WHAT'S A LIFE ?.

1st Nov 2017
what is life ?
This philosophical question has rotated in the minds of every human being , since he started thinking and they have given answers to this question in various ways. I have also raised this basic question in my forth coming book Research guidance in Parasitology.

In my Hindi book "YE HAI HAMARE KRISHI VISHWA VIDYALAYA" (available in Amazone.in) I have opined that no person got peace during his life  where i have cited examples of :Dhratarashtra" or "Pandavs". But even if you read life of our ideal Rama , he perhaps remained perturbed in his later life due to absence of his beloved wife Seeta and how he finished his life- by immersing his body in Saryu river .

Who so ever may be great in his active phase of life ,  every one has to face this last phase of his life , where there is no fire works but only a silence or a wait  -and there is no escape for this phase. We mourn this demise of the person for whole life if he left us in a very young age . But has to accept this bitter fact even for our near and dear one -even if he has crossed any age of his life.

This whole rhetoric is on a news my colleague has transmitted to me yesterday. 

The news is that our Professor Dr Harish Lal Shah has shifted from Jabalpur to Lucknow after crossing the age of 85 years and when the going becomes more tough at Jabalpur. His widow daughter in law with her grown up two children came to their rescue and took them to Lucknow where all will live together at Lucknow. This news once again compelled me to thing over miseries of life . Now ! where is his blue eyed boy Dr HOP Shrivastava ? What happened to his other students residing at Jabalpur ?   

As i knew Prof Shah since 1965, i may be able to describe the events more closely. However, let me clarify that these are my feelings without knowing about theirs as though both of us were living in Jabalpur  ,we remained  wide apart since last twenty years .

I have written much about Dr Shah in my Hindi book , primarily since both of us were in Parasitology and he told us so many things of his life. Though his surname "Shah"suggests him belonging to some other community but he is a chhatriya of Pahadi area of UttarPradesh. In the book i have mentioned how he was promoted to Professor of Parasitology through Madhya Pradesh service commission and joined in 1966 ,Jabalpur Parasitology department and taught us Parasitology. He impressed us by his way of teaching in undergraduate classes then he went to Illinois University for his Ph.D However, his family with three sons remained in Gorakhpur colony of Jabalpur city (where HOP was also residing )  ; His one son was suffering from  muscular atrophy and lost his life when Dr Shah was still at USA . Thus his two sons  remained with him- the elder Hemant joined medical college , Jabalpur, did his MBBS while younger Jayant did BA and joined Army as an Officer. Dr Hemant took MS in gynaecology ,married a Bengali girl and settled at USA with his family. The younger son also married in a christian family belonging to Satna and joined some private company as security officer , after leaving military services  However, Jayant developed some health problems, admitted in Marble city hospital of Jabalpur but his life could not be saved and he expired in 1999 or so; at that time his wife was very young carrying the burden of two children.Every one of us thought that she will make a second marriage as our Professor was also of this thought. However, life has many hidden miseries, she did not marry and now she with her two grown up children came forward to take Dr and Mrs to Lucknow with them so that life of Dr Shah can be less miserable. But what happened to Dr HOP Shrivastava who is residing nearby ? Was he not remained supportive to Dr Shah family ?

It is a open secret that Dr Shah supported  HOP blindly, at all places.So much so, that he does not hesitate to kill the claims of other genuine persons. This i have referred in my Hindi book by narrating an example of interview where neither merit nor seniority was considered only to give professorship to HOP. 

Again when he became President of IAAVP( Indian association for advancement of veterinary parasitology), i requested him to write a book (with my full assistance) describing Indian Parasitology- its achievements and areas for further research; but he did not take up the matter. Frankly i considered it because of HOP

Dr Shah remained to support HOP , what we can call Blindly. Though it was a great puzzle to understand it.

It still remained a puzzle ?

whether Dr shah has a true love for HOP despite all his shortcomings ?

And HOP has used Dr Shah only for his pretty benefits ?

What is the present thinking of the two for each other ?

SHOULD NOT WE CRITICALLY EVALUATE OUR VETERINARY SYSTEM

There are always two schools of thought- one never try to critically evaluate any system- howsoever  old it has become while other school believes to look into the system-what we have achieved and why we have failed to achieve. I belong to second category. With my age of 74 , i have witnessed introduction of Agriculture universities under American land grand pattern in India. The first university came in existence in Pantnagar in 1960. Its reputation in Agriculture prompted PAU,Ludhiana to be second and Jawaharlal Nehru Krishi Vishwa Vidyalaya ,Jabalpur as third Agriculture university of India ; however, this university could not attain equal fame. Perhaps, the main reason was its inclusion of all 6 agriculture colleges and 2 veterinary colleges of Madhya Pradesh in Agriculture university (this was not done in Pantnagar and Ludhiana) and diminishing state professors and head to Associate Professor with creation of Professor's post ,only at Jabalpur. Again, required funds were not  infused to sustain such a large system hence other campuses deteriorated with almost halt of research work. . While Pantnagar encouraged students to become teaching assistant ,during  their post graduate degree program and promoting them directly to Assistant Professor, such facility was again deprived by JNKVV and even intelligent students were forced to join inferior post of senior research assistant . It clearly reveals how human capital at these two places was treated which reflected widely in its achievements.

