Author: kufit

अजीबको जीव मान्छे


– मुकुन्दप्रसाद उपाध्याय
हामी सबैले प्राथमिक शिक्षा आर्जन गर्ने क्रममा के पढ्यौँ भने मानिस सामाजिक प्राणी हो, अर्थात् मान्छे समाजमा वा मान्छेको भीडमा रमाउने प्राणी हो, अनि घरपरिवार, इष्टमित्र, टोलछिमेक नै उसको वैचारिक धरातल हो। पछि आएर मात्र थाहा भयो यथार्थमा समाज मान्छेको वैचारिक धरातल होइन रहेछ। त्यो त उसको रक्षाकवच मात्र पो रहेछ। मान्छेलाई जङ्गली जीवजन्तुहरूबाट बच्न, बाढीपहिरो र आगजनी आदि प्राकृतिक प्रकोपबाट सुरक्षित रहन, रोगव्याधिसँग जुध्न अनि चोर, डाकु, लुटेरा आदिको भयबाट बच्नका लागि मान्छेलाई मान्छे चाहिने रहेछ । मान्छे मान्छेका लागि त्यसभन्दा बढी होइन रहेछ । जब यी विविध भय र डरत्रासबाट राज्य वा सरकारले मान्छेलाई प्रत्याभूति दिन थाल्छ, तब ऊ एक्लो जीवन जिउन पनि समर्थ हुन्छ। उत्कृष्ट राज्यव्यवस्था अन्तर्गतको युरोपीय र अमेरिकी जीवनशैली यसैको उदाहरण हो। 
जब मान्छे प्रौढ हुन्छ, दुनियाँदारी देख्छ, चौरासी हन्डर खाएर परिपक्व हुन्छ, अनि उसले मान्छेको वास्तविक स्वरूप चिन्दछ, अनि तिनको आवश्यकता र औचित्यबारे घोत्लन बाध्य हुन्छ । त्यस अवस्थामा हामी स्पष्टसँग भन्न सक्तछौँ — मान्छे जबसम्म सिर्फ मान्छेमै सीमित रहन्छ, तबसम्म मात्र हामी मान्छेलाई मान्छे चाहिने रहेछ । जब हामी आम मान्छेबाट अलिकति माथि उठ्छौँ, जब मान्छे मात्र नभएर मानव कहलाउँछौँ, तब हामीलाई के लाग्न थाल्छ भने यस सृष्टिमा सबैभन्दा खराब, सबैभन्दा निकृष्ट र सङ्गत गर्न अयोग्य जन्तु नै मान्छे रहेछ । धोका, फरेब, जालझेल, तिकडम, बेइमानी, दुराचार, भ्रष्टाचार, कृतघ्नता, यी सबै चरित्र, गुण र विशेषताहरू भएको प्राणी त मान्छे मात्रै रहेछ । मान्छेबाहेक अन्य कुनै पनि जीवजन्तुहरूमा त यी दुर्गुणहरू हुँदै हुँदा रहेनछन् । मान्छेजस्तो चुत्थो, मतलबी र स्वार्थी जीव यस ब्रह्माण्डमै अर्को रहेनछ । त्यसैले त आम मान्छेभन्दा अलिकति माथि उठेका सन्त, महात्मा, सिद्धपुरुष र फकिरहरू मान्छेको भीडबाट छुट्टिएर एक्लै बस्न चाहन्छन्, मान्छेको कोलाहलबाट भाग्न चाहन्छन्, अनि घना जङ्गलबीच हिमालय क्षेत्रमा र पहाडका गुफा–कन्दराहरूमा बस्न रुचाउँछन् । मान्छेको कृत्रिम लोलोपोतोका बीचबाट भागेर बरू हिंसक जङ्गली जीवजन्तुहरूसँग नै बस्न रुचाउँछन्।  त्यसैले होला सायद पश्चिममा पनि प्रौढ र परिपक्व मान्छेहरू मान्छेसँग नबसी घरमा कुकुर, बिरालो, बाँदर आदि पालेर एक्लै बस्न रुचाउँछन् । समाजमा र घरपरिवारमा बस्नुभन्दा चिडियाखाना, म्युजियम र आर्टग्यालरीमा बस्न रुचाउँछन् । उनीहरू नातिनातिनाको भ्रामक तोतेबोलीबीच आफूलाई अभ्यस्त पार्नुभन्दा एकान्तमा भ्वाइलिन र गितारको मधुर धुनबीच बस्न रुचाउँछन् ।
मान्छे भनिने यी जन्तुहरू पनि अजीवका छन् । विश्वका आश्चर्यजनक चमत्कार र आविष्कारका जनक पनि मान्छेहरू नै हुन् । मोटर, रेल, पानीजहाज र हवाइजहाज बनाउने पनि मान्छेहरू नै हुन् । प्राणघातक रोगव्याधिका विरुद्ध खोप, औषधि र सर्जिकल यन्त्र–उपकरण बनाउने पनि मान्छेहरू नै हुन् । रङ्गीचङ्गी र सफासुग्घर सहरहरू बसाउने पनि मान्छेहरू नै हुन् । अनि यस प्रकृतिलाई बिगारेर तहसनहस पार्ने, प्रकृतिप्रदत्त हावा ग्रहण गर्न नमिल्ने, प्रकृतिप्रदत्त जल सेवन गर्न नमिल्ने गरी