About us

Every professional scientist, in addition to his/her contribution to science, should also feel an obligation to the society to take part in social activities creating awareness of science and to use the scientific methodologies to arrive at a rational conclusion about the changes happening in the society. Of late, there is a steady decline in this country of the number of scientists contributing to public policy matters. Indian scientists of stature as P.C. Mahalanobis, H J Bhabha, Meghnad Saha, had influenced Indian public opinion and the Government on policy issues. Although the need for intervention of the scientists on subjects like global warming, green house gas, nuclear power, biotechnology, GM seeds and environmental degradation have increased in the society in recent times, participation of Indian scientists has not been prominent. It requires exposition by scientists to educate the public on such issues. With the advance of Information Technology, websites have emerged as an important medium of expression by the scientists in various countries. Such websites have been helping the people to reach important decision on important affairs in public life. The Union of Concerned Scientists in the USA is just one example of such efforts. It may be possible to consider developing a common forum in the form of a website where issues relevant to public policy in India can be deliberated upon by scientists from different disciplines for the benefit of the people to reach appropriate decisions through the medium of website. The idea had its origin to some extent with the initiative taken by the scientists in different institutions in the country after the underground nuclear explosion by the Union Government.

The website may be initiated by a group of scientists who may be interested in such a venture. A small number of themes will be introduced in each issue, on which opinions would be invited from fellow scientists. We appeal for contributions from all right minded scientists on those themes. They may also suggest new themes for discussion. In the initial stage, the contributions will be collected through e-mail for compilation by an Editorial Committee. The content of the contributions will never be edited.

The website www. concernedscientistsindia.org. will present all rival views about a scientific debate that may have positive influence on the society at large. We believe that in the backdrop of the current societal milieu there has to be informed debate to arrive at a consensus about scientific issues, which also have an ethical component. The policy makers are bogged down with an overload of information, often contradictory and are generated supposedly by the experts. We believe that the experts seldom take a neutral stance in scientific issues that affect the economies and the prevalent political structures of the country they belong to. Many facets of a complex scientific issue when viewed from different and rival view points would allow us to go beyond the limits imposed by the environment that circumscribes the view. The relevant opinions about the contemporary and burning issues confronted by the humankind can thus reasonably be understood and might help enlighten the policy makers to adopt fair policies.

We, on our part, are committed to a broad viewpoint that will be expressed from time to time as an editorial comment. This is a venture where we all hope to expose the frontier of human knowledge and are ready to share the pain that knowledge sometime imposes.

Who Are We ?

Deb Kumar Bose was formerly a Professor in the Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata and an economist of repute. His fields of interest are economics of energy, environment and planning for development. He had spearheaded the informed debate about the acceptability of nuclear power as an option since the early eighties when these issues were in its infancy and had not gained enough currency in our country. After his retirement from active academic life, he had been the Chairperson of the West Bengal State Electricity Board and the West Bengal Pollution Control Board under the government of West Bengal. Presently he is the Chief Advisor to the West Bengal State Council of Science and Technology. An active associate of Prof. P.C.Mahalanobis, he has been a member of the Governing Council of ISI over long years. He has authored two books on economics of energy and environment, besides contributions in professional journals.

Kamales Bhaumik is a physicist by training and later switched over to the interdisciplinary area of biophysics. He had served at BITS (Pilani), AIIMS (New Delhi) and NIMHANS (Bangalore). He retired from Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics (Kolkata) in 2005. As an active member of JACARI, the umbrella organization of the Trade Unions of the Autonomous Institute, he is connected to many pro-people activities.He is one of the scientists, who while belonging to the DAE family organization, openly raised his voice against the nuclear madness of Pokhran-II.

Syamal Chakrabarti, Professor of Chemistry, University of Calcutta. He obtained his Ph. D. degree from the Bose Institute, Kolkata. He started his career as a teacher in the St. Xaviers College, Kolkata. He also served for a brief period as a Post Doctoral Fellow abroad. He decided to devote himself to the cause of people’s science movement and engaged himself in spearheading the activities of the Paschim Banga Vigyan Mancha, the largest people’s science organization of this country. He is member of various governmental as well as autonomous organizations and has served as the President of the Calcutta University Teachers’ Association. He has authored about 100 books popularizing science at various levels and is a regular contributor to many progressive magazines throughout the state as well as the country. He has been awarded Satyendranath Bose Puraskar by the Government of West Bengal in recognition for his contribution to popular science literature.

Please send your comments, articles, suggestions to any one of the undersigned persons, who have generated this appeal.

Debkumar Bose
debkumar201@gmail.com
+91-33-2440-5913

Kamales Bhaumik
kamales_bhaumik@yahoo.com
+91-09830573138

Syamal Chakraborty
scchem@caluniv.ac.in
+91-9433228010

 

 

 

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