‘Venky‘, the Nobel winner does not own a car and rides a bicycle to work. “Asked what he would do with the money, he laughed and said he did not even own a car, but that he might buy a new cello for his son who is a cellist in New York.”

Three American Indians could manage Nobles in science, but none could do it while working in India after CV Raman. Sibal, his bureaucrats and the whole community busy in scientific and technology researches in perhaps hundreds of the research laboratories in the country must ponder and perhaps let the people of India know the reason for not been able to do that. Sibal had a mention of Nobel during the recent conflicts of IIT teachers for wages. He expected them to strive for Nobel instead.

But the nation expects some answers of the two simple questions:

Did Raman’s laboratory facility match with those of the scientists in the developed country?

Are the facilities in the laboratories in India are really not comparable with those in America’s laboratories? If the answer is yes, naturally the next question comes to my mind. With billions rupees budgeted for the laboratories, can’t some be selected to have the facilities at par with those in American laboratories?

As India celebrates another Nobel moment, science salutes the work of Venkatraman Ramakrishnan.

I was going through the New York Times news report about the 2009 Nobel Prize for Chemistry, and Venkatraman Ramakrishnan of the M.R.C. Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, England; one of the trio who has received it along with Thomas A. Steitz of Yale University; and Ada E. Yonath of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel. I read the lines quoted above from media.

And then some feels Indians in general unnecessarily get excited about the achievements of persons of Indian origin. But I would like this special Indian characteristic to continue. With so many young men and women of Indian origin moving to all the corners of the globe for greener pastures including my own children, the excitement back in this home country on the exceptional achievement like getting a Nobel will inspire the rest to perform better. No one can take away my dream of one of my grandchildren becoming the president of US or a Nobel Laureate.

While the country is agog with the news and details about the new Nobel Laureate of Indian origin, some media reports focus on the ‘DNA of the ‘Indian’ Laureate- East or south?’And this shows the another aspect of India’s character.