प्रदूषित बनाइदिने कामका जनक पनि मान्छेहरू नै हुन् । मान्छेलाई पेट भर्न आवश्यक पर्ने अन्नबाली उमार्नका लागि खेती गर्न सिकाउने पनि मान्छेहरू नै हुन् भने विशाक्त खाद्य र विषाक्त रसायनले युक्त तरकारी र फलफूल उमार्ने पनि मान्छेहरू नै हुन् । भगवान् शिव, राम र कृष्णलाई समेत गाली गर्ने र आरोपित गर्नेहरू मान्छे नै हुन्। गुरु नानकलाई जेल हाल्ने पनि मान्छेहरू नै हुन् । ग्यासच्याम्बर बनाउने पनि मान्छेहरू नै हुन्। अनि महात्मा गान्धीलाई गोली ठोक्ने पनि मान्छे नै हो। त्यसैले त भनिन्छ, एउटा नर नरपिशाच पनि बन्न सक्तछ अनि त्यही नर नारायण पनि बन्न सक्तछ। 
नेपालको सन्दर्भमा पनि आजका हरेक नेपालीलाई विश्वमानचित्रबीच नेपालीको पहिचान दिने राष्ट्रनिर्माता पृथ्वीनारायण शाहलाई मरणोपरान्त उनको सालिक भत्काउने पनि मान्छेहरू नै हुन् अनि पछिल्लो दस वर्षको सशस्त्र सङ्घर्ष (जनयुद्ध) बीच मारिने निरपराध जीव पनि मान्छेहरू नै हुन् र मार्ने हिंसक जीव पनि मान्छेहरू नै हुन् । विधिको शासनको बखान वा वकालत गरेर कहिल्यै नथाक्ने अनि न्यायालयको फैसलाचाहिँ नमान्ने पनि मान्छेहरू नै हुन् । नेपालको सन्दर्भमा यस्ता उदाहरणहरू मात्र प्रस्तुत गर्ने हो भने पनि ‘महाभारत’ भन्दा ठूलो महाकाव्य नै बन्नेछ ।
हाम्रा वैदिक साहित्य वेद, उपनिषद् र पुराणहरूले मान्छेबाट मुमुक्षुसम्म भएका साधकहरूलाई के निर्देश गर्छन् भने एकान्तप्रिय बन, मौन बस, चाहिनेभन्दा धेरै नबोल, अपरिग्रही बन अर्थात् आवश्यकताभन्दा बढी पदार्थको सङ्ग्रह नगर आदि। ‘श्रीमद्भगवद्गीता’ ले पनि भक्तहरूका लागि अनि ज्ञानी र योगीहरूका लागि त्यस्तै उपदेश दिएको छ । अर्थात् सारांशमा एक साधकले, एक भक्तले अनि एक मुमुक्षुले आम मानिसहरूबाट पृथक् बस्न तिनीहरूले निर्देश गरेको पाइन्छ । आम मानिस संसारी हुने र विषयी पनि हुने भएकाले तिनीहरूबाट अलग बस्न, निर्लिप्त भएर बस्न भनिएको छ । बाध्यतावश बस्नै परेछ भने पनि हिलोका बीच कमलपुष्पझैँ भई बस्न भनिएको छ । 
संसारी मानिसहरू प्रायः परिग्रही हुन्छन्, अर्थात् पदार्थहरू सङ्ग्रह गरेर राख्छन्। ती यावत् वस्तुहरू मानिसहरू किन सङ्ग्रह गर्छन् भने आफ्नो वरिपरिका मान्छेहरूका लागि तिनीहरू काम लागुन् । ती मान्छेहरू भनेका छोराछोरी, नातिनातिना, साथीसँगाती आदि हुन्छन् । व्यक्तिगत आवश्यकता बढाउँदै लगेर सङ्ग्रह गर्नु पनि अरू मान्छेहरूलाई देखाउनका लागि मात्रै हो । मान्छेलाई चौबीस घन्टामा एक अँजुली खाद्य पदार्थ भए पुग्छ, पेय पदार्थमा शुद्ध जल भए पुग्छ । आङ ढाक्न एकसरो कपडा भए हुन्छ । सुत्नका लागि ३ देखि ६ फिटे खाट पनि चाहिँदैन, धर्तीको न्यानो काख पर्याप्त हुन्छ । जमिन कति चाहिन्छ भने अन्त्यमा ६ फिट जमिन भए जलाउन पुगिहाल्छ । त्यति जमिन किन्नुपर्दैन । तर आफूलाई सुकुम्वासी भनेर गर्व गर्ने मान्छे होस् वा पीर गर्ने मान्छे, ती सबैजना आफ्नो आवश्यकता बढाएर परिग्रही बनेका हुन्छन् । शास्त्र भन्छ तृष्णाको कुनै सीमा छैन । त्यसका खातिर सङ्ग्रह गर्नु नै दुःखको कारण हो । यस अर्थमा पनि मान्छेको दुःखको कारण र दुःखको स्रोत पनि मान्छे नै हुँदा रहेछन् ।
हामी निर्धक्कसँग के भन्न सक्छौँ भने हामी मान्छेको महान् शत्रु मान्छे नै हो, मान्छेदेखि बाहेक हाम्रो अरू कुनै शत्रु छैन ।

Face to Face with the Universe

– Pushpa Raj Adhikary

Former Dean and Controller of Examinations

We human beings live in a planetary system of a star which we call the Sun. Our sun is just one of the minor stars in the cluster of about 250 billion stars called the Milky Way. We live far from the bright and densely populated nucleus of the Milky Way. Earth is one of the nine planets which surround the Sun, and continuously revolves around the Sun in more or less a fixed path known as its orbit. The earth is surrounded by a gaseous ocean. We live on the bottom of this rather opaque gaseous ocean. The earth is also one of the billions of other planets in the universe, nothing more than a tiny speck of dust in the vast galactic island. What can we hope to learn of this universe from our galactic backwoods?

In our short history of the existence on earth we had hardly had time enough to take stock of our immediate surroundings. We have just begun to know and understand ourselves. Thousands of years of human civilization are but a fleeting instance as compared with the periods of time in which matter evolves on the universal scale. Less than 500 years have passed since man first proved that this planet is a globe by circumnavigating it.  A century has passed since we discovered, at first by speculative reasoning, some of the laws connecting space, time, and motion. We have just begun to probe the secrets of the structure of the matter. Our knowledge of the universe is scanty indeed and we still have a lot more to learn. But we are inquisitive, have learned things step by step and continue to learn many more things about our universe by the same way and in course of time will unravel more mysteries of the universe.

Apart from the terrestrial landscape of mountains, valleys, flat plain, dense forest and oceans, man has been looking up at the twinkling dots in the sky for thousands of years. Some have compared these twinkling dots, known as stars, the twinkling eyes of the universe looking down on earth. Stars appear after the Sunset and must have looked very mysterious objects for early human beings. Beginning with idle stargazing, it has now turned to systematic observations, first with naked eyes, then with the simplest of instruments, and today with the help of giant telescope with lenses several feet in diameter and other sophisticated instruments. Now we can distinguish planets and stars.

In addition, we have identified various other objects scattered around the vast void of the universe. There are very big clusters of stars like our Milky Way. These clusters of stars are known as galaxies. The galaxies have hundreds of solar systems like ours. There are huge objects made of a gaseous material known as nebulae. Some objects are not visible to us but we feel their presence by detecting the noises they emit. These noises are known as radio waves and are detected and analyzed to understand about these noisy objects. We can measure how big a star is, how far one star is from another, and measure the distance of the farthest nebulae. So the old saying “Twinkle, twinkle little star, how I wonder what you are” is no longer true. Today we can say “Twinkle, twinkle little star, we know exactly what you are”. Stars are no wonders today and neither are they little. Other stars are several thousands to even hundreds of millions larger than our sun and are made of materials in plasma state.

The earth is surrounded by an ocean of colorless gases which we call air. Air mainly contains nitrogen and oxygen along with different other gases in traces. This air covering of our planet earth is known as the atmosphere and is spread up to 3,000 kilometers altitude above the earth. Clouds are usually observed at an altitude of about 80 kilometres. Somewhat higher, between 100 and 120 kilometres, meteors appear as shooting stars. A flying meteor is a complex phenomenon involving the interaction of a fast moving body carrying an electrical charge with the Surrounding air. Atmosphere gradually becomes less and less dense depending on the distance from the surface of the earth. Some strange lights (Northern and Southern lights) called Aurora Polaris occur in the uppermost layers of the atmosphere as high as 1,200 kilometres.

At an altitude of 3,000 kilometres above the surface of the earth, just outside the edge of the atmosphere, electrically charged particles from the outer space counter us. Earth is a huge magnet and its magnetic influence spreads in the surrounding space known as magnetic field. The charge particles which come from outer space towards earth are trapped by the earth’s electromagnetic field. They spiral along the earth forming three radiation belts. A disturbance in this belt causes disturbances in our radio, television and other means of communication.

From the surface of the earth we see the sky is blue and the stars twinkle. These phenomena do occur due to the earth’s atmosphere. So, how does the sky look when we watch it beyond the atmosphere? Astronauts and space travelers tell us that the sky looks totally dark and stars no longer twinkle. Rather they look like dull light-emitting objects. If we recall back, on March 18, 1965 an earth man named Alexei Leonov, citizen of the then Soviet Socialist Republic, first encountered the vast void of the universe face to face. Leonov became the first person from the planet earth to push himself away from his spaceship Voskhod 2 to drift out into the bottomless void known as space. Leonov was connected with a rope-like chord to keep from losing himself in the strange, weird void surrounding him.

Man is inquisitive by nature. As soon as we discover a new law of nature, we try to exploit it for our own ends. Having discovered the secret of lightning bolts we use it to produce electric light. By learning the laws of river flow we dug irrigation canals. We have harnessed the power of nuclear fission of uranium and will soon learn to tame the thermonuclear reaction which heats the sun and stars. No sooner do we discover the laws of the universe than we surely put them to work and make them serve us. We have understood the terrestrial laws and phenomena and made them serve us. So we can hope that by becoming the master of the universe one day we may be able to reconstruct the planetary systems, move stars about and regulate their brightness at our will.
 

Disciplinary Bias, Interdisciplinary Benignity

– Hem Raj Kafle
So many people today — and even professional scientists — seem to me like somebody who has seen thousands of trees but has never seen a forest.                                   – Albert Einstein
 