It was a good idea to encroach vast agriculture land under Agriculture University so that students may do practicals in the field. For this reason, these Agricultural universities were opened in remote areas-away from cities.

While this proved a boon for Agriculture education, the same was not true for Veterinary education. The main reason was training of these student veterinarians was to be given on animal patients which were scar in these places. Therefore, though their hospitals were having good facilities, the students failed to apply these techniques on a large scale. According to some , they were not well trained to perform general veterinary activities.

One important fact emerged that these Indian Agriculture universities abandoned good practices of American system like hourly test, monthly test , earn while you learn but never hesitated to imbibe controversial practices. The main argument of including veterinary science in Agriculture universities was since American and our farmers keep both animals and agriculture hence veterinary was included in these universities though their education syllabus greatly differed . Again, only those students having a BVSc degree were allowed to join post graduate degree program. This created great controversies and citing examples from America first two  Agriculture universities (Pantnagar and PAU ) started college of Animal sciences where both vet and agriculture students were allowed to take up post graduate  program.However neither Agriculture  nor veterinary departments were ready to appoint these students and as a result both colleges of animal sciences have to be closed down. 

Our Agriculture faculty was sent to American universities for doing Ph.D thereby helping India in auguring Agriculture research but when these scientists returned from America after obtaining Ph.D , they did not start research work , but started complaining about meager facilities existing in the country. 

It is half truth that these Agriculture universities were responsible for green revolution or increase in wheat production. In 1965 our erst while prime minister shri Lal Bahadur Shastri was struggling with food problem ,asked people to have a fast for one day in a week and coined the slogan :JAI JAWAN JAI KISAN 'In fact this was dwarf variety of wheat, developed by Dr Norman Barloug (an American scientist) in Mexico which was introduced in the country with the efforts of Dr MS Swaminathan, Head Botany dept at IARI, and Dr C Subramanium, the then Agriculture Minister.

Likewise, it is wrong to give credit to the Veterinarians for taking the country first in milk production. Really it  was an engineer Dr Vargees Kurian, who has no relation with Veterinary or Agriculture education, pioneered operation flood and AMUL model which became so darling that many countries came to adopt the program.Our Veterinary scientists ,instead, started cross cattle breeding program which utterly failed to produce a high yielding milch cow. Moreover, they have not discussed utility of male calf which is used as beef in America but was not possible in India. Similar was the fate of "pichwade ki murgi" where we could not produce a hen  giving more than 200 eggs to the small farmers. Thus there are many questions raised by the public; what is the aim of these agriculture universities ? whether our research is for small farmers or big business houses? How we are treating our Indian scientists ? Why IAS can refuse to implement a research plan without understanding its utility?For example,  how our scientists can undertake large scale trials of their vaccines, diagnostics, drugs etc when these agriculture universities do not have executive powers ?

Why persons are allowed to import technologies on hefty royalty that can be developed easily in our country . Why our scientific organisations in their websites list research highlights or awards without name of the scientist or team of scientist ?

There are many alike questions which need answer.

Now time is changing and so is India. Therefore, it is necessary to look into whole issue of research in our education system so that our new generation can enjoy fruits of growth.Sadly there are scarcity of the books which are  critically evaluating our education or Agriculture system.

I have analysed some of above questions in my memoir in the form of a book  YE HAI HAMARE KRISHI VISHWA VIDYALAYA.(ISBN 978-93-86673-37-4)

This book is published in August 2017  by BLUE ROSE PUBLISHERS, NEW DELHI and is available on Amazone.in , and flipcart .( link : http//:bluerosepublishers.com/product/ye-hai-hamare-krishi-vishwa-vidyalaya/ http//:amzn.in/5efCl62 )

Shortly the book is coming on kindle in e book format so that our young generation may retrieve it when ever they desire so.In contrast to my technical book, published by springers, price of hard copy is only Rs600; our young generation may use e book format on Kindle and it is costing only Rs300.

Long back (perhaps in 1970es) Dr Vinod shah , An Agricutural Scientist , wrote a book critically analysing our agriculture system but I could not find the book. It was based purely on Agriculture.
Recently Dr JS Bhatia has written  following book that deals with Veterinary education and profession in India
A glimpse of veterinary  education in India.
publisher Satish serial publishing house. 403 express tower,commercial complex,azadpur,
Delhi 110033
Hope these books will not vanish so shortly and desired persons will be able to retrieve these books.

