A quiet doctor-scientist lived among us unnoticed, far away from media spotlight. Someone who literally saved millions of lives worldwide. Mahalanobis club was privileged to pay its little tribute in our limited capacity by making the first and possibly the only documentary on his life and work while he was alive. The film can be viewed here.
Shubho Bijaya Dashami!
In this festive season, we are sharing an interesting discussion on agriculture, with specific emphasis on rice cultivation. In this interview with The Wire, agri-ecologist Debal Deb shares his rare insights on genetic diversity of indigenous rice-varieties; their natural resilience – time-tested over centuries; how we almost lost them due to policy decisions (including the famed green revolution) designed to kill diversity; the very serious implications of these developments; and what he personally has done to turn the tide. The findings are backed by Deb’s field-research, and rooted firmly at the intersection of agricultural and ecological science.
Department of Biotechnology has produced documentary films to keep on record the unsung, if not entirely forgotten, achievements of some of the great Indian scientists. They named the series “Written Out Of History – Forgotten Indian Scientists” – a commendable initiative, and does so much resonate with our own little effort toward similar end when we went on to make the film on Dr Dilip Mahalanabis.
Today we are happy to share two such films, on Dr Sambhu Nath De and Dr Sipra Guha Mukherjee respectively – two scientists from slightly different era, different cities, different branches of life science and uniquely inspirational in their own way.
Here is another one from the archives of Bengal – a 1970 short film by Ritwik Ghatak, made on behalf of the United Front Govt. of West Bengal. The film bears the unmistakable stamp of Ghatak, carrying liberal doses of melodrama and loudly speaking a language of idealism, hope and dreams of the times, most of which remain unfulfilled, almost obliviated, till date. It was the year of Vladimir Ilyich Uniyanov’s birth centenary, and countries such as the Soviet Union and Poland evinced keen interest for showing this film in their countries. The film however initially got banned by the National Film Censor Board of India. It could finally be released after Ghatak had to pull quite a few strings including personally meeting the then prime minister Indira Gandhi.