Kolkata Declaration: Scientific Temper in the Current Context

A Statement on Scientific Temper was drafted through an iterative process involving leading scientists and social scientists at the initiative of the All India Peoples Science Network. The following is an edited version of the Declaration signed by around 200 Scientists adopted at a Convention on Scientific Temper held at Kolkata on 28 February 2024.

Relevance of the National Science Day

THE National Science Day is celebrated on February 28 every year to commemorate the discovery of the Raman Effect by Nobel laureate C V Raman. The stated objective of celebrating National Science Day is to popularise science and technology and to promote a scientific temper among the general public. It encourages critical thinking, rational decision-making, and a spirit of inquiry, which are essential for societal progress.

Imposing African Cheetahs in the Banni Grasslands

IMPORTED African cheetahs, which are much in the news for various reasons, are soon to be introduced in the Banni Grasslands Reserve in Kachch district of Gujarat. The union government has decided to establish a cheetah conservation and breeding centre in Banni, for which the state government had prepared a proposal under the Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management and Planning Authority (CAMPA).This plan, recently announced by the union government, has raised a host of concerns.

Privatising Research in India

ON February 1, 2024 while presenting the interim budget 2024-25 in parliament, the union minister for finance and corporate affairs said the government proposed to create a corpus of one lakh crore rupees to boost private investment in sunrise technologies. It was to mark a golden era for our tech savvy youth with India showing solutions through innovation and entrepreneurship of its people.

Killing Welfare Algorithmically

SOME of the most prominent AI startups, tech companies, their executives, researchers and engineers would have us believe that artificial intelligence (AI) poses an existential risk to humanity and should be considered a societal risk on par with pandemics and nuclear wars.

Tapas Drone Project Scrapped

IN a shocking development earlier this month, the government made clear its de-funding of the Defence Research & Development Organisation’s (DRDO) mission-mode project to develop the advanced Tapas-BH 201 drone. The Tactical Airborne Platform for Aerial Surveillance (Tapas, also Sanskrit for heat) – Beyond Horizon unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) was, according to reports till just a few months ago, nearing preparedness for the final round of field trials prior to certification and thence to production.

Hasdeo in Trouble: Peoples Struggle to Continue

THE newly-elected BJP government in Chhattisgarh is proceeding with full force to clear large tracts of the Hasdeo-Arand forest, paving the way for open mining in two large coal blocks allotted to the Rajasthan Rajya Vidyut Utpadan Nigam operated by the Adani Group to supply coal for generating electricity for Rajasthan and adjoining states. Permission has been granted to clear around 135 hectares of forests in the Parsa East and Kanta Basan (PEKB) coal blocks, and a notice to that effect was issued on September 18, 2023.

Chip Wars: Breaking the Siege

THE chip wars launched by the United States and its allies against China show no signs of abating and have escalated further in 2023 with indications of more to come. These wars are, in effect, a siege on China’s technological progress and economy.

Attempts to Poison and Choke the Indian Science Congress

OVER the decade rather successfully the current government and the Sangh Parivar have poisoned the more than 100 year old Indian Science Congress (ISC) by injecting controversies deliberately since 2014. As a last blow and an attempt to strangle the ISC, the Modi government’s Department of Science and Technology cancelled the funding for ISC which was to have been held in January 2024.As an economist puts it in the larger perspective “The commitment to promoting scientific temper, self reliance in S & T, and spread of science education was relatively strong in the first three decades f

Secretive US X-37B Military Spacecraft

THE highly secretive X-37B military spacecraft of the US Space Force took off on December 28, from NASA’s Kennedy Space Centre in Cape Canaveral, Florida, on its seventh and hitherto most extensive test.

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