Contemporary Indian Issues

The fundamental flaw with the Indian scientific system is that

Directions: Read the following passage and answer the question that follows:

PASSAGE – II

The young scientist in India is an endangered species. The threat comes from the predatory habits of a more evolved species that is the senior scientist.

An Indian university teacher in a letter to the international science journal Nature wrote plaintively. Thesis supervisors take undue credit for the work of their protégés. A young scientist needs the goodwill and support of the scientist-in-power at every step: for completion and continuation of his work, for participation in national and international meetings and research projects, for recognition and reward and for promotion. This support is available but at a price. The price often is the sharing of credit. A worthwhile research paper or a project originating from a humble scientist would often end up with the scientist-in-power as the principal author or investigator.

The power of the senior scientist over his junior stems from the fact that science is the only profession in the world which is self-assessing. Unlike in the bureaucracy or the military where the top authority vests with non- professionals, a scientist's work can be overseen and evaluated only by fellow scientists.

Fortunately for the scientists, support for science is a badge of honour for nations aspiring to modernity. That is why the government which normally would not pay the piper unless it can call the tune, happily makes an exception in the case of science. A government would set up and fund a scientific laboratory and in a spirit of self-negation recede into the background after giving the scientists the keys to the till.

It is noteworthy that science and society operate on different principles. Society values continuity, stability and security, and turns to the past for guidance and support. Science, on the other hand, aspires to instability. It aims at creating something that did not exist before. It seeks a break with the past with an eye on the future. Any modern institution of governance must incorporate a network of checks and balances. In bureaucratic administration, these checks and balances are converted into obstacles and dead-ends, and stability is obtained through stagnancy. As a reaction to it, with a view to giving science establishments dynamism, administrative checks and balances are almost entirely dispensed with, and scientists given a free hand.

It is an irony that in today's world, feudalism can be sustained only in the administration of a modern scientific research centre. One must, however, not be unfair to the feudal lords of yesteryears whose conduct had the sanction of the times. Neo-feudalism is pernicious because it is anachronistic; it can be sustained only by a subversion of the system in the hands of the people who are entrusted with the task of upholding it.

If we define professionalism as the realisation that an institution ranks higher than an individual and that the collective goal is more important than individual ego, it must be admitted that we are an unprofessional people. It is wrong in principle to give any individual a larger- than-the-institution image. This philosophy becomes all the more debilitating, because recently there has been an alarming decline in the quality of leadership in science as in other walks of life. Under these circumstances, if a chief executive is to be projected as the master of an institution rather than its servant, this can be done only by degrading the institution. If a scientific laboratory or an institute is seen as an extension of a personality, it cannot develop any tradition which can be a source of inspiration to new entrants. It is no coincidence that in India as well as abroad, the most prestigious scientific institutes and departments are those where the name of the institution is more important than that of the individuals heading or controlling it.

Why did Kejriwal resign as the Chief Minister of Delhi?

Directions: Read the passage below and answer the question given underneath. 

Arvin Kejriwal is a politician from India and a former civil servant. He also served as the 7^th Chief Minister of Delhi and is also the leader of the Aam Aadmi Party.
Kejriwal graduated from the Indian Institute of Technology in Kharagpur and then went on to work for the Indian Revenue Service as a Joint Commissioner in the Income Tax Department. He was awarded the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Emergent Leadership in 2006, which recognised his involvement in a grass-roots movement which made use of the Right to Information Act in a campaign against corruption. He then went on to resign from the Indian Revenue Service and donated all the award money to fund and found the Public Cause Research Foundation which is a non-governmental organisation.
Starting in 2012, he launched the Aam Aadmi Party. In the 2013, he ousted incumbent Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit in the Delhi Legislative Assembly election of that year. He took office as Delhi’s Chief Minister on December 28, 2013, but resigned 49 days later on February 14, 2014. He states that he resigned because of his government’s inability to pass the anti-corruption legislation he had proposed. This was due to the lack of support from other political parties, chiefly Congress and Bhartiya Janata Pary (BJP).
He was born on August 6, 1968 in Siwani, Bhiwani district in the state of Haryana to a middle class family. He was the first of three children by parents Gobind Ram Kejriwal and Gita Devi. His father was an electrical engineer by trade who graduated from the Birla Institute of Technology in Mesra. Because of his father’s job, the family moved many times throughout Kejriwal’s childhood. Much of his childhood was spent in North India, specifically in the towns of Sonipat, Ghaziabad and Hisar. He was educated at Campus School, located in Hisar and then went to a Christian missionary school in Sonipat. He attended and graduated with a degree in mechanical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology in Kharagpur. Afterwards, he was employed by Tata Steel in 1989 and worked in Jamshedpur. In 1992, he resigned from his position and took time to study for the Civil Services Examination. He then spent time in Kolkata studying at the Ramakrishna Mission as well as the Nehru Yuva Kendra.