp325-33.148. Scientific Culture and IdeologicalInfluences on History of Science in India,Occasional Paper 16 of the Project onHistory of Indian Science Philosophy andCulture (PHISPC), 1993.149. Nuclear Proliferation and the NPT, IndiaPerspectives, Jan 1994, pp 15-19.150. Scientific Tradition and Other Traditions,Occasional Paper 24 of PHISPC, 1994.(also, Current Science, 69 (2), 197-206,1995).151. Non-Proliferation, NPT, a NWFW and theAgenda for 1995, Proceedings of the 44 thPugwash Conference, Kolyanbari, June-July 1994, pp. 264-66.152. Remarks at the Inauguration ofOrientation Course in Science andMathematics for AEES Teachers, Tarapur,17 Oct 1994.153. Science and Humanism – Challenge ofScience to Basic Human Values, in Facetsof Humanism, Ed. B. V. Subbarayappa,(affiliated East – West Press, 1995).154. Science and Technology in 2001, AIRBroadcast, 15 August 1995.155. Nobel Peace Prizes to Rotblat and Pugwash(shortened version published as Anti-Nuclear Role of Pugwash Movement,Times of India, Jan 1996).156. Nobel Peace Prize 1995, an interview byHemchandra Pradhan and ChintamaniDeshmukh, Thinkers’ Academy Journal,Jan 1996 (in Marathi).157. Planning for Excellence, Address at AEESPrincipals’ Workshop, HBCSE, 22 May1996.158. Scientific Temper, Here and There,Thinkers’ Academy Journal, July – August1996.159. What Freedom Means to Me, All IndiaRadio, 15 August 1996.160. Why CTBT ? – a Reply to Frank Blackaby,Pugwash Newsletter, Dec 1996.161. Why did Early Indian Science not fulfill itsPromise ? – Some Thoughts. Dr. D. S.Kothari Memorial Lecture, Indian Instituteof Science, Bangalore, 10 April 1997.162. Is India’s Refusal to sign the CTBTinconsistent with the Gandhi – NehruLegacy ? – a Reply to Khairallah Assar,Pugwash Newsletter, May 1997.163. Atomic Energy for Peaceful Purposes,India Perspectives, Independence SpecialIssue, 15 August 1997.164. Pugwash at Forty – Some thoughts on theUnfinished Agenda, Proc of 47 th PugwashConference, Lillehammer, 1997. (based ontalk at Pugwash Seminar on Past, Presentand Future of Pugwash, at Pugwash,Novascotia, 11-12 July 1997).165. Pokhran – II : Where do we go from here ?An interview with Hemchandra Pradhanand Chintamani Deshmukh, MaharashtraTimes, 17 May 1998 (Marathi).166. A proposal for Nuclear Disarmament bythe Turn of the Present Millennium (withS. Rajgopal), June 1998.167. Nuclear Weapons, Current Science, 75 (9),10 Nov 1998. .168. India’s Nuclear Capability, Her Security129

Concerns, and the Recent Tests, CurrentScience, 76 (2), 154-66, 1999.169. Pugwash and Unilateral Military Action,Pugwash Newsletter, April 1999.170. Fissile Materials Cut-off, Strategic AnalysisXXIII (9), Dec 1999, pp 1587-99.171. Paradise or Death ? India 1000-2000(Express Publications, Madurai, Dec 1999.172. Biases in Nuclear Non-ProliferationInitiatives, Mumbai Sakal, 20 August 2000(in Marathi).173. National Security – Its InternationalDimensions : Some Observations, StrategicAnalysis, XXIV (10), Jan 2001 (also PhysicsNews, 32 (1&2), 11-24, 2001).174. V. G. Kulkani – A tribute, MarathiVidnyan Patrika, September 2002 (inMarathi).175. Forward to Gatha Shodhanchi by V. G.Kulkarni, G. P Phondke and AnjaliKulkarni and its English translation“Invetnios and Discoveries : Milestones inScience”176. Science in India-Yesterday, Today andTomorrow, Science Day Lecture under theauspices of TIFR Alumni Association, 28February 2003.177. Early years at TIFR, Interview by ArvindKumar, December 2003.178. Universities and Higher Education –Autonomy Essential for Promotion ofExcellence for Higher EducationAutonomy essential for Promotion ofExcellence : Marathi Vidhyan Patrika, Nov2004.179. Interview by Dr. Hemchandra Pradhan,Radio autography (Marathi) for StateArchives