National Awards - the measure of popularity in India - என் இனிய பாரத தேசமே ! உனது மதிப்பீடு அளவு கோல் தான் என்ன ?

A Nation’s destiny is determined by the path of its people and the direction of its Leaders.

Have you heard of Sandeep Verma, Sanjeev Galande, Shubua Tole, Swapan K Patil, GK Ananthasuresh or atleast of Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar ??

Recently, National Film awards were announced which were very widely reported in all media. President Pratibha Patil will present the 57th National film awards as also the Dadasaheb Phalke Award to D Rama Naidu. The annual award given by the Indian Government for lifetime contribution to cinema carries a cash prize of 1 million along with a swarna kamal medallion and a shawl. Why should a Govt. institute an award and donate so much of money for an activity which is no contributes to Nation building or in any instrumental for the betterment of the Nation.

Cinema at best is entertainment and those involved in creation of a movie are doing so for their own benefits – definitely not curative of the society, it can neither be considered an industry whose product is going to the improve the lot of the society. By now – Raju Hirani, Ananya Chatterjee, Vidhuvinod Chopra, Jiva, Anbukkarasu, Rasul Pookkutty – are all household names. Show their photos, anyone can identify and all local magazines would post their photos, their interviews, their life story and do roaring business by having them on their cover……

The regular programmes in local television channels wherein participants answer questions would not field a question on Sanjeev Galande or identifying the picture of SS Bhatnagar but Shankar would articulate on their efforts in filming a song sequence in the land of Incas, whilst Vairamuthu would speak of his genius in finding words for song of the robot – a Nation would watch with bated breathe.

Nine Scientists were on Sunday (26th Sept 2010) chosen for the prestigious Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize 2010. This award is for their achievement in the field of Science & Technology. The news release also stated that three of awardees being women for the first time. The announcement were made by the CSIR (Council of Scientific and Industrial Research) Director General Samir Brahmachari at a function held to mark the foundation day of Council of Scientific and Industrial Research. The CSIR said its award for S&T Innovations for Rural Development 2009 will go to Indian Oil Corporation Ltd's Research and Development Centre in Faridabad. The award carries a cash prize of Rs 5 lakh, a citation and a plaque and will be given by the Prime Minister later this year.

Sandeep Verma, Prof of IIT Kanpur has been named this year’s recipient for his outstanding contribution in the field of drug design. Professor Sandeep Verma of the Indian Institute of Technology-Kanpur.
His major achievements include the development of artificial chemicals to model biological proteins. The artificial chemicals help in identifying the root cause of neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. He said to Indian Express “The Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar award is a major achievement in my life and will vastly boost my efforts,”

The awardees are :
Biological Science : Sanjeev Galande of National Centre for Cell Science, Pune and Shubha Tole of Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai.

The other recipients are Swapan K Pati, Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, Bangalore, Sandeep Verma, Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur (Chemical Sciences), G K Ananthasuresh, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, Sanghamitra Bandyopadhyay, Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata (Engineering Sciences). Mitali Mukerji, Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology, Delhi (Medical Sciences), Umesh Vasudeo Waghmare, Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, Bangalore and Kalobaran Maiti, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai (Physical Sciences) will also get the honour.

No award is being given in the area of Earth, Atmosphere, Ocean and Planetary Sciences and Mathematical Sciences this year. In his address, Minister for Science and Technology Prithviraj Chavan noted that India's research funding is almost one per cent of GDP and is poised to go up.

The Minister emphasized that there should be more engineering research and said he looked forward to the day when CSIR would launch its own commercial entities based on the laboratory generated know-hows." Department of Science & Technology (DST) was established in May 1971, with the objective of promoting new areas of Science & Technology and to play the role of a nodal department for organising, coordinating and promoting S&T activities in the country.

Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Awards are announced everyyear and last year eleven scientists had the honour. The awards are given to scientists below 45 years of age for their outstanding scientific contributions made primarily in India during the last 5 years preceding the year of the Prize.

Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar (February 21, 1894 – January 1, 1955) was a wellknown Indian scientist. He was born in Shahpur (now in Pakistan); his father died when he was 8 months old. One of the good moves of PM Nehru was setting up of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) under the chairmanship of Dr. Bhatnagar. He became the first director-general of the CSIR. He became known as "The Father of Research Laboratories" and is largely remembered for having established various chemical laboratories in India. He established a total twelve
national laboratories such as Central Food Processing Technological Institute, Mysore, National Chemical
Laboratory, Pune, the National Physical Laboratory, New Delhi, the National Metallurgical Laboratory, Jamshedpur, the Central Fuel Institute, Dhanbad, just to name a few.

Shanti Swaroop Bhatnagar played a significant part along with Homi Jehangir Bhabha, Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis, Vikram Ambalal Sarabhai and others in building of post-independent S&T infrastructure and in the formulation of India’s science and technology policies. He was the first Chairman of the University Grants Commission (UGC). He was Secretary, Ministry of Education and Educational Adviser to Government. Bhatnagar played an important role both in the constitution and deliberations of the Scientific Manpower Committee Report of 1948. Bhatnagar was a University Professor for 19 years (1921-40) first at the Banaras Hindu University and then at the Punjab University.

Strange are the ways of the Nation. A google search for Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize 2010 yielded 62,000 results; whilst Film fare awards revealed 254,000 and National Film Awards showed 9,490,000 results.

Good things are not popular and all that is popular need not be good always

Regards – Sampathkumar S