TO EQUIP OUR VETERINARY UNIVERSITIES WITH MODERN FACILITIES

It is heartening to note that almost all Indian states are interested to open a new veterinary university in their state to augment animal husbandry-an important part to double up farmers' income. Obviously present veterinary universities have been carved from erstwhile State Agriculture universities hence they are lacking some basic facilities to participate in Agriculture growth. There may be different parameters for growth and new equipment for achieving this  growth when we reach in mid of 21st century but presently 3 requirements appear necessary for these universities..These are -our veterinary hospitals, a university library and a department of vet economics and statistics in each and every vet university

VETERINARY HOSPITALS : It must be realized that unlike to Agriculture Universities, these veterinary universities do not require large farm lands hence should be started in or nearby big cities. We have some bad experience in Pantnagar university where vet students were not able to handle and treat good number of animals , merely because that town does not have large animal population. In contrast, big cities like Jabalpur, Patna, Kolkatta etc have good bovine population mainly because these animals cadre milk demand of the big cities. 

However, new developments have lead to shifting of the dairies from city to outskirts hence the existing veterinary hospitals of old veterinary colleges are mainly serving cat and dog population of the city as bovine are shifted about 10-20 km away from the city.; obviously, in such circumstances students fail to acquire good practice on  large animals.

There is also a new development of opening Gaoshala where unproductive and other kind of bovines are maintained. I think it will be a win win position for both the stakeholders if veterinary hospitals/colleges take charge of these animals.

These hospitals should possess not only the modern facility for treatment but arrangements for night stay of staff and students.However , for any progress in veterinary profession, we should, in my opinion,stop equilling our treatment with that of medical science ; there is good time to realize the difference between the two treatments- where as in medical treatment, emotions play a great role while veterinary treatment should mainly  concern with finances. Except pet animals, it is only finances which play great role in healing of the animals. Therefore, it is necessary to develop our community medicine to a great extend- mayh be where its principles may be referred by medical fraternity . 

The Veterinary Ambulatory is also needed to fabricate so that it be able to transport large animal beside first aid for treating any type of animals ; presently , it is merely a college bus without any facilities except transporting staff and students.  Ambulatory facility should be in real sense where ailing animal can be  treated and cured, if having minor ailments.  

VETERINARY LIBRARY ; A library is essential in any university, where research and patents become important  beside post graduate research. However, in most of the veterinary univresities, the libraries are in nascnnt form; their condition is pathetic, many library are even with out sufficient staff and funds. I surprised to note that these libraries are not getting funds in every year, they are asking new books on lowest basis; thus the distributors are supplying only old or discarded books where they are able to get 30% discount. Again , neither there is any rules in spending money on text books vis a vis reference books ( it may be important to state that our Veterinary Council of India has made it compulsory to aware our students about history of the subject /veterinary science hence such books should also be purchased). Obviously purchasing of the books should go round the year.
As every university have more than one college and also colleges of  fishrey and college of management. Therefore, there is need to classify our veterinary libraries also.
There is need of a university library which have all the facilities to join any national or international library. There are great advances in library science including digitalization of important documents , hence it wwill be pertinent to change important old books /other documents into digital form to extend their life and easing its transmission.
I am tempted to compare the city library of Sharon ,America with our library and consider there is much more that can be imbibed in our libraries. In America, these city libraries provide facility to every member to open their site at home and may search any book from their home; another important fact is that the website of the library inform other related books in the subject along with table of contents and summary of the book; whether the book is on shelf or issued is also depicted  and all the working is carried out through internet.
Thus there is lot to be changed in our library system , if we wish to utilize this facility in proper way.

DEPT OF VETERINARY ECONOMICS AND STATISTICS  Though important veterinary institutes in India, like IVRI, NDRI or Madras Veterinary college have separate department of veterinary economics and statistics, it is not so in other veterinary universities ; Factually , our VCI has not made this dept mandatory for veterinary colleges, most of the veterinary colleges or state governments are reluctant to open this department in their veterinary college without appreciating its importance. It is important to mention that there is no where a Veterinary Economist or Veterinary Statistician in whole of the state hence the whole subject remains neglected. It is important to mention that every Agriculture college has a separate department of Agriculture Economics but this is wanting in Veterinary colleges because no one has understood its importance
If we want to double up the income of our farmers, it is important to appoint a subject matter specialist of Veterinary economist who may help in identifying animal products that may be in great demand in the people and may fetch a good price for the product. Likewise, there is need of a Veterinary statistician who can maintain animal population of the state and can provide data of animal production and animal diseases..
In my opinion Agriculture Economics has greatly helped in realizing importance of different agriculture produce and same thing will be done when a separate department of Veterinary Economics starts functioning in these new Veterinary Universities.
  

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