Pankaj Desai's Blogs

ACADEMIC THIEVES:                 I just happened to see an article published recently in one scientific journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology which shocked me. I suddenly realised this is robbery! The author of the said paper had nothing to do with that research work. I remember when I was in medical college that I had arranged for this entire project in joint collaboration of some other department of basic sciences for carrying out this research. My team under my active guidance prepared the entire research protocol and was working on this project. It was related to oxidative stress in some challenging condition. Amidst I took a voluntary retirement and so the project was then after guided by the person who was second in command then. She became the guide of the postgraduate student and this entire project was completed. The student passed her post-graduation degree exam. Amid...

In India there is indeed a mammoth problem of prenatal sex determination and elimination of unborn female fetuses.  This menace is being tackled in many ways including stringent laws, social interventions in the form of awareness creating TV programmes, religious leaders fervently appealing people not to indulge into these activities and so on. But all these have met with limited success. Cynics have gone to the extent of prophesying that till the time that the monsters of dowry and inferior status of women in Indian society continues to be live, nothing can change this picture. However I was pleasantly surprised to see a beautiful change. It is possible that this might be just one sparrow and not really heralding the summer. But it was very real and heart-warming. I just returned from a trip abroad. During this trip I could closely watch three families from India travelling as co-tourists. All of them were from very orthodox and conservative families of Nort...