The less effective our schooling, the more limited our sense of disciplines can become. The more effective the schooling, the more specific our understanding of disciplines becomes. Both cases entail the growth of disciplinary biases. The first involves deprivation as a root of bias such as in a countryside student who ends up doing liberal arts, education or commerce because of ignorance about and inaccessibility to alternatives, or financial inability to cash opportunities. The second suggests abundance  (both of money and awareness) as a root of bias such as in a city-born child who grows through a more organized and entrenched academic route, and can choose technical and professional disciplines like engineering, medicine and other applied sciences for higher studies in a highly developed place, even including foreign institutions. 
And society in general allows the biases to flourish in our attitude towards the relation between intelligence and disciplines. To take a case, there was a time, and partly still is, when passing the tenth grade (SLC) with higher second division or first division marks marked eligibility for science studies. Being in a science college then signified an ‘outstanding’ academic history in the school. And being in other disciplines more or less meant the absence of that history. Then not being in science with that history signified other exceptional conditions: either an indelible intolerance for science, a sudden conversion from brilliance to dullness, or unavoidable domestic obligations for landing elsewhere. That one is not born for everything, or that achievements in school did not necessarily signal potential for multiple talents for later life, or that success in life was the product of manifold experiences in addition to academic achievements, did not really concern people. The subjects in schools were forced upon you as quintessential to your growth envisioned in the general educational policy. The subjects you took in the university were supposed to either compensate certain proficiency impairments, or complement your potential for higher achievements. In both cases, an individual’s realization of the need for pursuing certain disciplines was systematically underestimated. 
The biases have been replete among the academics in universities to the extent of mutual exclusion sometimes, and on other times, the unwillingness to appreciate others’ domains. Becher (1989) describes this condition as follows:
Men of the sociological tribe rarely visit the land of the physicists and have little idea what they do over there. If the sociologists were to step into the building occupied by the English department, they would encounter the cold stares if not the slingshots of the hostile natives … the disciplines exist as separate estates, with distinctive subcultures. (p. 23)
Perhaps Becher’s portrayal of academic biases rings very true about our universities also. We can sometimes ascribe this to a natural condition. For example, when we are limited/focused towards a specific course of study in a university, it seems commonplace to take that other areas of studies would never intersect our lines. We are bound to work within formal disciplinary compartments.  But, such compartmentalization lends itself to narrowing the path of scholarship. According to Lattuca (2001), growth of specializations to the extent of disciplinary biases can “limit growth of inquiries and explanations” and “delimit the way of knowing.” She further portrays such narrowing of scholarship as “the decline of the front porch from which everyone could survey their territory” (p. 1). This implies the absence of a holistic platform from where every other discipline could be viewed as significant for the creation and sustenance of broader worldviews. 
I see, however, that the decline is not finality but a temporary process. As we grow to be professionals disciplines themselves invite us to tread their territories, however shallow or deep the treading could be. Because our intellectual needs and reaches are so diverse these days, we are bound to step beyond our disciplinary compartments. In this line Lattuca (2001) suggests, “Scholars in a specialization may have a disciplinary home, but they often travel elsewhere to work.” Shin exemplifies this with a real story in which a group of scholars in geography traced an imaginary geography in the works of Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, Jane Austen, among others, which they did to discuss “the possibility of organizing and constructing an ideal place to live…,” and to understand “how places are related, positively or negatively, to the social and individual life of the people living in it” (“Confessions of an Interdisciplinarian”). This travelling is what forms one of the roots for the formation of interdisciplinarity. 
Shin further asserts, “Interdisciplinarity begins when disciplinarians realize that what they are looking for is not found in their own disciplines (“Confessions”). Interdisciplinarity, however, signifies more than an individual’s realization for the need to explore knowledge in other fields. It suggests, as Moran (2003) puts, “forging connections across the different disciplines…or even attempting to transcend disciplinary boundaries altogether” (p.15). In the most general sense, interdisciplinarity can be taken to mean a form of discourse between plural fields of knowledge. The discourse, signified by the root “discipline” and the prefix “inter”, implies the expansion of precise, rigorous and focused subjects into warm, pleasant and discrete but mutually uplifting fields of scholarship (Frank, 1988). This further presents interdisciplinarity as being transformative to the direction of generating new modes of inquiries. Nissani names such character as “creative breakthrough” where productivity comes from “linking previously unrelated ideas” for a holistic perspective and “unity of knowledge” which can “readily spot a disciplinary slip up” (“Interdisciplinarity”). Interdisciplinarity thus is perceived as a representative location from where to examine multiple worldviews.  
 
Interdisciplinarity emanates from and sustains in genuine collaboration between disciplines and disciplinarians. It does not signal the end of disciplinarity, but emphasizes the widening of disciplinary horizons and mitigating disciplinary biases. The true sense of interdisciplinary lies in the fact that scholars make efforts to know many fields of use, but not that they try to know everything. Similarly, it does not necessarily take to achieve the depth of every other field of value, but to be informed about the intensity of their  value in everyday life. This should entail the awareness and skills to tackle what Nissani calls the “intellectual, social and practical problems” of life through a multi-faceted approach. 
I end this essay with a thoughtful quote about how interdisciplinarity resembles the notion of taking different routes to arrive a single destination:
We all want to make our lives more meaningful tomorrow than they are today. This is our ideal. That ideal can be understood as truth for scientists and as an ideal place for geographers, as a good society for social scientists in general, and as a good life for the people in humanities. Because this ideal is to be achieved in the future, it is open-ended, and it requires the use of intuition and imagination. Again, I want to say that intuition and imagination know no disciplinary boundaries. (Shin, “Confessions”)
Perhaps it is time for us to redefine our scholarly pursuits and preoccupations and to begin to see the world through other  people’s eyes — irrespective of how we have been schooled. Would the world look different then? Or, would it change the way we see ourselves?
References 
  • Becher, T. (1989). Academic tribes and territories: Intellectual enquiry and the cultures of disciplines. Milton Keynes: Open University Press.
  • Frank, R. (1988). ‘Interdisciplinarity’: The first half century. In E.G. Stanley and T.F. Hoad (Eds.), Words: For Robert Burchfield’s sixty-fifth birthday (pp. 91–101). Cambridge: D.S. Brewer.
  • Lattuca, L. R. (2001). Creating interdisciplinarity. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press.
  • Moran, J. (2002). Interdisciplinarity. New York: Routledge.
  • Nissani, Moti.  Interdisciplinarity: What, where, why? Retrieved October 25, 2005 from http://www.is.wayne.edu/mnissani/2030/ispessay.htm .
  • Shin, Un-chol.  Confessions of an Interdisciplinarian. Retrieved October 25, 2005 from http://www.humanities.eku.edu/interdisciplinarian.htm .

