Science, Technology and Society

Last week there were two interesting events in New Delhi that gave us interesting perspectives on how Science and Technology is viewed in different societies, and across cultures.

The first was the screening of a documentary at IIC on G.N Ramachandran (aka GNR) the Indian scientist who discovered the triple-helix structure of Collagen, and the second, a talk at CPR by Prof. Sheila Jasanhoff from the Havard Kennedy School titled, "US-EU GM Crops Controversy: A Case for Epistemic Subsidiarity?".

The first one was fairly straightforward. The 30-minute documentary was on GNR, a scientist in newly independent India who sets up a frugal lab at Madras University, and using relatively basic equipment cracks a scientific problem that had eluded the likes of Linus Pauling and Francis Crick (of the DNA fame): the structure of Collagen, the most abundant protein in mammals.

The documentary desribes GNRs struggles to get adequate credit and recognition for this discovery, the attempts by British scientists to delay the publication of his findings in Nature, and of the fact that India had failed to recognise GNR adequately.

Prof. Jasanhoff's talk was on an altogether different plane. A scientist of Indian origin, she described her decision to focus on USA and EU as a "tactical decision" to avoid being straightjacketed as an India Scholar, and of her amazement at the way in which scientific data is interpreted in distinctly different ways across regulatory boundaries. The fact that there is a lack of consensus on this even amongst developed countries is described as the 'Paradox of Risk Governance'.

And what is Epistemic Subsidiarity? Perhaps one way of describing it is that knowledge and undestanding (epistemology) is best handled by devolving decisions on it to the lowest practical level (subsidiarity).

This framework is used to explain the big differences in the way USA and EU countries view Genetically Modified Organisms, leading up to the Asilomar Conference (1975) which drew up, for the first time, guidelines to ensure the safety of Recombinant DNA technology.

My biggest takeaway from both the events was the striking divergence in outlook of Indian scientists and of PIO/NRI scientists. The former has tied itself down in knots by basking in past glories, and creating an incentive system that stifles innovative thinking, while the latter has its sights focused on the future.

---------------------------------------------------------
LINKS:

• CPR - link to talk by Sheila Jasanhoff - http://cprindia.org/news/4574
• YouTube: GN Ramachandran's Work (1/3) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inGEPFiMwEA

Cultural Myopia

Why is it that most of the scholarly work in Indian Social Sciences arena, actually originates from outside the country? Is anything new and original coming out of our own universities?

Perhaps a more recent and popular example of this is William Darlymple's book, "The Last Mughal: The Fall of a Dynasty" - a research on the events leading up to the bloody conflicts of 1857. This piece of work is almost entirely based on documents that had been gathering dust in the National Archives of India for a few centuries - until Darlymple and his research team used it to demolish popular myths and re-write history.

Here is a collection of other acclaimed research, which I hope to read one by one:

Hardgrave, Robert L. (1970): The Nadars of Tamil Nadu (Amazon)

Jeffery, Robin (1994): The Decline of Nair Dominance: The Society and Politics of Travancore, 1847-1908, Manohar (at Google Books, and Amazon)

Ito, Shoji (1966): A Note on the Business Combine in India with Special Reference to the Nattukotal Chettiars, The Developing Economies, Vol IV, No.3, Sept., 1966, p.369 (Link to citation here)

Markovits, Claude (2004): The Global World of Indian Merchants, 1750-1947:  Traders of Sind from Bukhara to Panama (Google Books) 

Osella, Caroline and Osella, Filippo (2000): Social Mobility in Kerala : Modernity and Identity in Conflict (Book on the Ezhava Community in Kerala), Pluto (Amazon)

Stein, Burton (1989): 'Vijayanagara'. The New Cambridge History of India, Cambridge University Press (Amazon)

-------------------------------------------------------------

Japan - The Other Side

.
In Japan, appearances matter...but are things really what they appear to be? Is really a safe, crime-free country?

According to the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, 8,120 women filed sexual harassment complaints with equal employment opportunity offices in 2008, compared with 7,706 in 2004 and 2,534 in 1997. While the might be negligible compared to similar complaints in, say, New Delhi alone, it may also be a pointer to the actual number of cases that may be routinely unreported or brushed under the social carpet of `convention`, `honor` & `shame`?

Here is an interesting report -
THE ZEIT GIST - Foreigners Victims, Perpetrators of Sekuhara (Japan Times 26 Oct., 2010) PS: Sekuhara = Sexual Harassment
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20101026zg.html

And here is a slick info-graphic video. If you too get an impression that it is blatantly biased and racist, please remember that it is allegedly made by one Kenichi Tanaka (Japanese) to portray the foreigner`s view of Japan: