I sent the following to Dr Katoch on Monday, May 7, 2012. I haven’t received an acknowledgement. UPDATE May 12, 2012: Please also see the petition from Nilanjan’s wife. Dear Dr Katoch, I am writing to you as the chairman of the Board of Governors at NIPER, Mohali. As you are aware, Dr Nilanjan Roy, [...]

Here’s some insight into what controls the chirping sounds that crickets make. I’ve been intending to talk about this paper, which is interesting to me since I’ve been interested in bioacoustics for a while (though, in my case, more in perception than in production of sound). But Natasha Mhatre, the first (and corresponding) author, has [...]

I started a blog some years ago, on blogspot, mainly to talk about non-academic things. As time went by, my blog started to talk more and more about academic/scientific matters, and I grew more and more frustrated with some shortcomings of blogspot. So I moved to wordpress and refocussed the blog. Meanwhile, I also joined [...]

Some time ago, the National Institute for Pharmaceutical Education and Research, Chandigarh, fired one of its scientists, Dr Animesh Roy, who had made allegations of unethical practices against another senior scientist at that institute. G S Mudur’s article from 2009 goes into details. Quote: An inquiry panel set up by Niper’s board of governors has [...]

Duplicating text from one’s own work is widely regarded, in India at least, as a lesser crime than plagiarising from someone else; some (including senior members of our science academies) don’t see it as much of a problem at all. Elsewhere, however, as reported by Retraction Watch, a senior and heavily-cited Columbia University chemist, Ron [...]

For some reason I never blogged about the Boycott Elsevier movement, though I signed up early on. Today the 10,000th scientist signed up to it, so it is a good time to bring it to your attention. Why boycott Elsevier? Because of their obnoxious policies as listed on that page. Specifically, exorbitant prices; bundling, which [...]

Abi notes that Prof Ashutosh Sharma of IIT-Kanpur, whose paper turned out to have plagiarised some text and figures from a student’s M.Tech. thesis and who turned belligerent when this was pointed out, has issued an erratum to that paper acknowledging the duplication, regretting the failure to cite, and apologising to all concerned. (See links [...]

Six scientists of Indian origin have been elected[Nature's Indigenus blog; hat-tip: Abi] to the fellowship of the Royal Society this year. Congratulations to all of them. Two have spent significant parts of their career in India: M. Vidyasagar, who spent 20 years at CAIR Bangalore and TCS Hyderabad before moving to the US recently; and [...]

Here is an NDTV interview with Dr Partho Sarothi Ray shortly after his release on bail. While he doesn’t regret coming back to India and West Bengal, he worries that other scientists who planned to return will have second thoughts. A valid worry, certainly. Additionally, he talks about the slum dwellers and his fellow activists, [...]

A quick note to say Partho Sarothi Ray (see previous two posts) was granted bail late today. He will be released early tomorrow.