Secret of Prosperity

– Ananda Kafle

Department of Natural Sciences (Chemistry)

The later decades of the 20th century are marked as the period of a rapid growth of technologies. Beside information and communication technologies, significant developments have been achieved in a multitude of areas including agriculture, power generation, alternative energies, industrial productivity, etc. For developed countries, scientific innovations and researches have for long, remained an inevitable tool for strengthening national economy. The foundations of the 21st century identity of India and China as rapidly growing world economies were laid with the governments’ acceptance of the importance of science and technology in development.

Realization of the value of science and technology by the Chinese regime following frequent blows from Europeans in the 19th century enabled the sector to regain its pace, that was lost four centuries before, when the monarchy withdrew its interest on the subject assuming it to be trivial. Until the 14th century, when the country had its well flourished scientific innovations, China used to make remarkable contribution in the Asian economy. Especially, the four Chinese inventions – papermaking, gun powder, printing and compass (known as the Four Great Inventions) are appreciated for the prominent role they played in the then China. With the efforts of modern Chinese reformists, the science and technology sector of China has been flourishing as an independent discipline.

The field of scientific research and development is increasingly gaining higher priorities in China. The average increase in the Gross Domestic Expenditure in Research and Development (GERD) since 2000 is by 22.8%. The highest fraction of the allotted budget now is being spent in experimental developments and attempts are being made to raise the investments in applied researches. Higher expenditures in researches and an enthusiastic involvement of the business enterprises in the sector are playing important role in increasing the GDP. The multilateral efforts have made China able to rely on its own technological innovations to some extent. The ongoing developments in indigenous technologies are manifested in the fields like agriculture, manufacture of electronics, production of synthetic goods etc. All things together, are establishing China as a leading economy.

The well flourished economy of the ancient Indian subcontinent was contributed by their innovations in the then relevant areas like shipping, mining, baking earthen artifacts etc. The prosperous Vedic community was enriched with discoveries on medication, astrology and mathematics. The technologies blooming here earlier had greatly increased the power of this community among human civilizations. Inability of the scientific community to keep the spirit of the novelty and discoveries eventually kicked the territory back from the technology scenario.

In the colonial period, the British emperors had brought along with them the power of science and intellect, which in combination with the tactful political strategies, they used to dominate and rule the Indian society. After independence India’s economic growth is greatly contributed by innovations in technologies, especially in automobile engineering, nuclear science and information technology.

Some powerful political leaders in Nepal take the abutting Indian states as development models for our own country.  The economic growth in different Indian states including those lagged behind in mainstream development are a consequence of the increasing investments that the government has been making in the field of scientific research and technology development, coupled with improved  governance. Even in the time of harsh economy it has been making a 1/5th increment in science budget every year. Indian agriculture is not limited in development of dams, irrigation facilities and proper supply of the farm essentials, rather, is getting increasingly assisted by most modern technologies. Besides, the industrial sector including automobiles, textiles, pharmaceuticals, software etc are vigorously growing. The nations that are in the race of becoming the prospective world powers have been using science and technology as the most efficient tool to accomplish their purposes.

While the two large neighbors are making a big hop in development and use of technologies, the situation of our own is the most disappointing. We are not simply lagging behind with regards to the scientific innovations, rather, have not even started walking. Our agriculture sector, which is claimed to make the highest contribution to the GDP, has still remained within debates of how to augment the farm yield from traditional methods. Instead of being grown through the application of modern technologies, many of the industries are getting closed. The possibilities of using native technologies in agriculture or industries are still like a far cry.

The scientific research sector has always remained staggered by the government’s indifference, corruption and uncertainty. The organizations like Nepal Academy of Science and Technology (NAST), Nepal Agricultural Research Council (NARC) etc. and the universities in the country, which are supposed to be the centers of research activities have almost become non- functional. Instead of carrying out their actual job, the officials are busy pleasing the political power centers for their own development. This sector has been polluted by the political and bureaucratic influences. Instead of the scientists, the bureaucrats are making themselves the real leaders. General complaints are that the largest fraction of the scanty amount of budget that is allocated for scientific researches is either embezzled or is spent for purposes like international visits of the officials. Most of the scientists, who are working on the grants from foreign agencies, spend their skills on planning how to manipulate expenditures so that a large amount of the grants goes to their own pockets.

If we are to move ahead in the race of development and increasing national prestige, all the rubbishes associated with the scientific communities must be removed and technological innovations promoted or else, we can’t be upgraded from the status of the mere consumers of foreign products and gadgets.

(The numerical data presented are based on the official information from the concerned governments and authorities.)