of AIR, early 2005.180. Interview by Dr. Chintamani Deshmukh,Radio autography for Central Archives ofAIR, early 2005.181. Democratic Science Education, InauguralAddress at a workshop on “ScienceEducation in India”, HBCSE, Mumbai, 22March, 2007.182. Forward to Vidnyan Ani Tantradnyan –Swaroop and Pailoo, a book by H. C.Pradhan, HBCSE, TIFR, Mumbai 2007.C. PHYSICS NEWS EDITORIALS Physicists and Educational Reform -September 1975 UGC’s Faculty Development Programmes -December 1975 Objectives and Contents of Science Course -March 1976 Enlarging the Scope of the Ph. D degree - June1976 Standards of Education and the AcademicCommunity - September 1976 Fostering Instrument Building Capability -March 1977 Nurturing Graduate Schools and IndianResearch Journals - June 1977 Variable Energy Cyclotron - September 1977 Publication in Indian Research Journals -December 1977 A New UGC Policy Frame and the Draft FiveYear Plan - March 1978 Fiftieth Anniversary of Discovery of RamanEffect - June 1978 University Rules and Regulations and Pursuitof Research in Universities - September 1978 Import Constraints and Technological Self-Reliance - December 1978 Remembering Albert Einstein - March 1979 Young Inputs into Research - June 1979 Creating Major Experimental Facilities -September 1979 Looking Back and Forward - December 1979 Basic vs Goal-Oriented Research - March 1980 Imperatives of Planning - June 1980 Research Career? In India? in USA? -September 1980130

New Energy Sources - December 1980 Comments arising from the Dialogue withProfessor Salam - March 1981 Publishing in Indian Research Journals - June1981 Attracting Bright Students to Research -September 1981 Thoughts arising from the Silver Jubilee ofPhysics Symposia - March 1982 Space, Atomic Energy and Self-Reliance - June1982 Embargos on Equipment, Devices andMaterials - September 1982 Improving the Research Environment -December 1981 Who is Responsible for the Brain Drain? -December 1982 Bridging the Gap between Universities andNational Laboratories - March 1983 Comments on a Proposal of the APS - June1983 Science City - What is the Message? -September 1983 Building up National S&T Capability -December 1983 UGC and the Strengthening of Research inUniversities - March 1984 Where should a Bright Student for his Ph. D.?- June 1984 Strengthening our Ph. D. Graduate Schools -September 1984 Survival of Mankind and the PeaceMovements - December 1984 Scientific Research and the Technology Gap- March 1985 Attracting Bright Students to Research - June1985 Challenge of Education - September 1985 S&T Policy and Planning - December 1985 Do we have a Manpower Policy? - March 1986 New Education Policy: Are we geared for itsImplementation? - June 1986 New Education Policy: How will the UniversitiesMove Centre Stage? - September 1986 Erosion of Standards - December 1986 Publications and Scientific Values - March1987 Should we Close Down our Research Journals- September 1987D. BOOKS:1. Scientific Cooperation for Development -Search for New Directions: Edited with P.J. Lavakare & Ashok Parthasarathi, Vikas1980.2. Proceedings of the International Seminar onScience, Technology and Society inDeveloping Countries, Bombay, November,1979, Edited with. H. N. Sethna, R.Chidambaram, B. V. Subbarayappa, NehruCentre, July, 1981.3. Science and Technology Policy in the 1980sand Beyond, Edited with P. Gummet & M.Gibbons, Longman 1984.4. Homi Jehangir Bhabha: Collected ScientificPapers, Edited with B. V. Sreekantan &Virendra Singh.5. A nuclear Weapon – Free World: Desirable?Feasible? Edited with Joseph Rotblot andJack Steinberger, Westview Press, 1993.E. SOME OTHER WRITINGS :1. Chapter on Science and Technology, inDraft Five Year Plan, 1978-83.2. A Statement on Scientific Temper,Nehru Centre, Feb. 1971 (along with about25 other signatories).3. Financing Science and Technology forDevelopment:Report of the Intergovernmental Group ofExperts on the United Nations FinancingSystem for Science and Technology forDevelopment (A /CN. 11/21, 15 July 1981).(jointly with other members of the Group).131

