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By:

Abhijit Mulye

21 August 2024 at 11:29:11 am

Indian students strike gold

Mumbai: India’s brightest young scientific minds have once again proven their mettle on the global stage, securing exceptional medal hauls at two of the world’s most prestigious science competitions for secondary school students. Showcasing unprecedented academic prowess, the Indian delegation brought home a historic all-gold sweep at the 58th International Chemistry Olympiad in Uzbekistan, alongside an impressive haul of one gold and three silver medals at the 37th International Biology...

Indian students strike gold

Mumbai: India’s brightest young scientific minds have once again proven their mettle on the global stage, securing exceptional medal hauls at two of the world’s most prestigious science competitions for secondary school students. Showcasing unprecedented academic prowess, the Indian delegation brought home a historic all-gold sweep at the 58th International Chemistry Olympiad in Uzbekistan, alongside an impressive haul of one gold and three silver medals at the 37th International Biology Olympiad in Lithuania. These stellar performances cement India’s position as a powerhouse of STEM talent, reflecting the rigorous training and dedication cultivated by the Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education (HBCSE) and a nationwide network of educators, said national coordinator of Science Olympiads Prof. Anwesh Mazumdar. In a landmark achievement, all four students representing India at the International Chemistry Olympiad, held in Tashkent from July 10 to 19, bagged gold medals. This marks India’s first-ever all-gold sweep in the history of the competition. The victorious quartet includes Debadatta Priyadarshi from Bhubaneswar, Harshit Singla from Mandi Gobindgarh, Kabeer Chillar from Delhi, and Sandeep Kuchi from Hyderabad. This year’s event was the largest to date, featuring 363 students from 93 countries. India’s flawless performance tied the nation for the top spot in the country-wise medals tally, sharing the first position with China, Vietnam, and an individual participant from Russia. The students navigated highly complex experimental and theoretical tasks, including decoding the composition of historical and natural artifacts, calculating the mass of uranium used in a 1966 detonation, and performing advanced pH-metric titrations. The team was guided by Head Mentor Professor Subhajit Bandyopadhyay, Mentor Dr. Indrani Sen, and Scientific Observers Dr. Anubendu Adhikary and Dr. Jayasree Gopalakrishnan. Running concurrently in Vilnius from July 12 to 19, the International Biology Olympiad saw the Indian team secure one gold and three silver medals against a highly competitive field of 307 students from 78 nations. Bhavyaa Gunwal from Mahendragarh clinched the gold medal, while Soumil Maity from Howrah, Nishit Kalani from Pali, and Anmol Kumar from Mansa each brought home silver. The biology competition pushed the boundaries of secondary education with a gruelling six-hour theoretical exam and an intensive six-hour practical laboratory test designed by the Vilnius University Life Sciences Centre. In the labs, students executed complex molecular biology tasks like restriction digestion, evaluated the pharmacokinetics of aspirin, performed precise insect morphology dissections, and utilized cutting-edge digital software for plant transcriptome analysis. The delegation was led by Professor Rekha Vartak and Dr. Anupama Ronad, alongside Scientific Observers Dr. Ranjithsinh Devkar and Dr. Siddhesh Ghag.

The NIMBY Syndrome

Updated: Oct 22, 2024


NIMBY

In a city in India, the local civic administration was searching for a suitable open space within their jurisdiction for ‘developing’ a new dump yard for the city garbage as the existing one was filled to its capacity. They undertook a survey and shortlisted a couple of sites which were reserved for the same purpose many years ago as per their development plan. So, that land was the official property of the urban local body. They started preparing the land to receive tons and tons of garbage every day from the city.


However, the city administration did not consider the fact that there were hundreds of many new, multistoried residential complexes and housing facilities in the vicinity of this land they had selected for the dump yard. These were constructed over the past few years and had spread like mushrooms in a forest. The residents living there got an inkling of the plan of local civic body to use the adjacent land for dumping of the garbage.


Hundreds and thousands of residents came together to raise their voice against this proposed dump yard. Why were they opposing? Simple. Those wise men, women and children living there knew that if such dump yard comes up in the vicinity, it will cause unprecedented damage not only to the environment but also to their own health, their life will be like living in hell, they might lose the existing natural beauty, their surroundings will be severely polluted soon, it will create unbearable stench etc etc.


Like other ‘normal humans’, they were ‘victims’ of the NIMBY Syndrome. No..no.. it is not any genetic disorder or any medical condition. It is a mind set we all have developed over the period. It is Not In My Back Yard mentality. ‘I will keep my house clean and hygienic thereby generate waste in the process then I will keep it out of my house so it goes out of my house, out of sight and out of mind…but if you are trying to get it back in my backyard or in the vicinity of my residential area, I will strongly oppose it’ ! because of this mentality of the citizens, it has become very difficult for civic bodies to manage the huge volumes of waste that keep on accumulating.


But then why do the local civic bodies insist on using open dumping as the most common method of waste disposal when there is so much resistance from the communities? To understand this, let us learn more about this method of waste disposal. Open dumping simply refers to disposal of municipal solid waste on open land.


It does not have any specific infrastructure or facility to take care of the hazardous elements in the waste that keeps on piling up for days, months and years. Within a couple of years, you will find that what was a plain, flat land surface earlier has turned into a huge, tall, towering ‘mountain’ of garbage. Through the next articles, we will study the ‘anatomy’ of such open dumping ground. Till then, enjoy the weekend!


(The writer is an environment specialist. Views personal.)

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