(Earlier published in Republica, 7 August 2013)

Dealing with the Thinking

– Hem Raj Kafle

In teaching spontaneity has a greater power than planned outpourings though planning is fundamental to traditional theories of teaching. Spontaneity brings out original thoughts. It corresponds with the need of the circumstances, and creates the most suitable statements to the mood of the audience. No doubt, planning is useful. But it depends. Is what we deliver a set of PowerPoint slides prepared ages ago, and printed, photocopied and handed to the dear pupils in each session for their exam-time convenience? Or is it a formal lesson plan designed for a specific class situation, which the teacher updates every session, and which helps augment students’ learning through self-study, reflection, internalization and reconstruction?

I usually do not work with readymade handouts; I only reflect on and take notes of what I might say in the class, to compel myself to deliver the best from the internalized knowledge. My initial classes are filled with guidelines, not necessarily in the form of setting rules for students. I say that certain rules, like giving regular classes, making students regular and conducting tests are my works, but my being a leader automatically draws students towards them. I say I would not repeatedly remind them of the rules because I consider the students mature enough to understand the right ways; they should know that by making them work I am adding to my own stock of responsibilities.

I think the best thing I tell them is that a human being is a thinking and feeling creature and therefore has to save herself from being a machine. Life is less formula than feelings though formulas help shape a section of our professional future. Our lives are also guided largely by the works of others, or say, the thoughts of others. This sets for us the requirement to be associated with people who think and create ideas. Teachers seek this association in other teachers, and also with students. Students have teachers and their class fellows to fulfill this need.

I do not forget to explain the rationale of prescribing the contents of the courses. Every theme has a purpose, way beyond a compulsion to study and take exams. My first lecture explains why we teach a story in place of the other, how one text relates with the other and with the lives of the readers as well. Moreover, I make it a point to show what one gets to learn from certain writers and texts. I work in full adherence to V.S. Ramachandran’s warnings: “Did you enjoy doing what you did?” and “Did it really make an impact?” To me joy  is what I feel from being able to make students realize the value of learning. And the impact need not always be outward, directed to changing our surroundings. It is equally important to experience some kind of transformation in ourselves. Any academic, creative task we do in a university should have the quality of giving direction to at least a few people including ourselves.

My classes teach me to teach better.  I  like to treat every new student as a mysterious stock of knowledge, sentiments and challenges. If you take her as a mere creature, you will not see her beyond a semester. If you take her as a thinking and feeling being, stop for a while to meditate on the potentials she bears. This is why I love to share the fancy of being old and mature and useful so that the students might fancy identifying with this vision of being old and mature and useful. This is called making people think beyond rules and formulas. My contribution in this sense lies in instilling, and sometimes reviving, this humane sense out of the monotony and rush for driving towards dreams and fulfillments.

This is why the readymade slides and handouts work  only little with me. I do not either regret for not having any of them because I do not identify my success as a teacher with the sight of students breathlessly cramming slides and handouts few minutes before the examination bell. My satisfaction rather lies in those contented faces, which head smugly in and out of classrooms and exam halls  on all seasons. I have all reasons to be happy for this notoriety of discouraging mechanical learning.

 

 