132Prof. B. M. UdgaonkarProf. B. M. Udgaonkar (b. 1927) began his research career at the Tata Institute ofFundamental Research, under the guidance of Prof. H. J. Bhabha, in 1949. After somepublications of interest in Bhabha’s theory of elementary particles, he was drawn into thenewly emerging Indian Atomic Energy Programme. He underwent training at the FrenchAtomic Energy Commission, Saclay, France for 18 months (1953-55), and on his return builtup the core of the Reactor Theory Group of what is now the Bhabha Atomic ResearchCentre. In 1960, he switched back to High Energy Physics, and spent the next three years inUSA, at Lawrence Radiation Laboratory, Berkley (1960-62), Institute For Advanced Study,Princeton (1962-63), and Arogonne National Laboratory (1963). On his return he took chargeof the Theoretical Physics Group at Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Bombay, whichsoon acquired international reputation.Prof. Udgaonkar is known for his pioneering contribution in the Regge PolePhenomenology of high energy cross sections and also for his work in the bootstrap approachto hadron dynamics. He is a Fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences and of the IndianNational Science Academy. He was a member of the Commission on Particles and Fields ofIUPAP (1969-75).In the mid-sixties, Prof. Udgaonkar got interested in the problems of education and hewas responsible for the growth of the educational dimension of TIFR- the graduate coursesand the Visiting Students Research Programme (VSRP) in the School of Physics of TIFR, andvarious interactions with the school system and the University of Bombay. Out of theseemerged the Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education (HBCSE) at TIFR, and the WesternRegional Instrumentation Centre at the University of Bombay. Also, he was called upon tobecame a member of the University Grants Commission of India (1973-79). He was Chairmanof HBCSE (1975-91) and nurtured it as a Centre of Excellence in school science educationand research.He was Chairman of the Board of Research in Nuclear Sciences of the Department ofAtomic Energy (1979-86), and Chairman of the Atomic Energy Education Society (1988-90). He was a Member of the University Grants Commission (1973-79), Member of the IndianCouncil of Social Science Research (1980-86), and Special Advisor to Deputy Chairman ofthe Planning Commission (1977-79). He was the first President of the Indian PhysicsAssociation (1971-73), President of Maharashtra Academy of Sciences (1979-82), Presidentof the Indian Academy of Social Sciences (1988-89) and President, Marathi Vidnyan Parishad(1982-91). He was Chairman of the National Organizing Committee of Bharat Jan VigyanJatha (1987).Prof. Udgaonkar has been active in Pugwash, the well known international organizationof scientists working for peace in the nuclear era, which received the Nobel Prize for Peacein 1995. He was a member of the Pugwash Council and Executive (1987 – 97). He receivedthe Hari Om Trust Award of the UGC, for work at the interface between science and society(1985) and the President’s Award, PADMA BHUSHAN (1985).Prof. Udgaonkar has written extensively on his experiences and ideas relating toEducation, Science-Technology and Development, and global nuclear disarmament. Aselection of his articles has been published by HBCSE (1996).

