Politics And Pettiness In Indian Seismology

American seismologist Roger Bilham who has previously visited India many times to attend workshops and to meet colleagues on a tourist visa is now blacklisted and is being refused entry in to India.

A year ago he and Vinod Gaur of the Indian Institute of Astrophysics in Bangalore wrote a paper in Current Science  (open access) suggesting that there is small probability of a 6-7 mag earthquake near or at the site of a proposed nuclear power plant at Jaitapur in southern Maharashtra and that this should be taken in to account in the design of the plant. The paper was criticized by several Indian seismologists.  The scientific debate has been summarized by K.S Jayaraman.

This May, Bilham was denied entry into New Delhi and deported.  The reason given was that he was coming for activities not consistent with his tourist visa status. Bilham suspects that this decision by the Indian government is due to pressure from a senior Indian seismologist.

From G.S Mudur's article in The Telegraph:

The government decision was presumably based on recommendations made by one or more influential seismologists in India,” Bilham wrote to the IISc on October 17 this year, in a letter where he has declined to evaluate the PhD thesis of a young scholar. 

The IISc had requested Bilham to assist in the evaluation of the thesis. 

“It has been brought to my attention that some younger colleagues have been intimidated by a retired (Indian) seismologist who once held a position in Hyderabad, from working with me, or being associated with scientific studies, or discussions,” Bilham told the IISc. 

“The intimidation takes the form of suggestions that future funding, or chances of promotion, or job security, may be placed in jeopardy if these young scientists are in any way associated with my name,” he wrote, adding that his presence on the panel of thesis examiners might turn detrimental to the future of the young scholar. 

If true, this is a sorry sorry situation. What was it that Prof Krishna Kumar wrote about Indian academia and research institutions recently?... 

Inadequacy of funds is, of course, worrisome, but it cannot explain the extent to which malice, jealousy and cussedness define the fabric of academic life in our country.

All that seems to be on full display here. Several Indian seismologists have spoken out against Bilham's entry ban. More scientists must speak out. Scientific differences and even personality clashes should not translate into bans for scientists. If the tourist visa is indeed a problem then Dr. Bilham should be asked to apply for the correct visa category. But just keeping silent shows our government as a whimsical petty system which takes offense at any dissent, in this case, someone pointing out that it may have been wrong in its assessment of seismic risk. So far there has been no detailed explanation from the government for Bilham's ban.

HT: Nanopolitan

Revenge Of The Underpaid Professor

I couldn't beat the author's title so I kept it. There is an interesting article in The Chronicle by Kevin Carey on new online education software and how it might transform the fortunes of the underpaid under appreciated teaching faculty.

He profiles Udemy, a web company that enables teachers to build customized courses along with an avenue to sell these courses to students.  He envisions a future wherein the best teachers will have the option to opt out of the traditional University setting and to market their teaching services globally.

One can imagine many scenarios unfolding. Professional and scholarly organizations might come together to create coherent curricula and endorse certain professors and courses. Old-fashioned guilds might become modern again. People without traditional scholarly credentials will have more access to the college teaching market. The effect on the existing professoriate will be asymmetrical, with the most-skilled teachers doing much better and the least effective losing their jobs. Those who seize the opportunity won't have to donate years of semi-unpaid labor in order to secure tenuous employment positions with organizations that don't value what they do in the first place.

This is mostly about improving undergraduate education. I can imagine a day when more and more students do buy a course or two from talented teachers. For many, they would still need to go to a physical building for lab courses. Maybe a degree might involve having the option of taking the lecture part from one of the many online choices available and then buying lab time from a University. That would mean though that Universities will have to hire faculty just to take lab work. I am reminded of just such a class of faculty known as "demonstrators" when I attended college. They were decent teachers but were underpaid and under appreciated.

Paleowave Is A New Earth Science Blog By An Indian Academic

A few weeks ago I complained that I knew of only one geology blog by an Indian geologist besides mine. Kaustubh Thirumalai responded by pointing out that he has been blogging at Isotope Dope. That was his old blog. He now has a brand new blog titled Paleowave.

Kaustubh is a stable isotope geochemist with an interest in  reconstruction of Holocene paleo-climate and paleo-oceanographic conditions using foraminifera as a proxy.

I have dabbled quite a bit in stable isotopes of oxygen and carbon for my research on diagenesis in Ordovician carbonate rocks, using the proportions of different isotopes of oxygen and carbon that occur in carbonate rocks to infer both the origin of fluids flowing through the rock and the temperature of the fluid. That in turn can be used to infer basin history, more specifically the timing and extent of sea-levels changes and the establishment of fresh water aquifers and also the subsequent burial history of the sediment.

So I am looking forward to reading and learning more about Kaustubh's research which applies the stable isotope tool to understand a different aspect of the more recent past.

Academic Hierarchy In Germany

New York Times carried a story on the controversial resignation of German Defence Minister  Mr. Guttenburg on allegations that he plagiarized parts of his doctoral thesis.

On what a degree means in Germany:

Ms. Merkel, a former academic married to a professor, was being accused of belittling intellectual property theft and, by implication, the value of an advanced degree, which is not a purely academic matter in this country. Many jobs require such degrees in Germany, where, as is not the case in America, calling oneself doctor for having completed a thesis in, say, political science or art history, is not embarrassing but normal, even when filling out Lufthansa’s online booking forms. (The airline generously provides three levels of academic achievement for its overachieving countrymen: doctor, professor and professor doctor, skipping the extremely rare but not unheard-of German mouthful Herr Professor Doctor Doctor).

If I had to fill a Lufthansa online booking form I would be the lowest rung...just a .. Doctor.