When Reetu Returns

– Kashiraj Pandey 
“There is a new face in the village.”
 The headman is informed by one of the village women.
“Yeah, he must be a tourist who might want to stay here for a couple of nights and might leave.” Says Jimuwal, the headman.
“Jimuwaal Baa, Jimuwaal Baa”
Shouts another Youngman from the distance – a clear voice some two kilometers away, very audible, very familiar.
“Oh, Hello? Who is that?” replies the headman.
“This is Ramesh, Jimuwaal Baa. I just wanted to make sure you are home.” As he adds, “I am coming to you with guests, a couple from Amrika.”
“Oh yes, come on by”, says Jimuwaal Baa.
“Namaste Jimuwaal Baa”
Ramesh greets the headman and both the Amrikans also exchange greetings with him.
“I heard about you.” Says Jimuwal Baa.
 There had come a woman that morning who had told him that she had noticed a new person in the village.
“Where have you come from?”—
“England, do you know?” The couple spoke in unison.
“Oh yes, yes, Amrika”, replied the headman.
“Amrikans come and visit our village. Some years ago, many Amrikans would come and stay here almost every day, but for the last couple of years I have not noticed any. Amrikans favor this village very much. You see, tourists can see the mountains from here so clearly. They give money, stationery and sweets to our children. Last year, one Amrikan even brought books, a bagful of books, from London where she came from. She worked in our village primary school for a month. She lived in that shed, down there, above the cow shed. Downstairs we keep cows and upstairs a room to live. We have even constructed a toilet for that Amrikan. She was so shy to go to the toilet in public, or even in an open space. And, she was the one who persuaded us to construct more toilets in our village. Now, each household has at least one toilet in the village. So, we value Amrikans very much.”
“Ramesh, what a beautiful scene, especially when the first rays of sunlight reach the mountain peak; so vibrant, so enchanting”, observes Mike, the male tourist.
“Yeah, beautiful for you but our people do not have time to regard the beauty of nature like this. Their days come and go routinely. They are more worried about earning their bread, even without butter! They take nature for granted, expecting it to readily support their needs. Tourists view it as an opportunity of a lifetime to experience the ecstasy and the bliss of nature; they feel as if they are in heaven whenever or however they visit this place.”
 Mike interrupts, “Ramesh, Look! What a nice baby goat, we never see them in our country. Right, Isabelle?”
Isabelle smiles and says, “Yeah- amazing! How lovely are these goats, buffaloes, and the vegetables in the kitchen garden, so lively, so fresh.”
Visiting the remote village as a tourist was nostalgic; totally lost was Isabelle, now a young woman. They had just arrived the previous week, had been in Kathmandu for three days, taken a mountain flight, and come directly to the village.
For a long time she had carefully kept her identity card with an old photograph glued to it. She now removed it from her purse. The card read, “Reetu Nepal, Grade Two, Roll no. one.” The name of the school- Shree Pancha Kumari Primary School, Dhading, formed the background.
Isabelle showed the card to Ramesh. Ramesh, a guide belonging to a trekking company had not realized the tourists’ motive in visiting the village. Ramesh too had attended Pancha Kumari School. He studied and took his SLC at the same school, some nine or ten years ago and knew everything about it.
Ramesh, who had never met his parents, had left the village on passing his SLC. It was also his first visit to this place since he had left. Although he lost his parents at an early age, the people in the village remembered how they loved and cared Ramesh over all those years. Ramesh also remembers his people telling him the story of his parents who had died right after he was born, one after the other, within a year’s time. The villagers a long time ago had also told him about his sister who was ten years older than him. That’s all he knew about his family. He is so indebted to the villagers for they all were compassionate to him which was more of an incentive to return than the orders his company had given.
Ramesh, looking at the card more seriously, reads aloud—Reetu Nepal, a card of a student who went to Pancha Kumari school years back in history for him. The date read as “Expiry: 1981 January 14”, 21 years ago from February 20, 2005 – the present date. Ramesh, also with his family name “Nepal”, recalls the story of the girl Reetu, doubting whether this Reetu was his own sister who he remembers the villagers telling him of who was sent to the city after their parents died.
An old woman from the village appeared and he showed her the picture. Sitting next to the tourists, “Aren’t you Ramesh, how can I forget you my love?” the old woman says, “oh, yeah! This picture – I remember.”
“Baboo! This seems like your sister, Reetu. She was both a brilliant and beautiful girl. We could not keep her with us. Some twenty to twenty two years ago, before you were born, there lived a fine family of three; a young couple with a daughter. They were your father, mother, and sister, Reetu. After your birth the couple died. Your father had a serious disease, HIV, which he caught from Bombay, the colorful city of India where he had gone to work for some years. And your mother followed the same fate. The man died almost five or six months before the woman, and before you were born. After the man’s death, the woman, who was also pregnant, gave birth to a boy. That’s you, Ramesh. She died some two months after your arrival.”
“ Reetu, your sister”—looking at the picture the old lady unravels, “so cute but little mischievous, I still remember had a hard time to live a life here in the village so we sent her to the city with Kainla, who had a mason’s job in Kathmandu. Kainla later told us that a kind gentleman took Reetu to a charity that accepted orphans for foreigners to adopt. A year later, when my husband went to Kathmandu, I asked him to find her and bring her back to the village, to our home if she wished. He said he could not trace her, a story from some 20 years ago. Who gave you this card, Ramesh?”
Ramesh replied, “The Amrikans.” This young couple have come from London to see our village. The company I work for asked me if I could be their guide. I accepted the deal and I am with them. The card belongs to this lady. The old woman looking at Isabelle, was puzzled for some time and tells Ramesh in Nepali to ask the young lady how she got that card. Ramesh, translating repeats, “Where did you get the card from?”
“This is my card. My own card”, Isabelle replies. “This is all I have since I was taken away from my birthplace, nothing more, and nothing I remember more than this except some shallow images of the hills, the mountains, and the clearing nearby. I was given everything; a new name, food, shelter, and support. I have been treasuring this card as though it were a part of my body and the same card has brought me back to this village now.

Editorial

KUFIT sustains the commitment to continue though our appearance of late has been intermittent. This is one of the several good things we do and aspire to do in the University. So, our delay is reasonable.We promise not to fail. And we will keep on asking you to contribute by writing, by reading and by letting your own circle of friends know that we have this small platform.

We heartily thank our regular contributors. They have kept their promises despite having the same extent of engagement as we. They have helped us keep the zeal for keeping the forum alive. They have helped make it more professional and interdisciplinary by providing us diversity of themes and subjects.

We present KUFIT in a new template and platform. The previous site reportedly failed to open in certain places, and that some antiviruses blocked it. We hope the present site is more accessible. We hope it serves the purpose of intellectual engagements.

We expect your feedback.

In this issue:

1. The Omnipresent Force by Pushpa Raj Adhikary

2. सोमरस भनेको मदिरा नै हो त? by Mukunda Upadhyaya

3. Open and Distance Learning in Nepal... by Khagendra Acharya

4. अन्तरिक्ष-विज्ञान सम्बन्धमा केही चर्चा by Nirmala Mani Adhikary

5. Breathtaking Beijing by Kashiraj Pandey

6. On Identity by Hem Raj Kafle

The Omnipresent Force

– Pushpa Raj Adhikary

We call the pull of the earth on the bodies the force of gravity. The measure of this pull is called the weight of the body. There is no escape from the gravity and its eternal laws are valid even in the remotest parts of the universe. It equally pervades vacuum and the densest substance. There is no way of shielding from it or acting on it. Its action is less and less when we move away from earth but does not vanish completely. Gravity makes rivers flow down to the sea, keeps the atmosphere around the earth, and is the cause of tides in the oceans. We have to use force to overcome gravity if we want to move away from the earth.

Since time immemorial, living beings had to reckon with gravity, and learned to adapt to it. The force of gravity, which makes everything move towards it, was unexplained for ages. The first man to develop a scientific theory of gravity and apply it to study of the universe was the great Englishman, Sir Isaac Newton.