ProgrammeSCIENCE EDUCATION - CHALLENGES OF QUALITY12 th and 13 th September 2007Venue for the Conference : V G Kulkarni AuditoriumHomi Bhabha Centre for Science Education, TIFRV. N. Purav marg, Near Anushaktinagar bus Depot,Next to BARC gate, Mankhurd , Mumbai - 400 088Phone no: 022- 25567711Wednesday, 12 th September 2007 : Time: 14.00 to 16.30 HrsSession I : School Science Education – Universalisation with QualitySpeakers : Chairperson : Prof Anil Sadgopal Prof. Ram Takwale Prof. Anita Rampal Mr. V. G. Gambhir Dr. Jayshree Ramdas Dr. K SubramaniamWednesday, 12 th September 2007 : Time: 17.00 to 19.30 HrsFelicitation FunctionConference dinner will be served thereafterProf. B.M. Udgaonkar will be felicitated at the hands of Prof M G K MenonSpeakers : Felicitation ceremony Prof. M G K Menon Dr. Anil Kakodkar Prof. Arvind Kumar Prof. Jasjit Singh Dr. P. Babu Dr. Anil Sadgopal Dr. Jayant UdgaonkarThursday, 13 th September 2007 : Time: 10.00 to 13.00 HrsSession II : University Science and TechnologySpeakers : Chair person : Prof. Arun Nigavekar Dr. S. P Sukhatme Dr. J. B. Joshi Mr. P. S. Deodhar Prof. N. MukundaThursday, 13 th September 2007 : Time: 14.00 to 16.30 HrsSession III : Science DisseminationSpeakers : Chair person : Prof. D. Balasubramaiam Mr. A. P. Deshpande Prof. Vinod Raina Dr. M P Parameswaran133

National Centre forScience CommunicatorsNational Centre for ScienceCommunicators (NCSC) is a pulsatingscience communication organisation withnational and international reach. It’s membersinclude science communicators from variedfields of communication – print media, television,radio, science centres etc……….The NCSC was established in January 1997with a view to develop Science Communicationin India. The Centre provides opportunities forscience communicators to explore and expresstheir talents and creativity for betterunderstanding of science and recognises suchtalents. Presently, the membership strength ofNCSC is over 200 spread across the country.One of the most dynamic campaigns ofNCSC is its intensive interaction with theteaching community, to inculcate excitementregarding science education and scientificmethod of knowledge transfer.The Centre has been conducting ScienceJournalism courses in both Marathi and English.The NCSC has published a NationalDirectory of Science Communicators andNational Directory of Science propagatingorganisations for easy access to informationregarding science communication.Conferences hosted by the NCSC The NCSC hosted its First InternationalConference of Science Communicators atIUCAA in Pune in January 2000, the themebeing “Public Understanding of Science”.Around 210 Science Communicators acrossthe globe attended the event. The second International Conference ofScience Communicators was organised at theBARC, Mumbai to felicitate and honorrenowned Astrophysicist and scienceCommunicator Prof Jayant Narlikar, in July2003. The theme of the conference, was “Manand the Universe”. The third International Conference of ScienceCommunicators was held in Rio de Janeiro,Brazil in the year April 2005; the theme beingScience Communication in developingcountries. In October 2005, NCSC organised a NationalSeminar for Science Communicators onExpanding Horizons of School ScienceEducation at the Labour India Complex,Marangattupilly, Kottayam, Kerala In November 2006 a National Conference –Vision 2026 – Challenges in ScienceCommunication, was organised at the IndianNational Science Academy, New Delhi. Theconference was inaugurated by Dr. APJAbdul Kalam, President of India on 26 thNovember 2006 In September 2007 A National Conferenceon Science Education - Challenges ofQuality will be organised in association withHomi Bhabha Centre for Science Education,as a tribute to Prof. B. M. Udgaonkar,eminent scientist and educationist on theoccasion of his 80th Birthday on 14September 2007.A. P. DeshpandeChairmanNational Centre for Science Communicators134

Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education(HBCSE)Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), Mumbai – 400 088Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education(HBCSE) is a National Centre of the TataInstitute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), oneof India’s premier research institutions in basicsciences and mathematics. It started in 1974 asa unit of TIFR under a grant from the SirDorabjee Tata Trust. Since 1981, theDepartment of Atomic Energy, Government ofIndia has supported it. In 1992, HBCSE movedfrom a temporary location in a Municipal Schoolof central Mumbai to its present independentcampus located at Mankhurd, Mumbai.The broad goals of the Centre are to promoteequity and excellence in science andmathematics education from primary tointroductory college levels, and encourage thegrowth of scientific literacy in the