The anecdote that Newton discovered the law of gravity by watching an apple fall from a tree may or may not be true. It has been said that he invented this story to get rid of people demanding explanation of just how he discovered the great law. Today, any high school student knows this law with such an ease that it seems strange indeed that there was a time when learned men had not the slightest idea about it. However, it is not as it may appear to us and it took the genius of Newton to discover it.

Newton’s studies convinced him that not only earth attracts an apple but an apple also attracts the earth. In fact, every material body attracts other material bodies towards it. But then why the apple moves towards the earth but not the earth towards the apple? This attraction or pull or force exists between the earth and all heavenly bodies too. This is known as the force of gravitation.Any material object attracts all other material objects and this attraction is in proportion to the weight of an object. The heavier a body, the stronger is the attraction. The weight of the earth is enormous compared to the weight of an apple or a man. Hence, the attraction exerted by the earth on other objects is also very strong compared to the attraction of an apple on earth or by a man on earth. This attraction of the earth makes every body move towards earth. The attraction between two material bodies increases if they come closer or if their weights are increased.

About seventy years before Newton’s time, the great German Scientist Johannes Kepler discovered the law as how planets moved around the sun. But in Kepler’s time nobody knew why the planets moved as explained by him. Newton, with the help of the law of universal gravitation, could explain why the planets moved around the sun as explained by Kepler. The universal law of gravitation found another brilliant confirmation in the discovery of the planet Neptune. Astronomers had long discovered that the planet Uranus occasionally appeared to stray from its orbit. Sometimes it would slow down its motion and again it would go faster as if drawn by some invisible force. The law of gravitation predicted that the anomaly in the motion of Uranus was due to the presence of another planet farther from Uranus and soon astronomers discovered a new planet Neptune.

For many decades Newton’s theory of Gravitation appeared perfect. But then facts began to accumulate which could not be explained by the law of universal gravitation alone. One of these is the Seeliger paradox. This paradox goes this way. The universe is infinite and is infinitely variable. Its lifetime too, is unlimited. It is more or less filled with material bodies and so can be assumed to possess some mean density of matter. Seelinger decided to apply the universal law of gravitation to determine the gravitational force which an infinite universe would exert at any point within it. This force was found proportional to the radius of the universe. As the radius of the universe is infinite, so the force would be. But this is not the case. Does it mean that the law of Universal gravitation is not valid on universal scale?

Another phenomenon in which the conclusions of gravitational theory did not quite agree with observations was found in the displacement of the orbit if the planet Mercury. Very accurate calculations of the orbit of Mercury reveal that the point closer to the sun suffers a precession or displacement. For a long time this precession of the orbits of Mercury remained unexplained. It took a revolution in science to explain it, and the revolution was carried out by a young German Scientist, Albert Einstein.

It is a long known fact that if a gun fires at a distance we see the flash of light some time before we hear the sound. This tells us that sound travels in a far less speed that the light. It was possible to measure the speed of sound in the surface of the earth as 330 meters per second. But it is much harder to measure the speed of light because light travels with an incredible speed of 3,00000 kilometers per second. A ray of light can circle the earth in just over 0.1 second i.e. one tenth of a second. For a long time people were unable to measure the speed of light. It was finally measured by observing the eclipses of the satellites of the planet Jupiter from two points on earth’s orbit around the sun, when the earth was closed and farther from Jupiter. Today it is measured in laboratory conditions to a high degree of precession by means of rotating mirrors. In fact, not only light but all electromagnetic waves travel with light’s speed as the electromagnetic field moves through space.

But how do electromagnetic fields propagate through space? Does gravitational force also propagate through space in the form of gravitational field? If so, how fast does a gravitational field travel? As fast as sound in air, light in vacuum or with some other speed? Can the attraction between the bodies happen directly without the participation of the intervening medium? Do the gravitational force and gravitational field also propagate with the same speed of light or have a finite velocity? A new scientific theory was needed to explain the propagation of electromagnetic field through space and its foundation was laid in 1905-1915 by Albert Einstein in his special and general theories of relativity based on the geometries of Lobachevski and Riemann.

One of the fundamental conclusions of the special theory of relativity, which defines the interconnection between space and time, is the equivalence of mass and energy. The theory states that a moving body carries kinetic energy, hence its mass is greater than when it is at rest. The greater a body’s latent energy is, the greater is its mass. A cup of hot coffee is heavier than cold coffee in the same cup. The famous equation E=mc2 is Einstein’s formula of mass-energy equivalence.

But what is meant by a body’s mass? The mechanical concept of mass states that mass is a measure of a body’s inertia. Hence, mass can be expressed in terms of force and the acceleration which it imparts to the body. In physics, mass measured in this way is known as inertial mass. But mass can also be measured from Newton’s formula of gravitation. This mass of bodies which may be at rest relative to one another is known as gravitational mass. The physical interpretation of inertial and gravitational mass are different but quantitatively have, to date, been found to be the same no matter how they are measured. This led Einstein to think that inertia and gravitation must have a common origin. So, if a body’s inertial mass varies with the velocity of motion, then, he reasoned, the gravitational mass should also vary with the velocity of motion.

Einstein’s identification of inertia and gravity on the basis of the equality of inertial and gravitational mass of great significance. It enabled him, in 1915, to develop the general theory of relativity, which is the modern theory of gravitation. This modern theory offers a much more exact and profound explanation of the properties of the bodies than Newton’s theory. Einstein’s theory was a revolution in physics which provided explanation for many hitherto unexplained phenomena. But it would hardly be useful to present the theory in common language as it contains largely mathematical, extremely complicated equations belonging to the class of non-linear differential equations in spite of the clarity of its physical meaning.

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