country. Tothese ends it carries out a wide spectrum ofinterrelated activities.Teacher orientation and science disseminationThis is a large grassroots activity, centeringon the education of the socially disadvantaged.In fact, HBCSE grew out of this activity and itwas the main focus of HBCSE in its initial years.The Centre has carried out tribal educationprojects in remote parts of the state ofMaharashtra and is also involved with theAtomic Energy Education Society (AEES) intalent search among the underprivilegedcommunities around the Department of AtomicEnergy project sites. A large number of teacherorientation programmes are held round the yearon the campus and at different sites in thecountry for AEES, other similar school networks,State and Central Government agencies andmany non-governmental organisations. Itrecently carried out an important action researchproject on ‘Health and Environment Education’.Through numerous field projects, the Centrehas evolved a laboratory based on readilyavailable materials for performing a range ofexperiments in school science. Accompanyingthis is an activity-based mathematics laboratoryincluding educative games, puzzles, aids andmodels. As part of its science popularizationeffort, the Centre has developed two notableexhibitions on ‘History of Science’ and on‘Gender and Science’. Several popular sciencebooks brought out by the Centre supplementthese efforts. The Centre received the NationalAward for Science Popularisation fromNational Council for Science TechnologyCommunication in 1999.Curriculum, Laboratory and MaterialsDevelopmentAcademic research and grassrootsexperience have been combined to developinnovative curricular and co-curricularmaterials: textbooks, teacher books andlaboratories in school level science andmathematics. Several co-curricular and popularscience books both for children and generalreaders have been brought out. HBCSEmembers have also co-authored science and135

mathematics textbooks by National Council ofEducation Research and Training (Governmentof India), Text Book Bureau of the StateGovernment of Maharashtra, Indira GandhiOpen National University, YC MaharashtraOpen University and other organizations.OlympiadsHBCSE is the nodal Centre of the countryfor Olympiads in five subjects: mathematics,physics, chemistry, biology and astronomy. Thisis a massive programme involving several stagesof selection and training culminating in studentteams contesting in International Olympiads inthese subjects. Special Olympiad laboratories inphysics, chemistry and biology have beendeveloped for the purpose. HBCSE also hostedan International Chemistry Olympiad in 2001in which 60 countries participated and anInternational Astronomy Olympiad inNovember 2006 in which more than 20countries participated. HBCSE will be hostingInternational Biology Olympiad in July 2008.National Initiative on Undergraduate Science(NIUS)This is a major new dimension to HBCSE’sactivities and a natural sequel to its Olympiadprogramme. It caters to talented undergraduatesof the country and mobilizes some of our bestscientists and teachers especially those fromBhabha Atomic Research Centre and TataInstitute of Fundamental Research, formotivating and nurturing promising Indianstudents for advanced studies and research insciences. It will involve a large number ofnurture camps for students and joint resourcegeneration camps of scientists and teachers fromdifferent parts of the country. THE NIUS, whichbegan in December 2004, will involve at its fullstrength, about 400 students and 100 teachersat any given time in different stages of theprogramme.Research in Science & Mathematics EducationAs part of TIFR (Deemed University),HBCSE runs a Ph. D. programme in ScienceEducation, which includes pre-Ph. D. coursesin cognitive science, research methodology,history and philosophy of science, science andtechnology studies, and related areas. TheCentre has held several national workshops andinternational conferences in this field. A majorseries of International Conferences on Science,Technology and Mathematics Education hasbeen undertaken by the Centre. The firstconference in this series, epiSTEME-1, was heldin December 2004, the second, epiSTEME-2,was held in February 2007 and the next has beenplanned for January 2009. Seminars, colloquiaand visits by scientists from India and abroadsustain a vibrant academic ambience at theCentre.Major Areas of research at HBCSE include: Cognitive and pedagogic studies of science,mathematics and technology education Sociocultural and gender studies in science,mathematics and technology education Knowledge structure and dynamics Imagery and reasoning; Drawing, design,and cognition Curricular issues, assessment and evaluation Health and environment education Educational implications of history andphilosophy of science.136