The evergreen professor

An appreciation of Professor Roddam Narasimha’s innings as Director of National Aerospace Laboratories. Narasimha was recently awarded Padma Vibhushan.

That complex mesh

e-Governance will one day change the way we rule the world. That day isn’t very far away.

The new face

Even a decade ago the statistician was just a dour and faceless creature; an invisible “numbersmith” who never got the respect he deserved. All that’s soon going to change.

She sings for her-3

This time we look at the best songs sung onscreen by Mumtaz, Hema Malini, Rekha, Jaya Bhaduri and Zeenat Aman. Enjoy this collection featuring some of their best songs sung by Lata Mangeshkar or Asha Bhosle.

He sings for him-3

We now examine which playback singer provided the best ‘fit’ for Bharat Bhushan (Rafi), Biswajit (Hemant Kumar), Joy Mukherjee (Rafi), Manoj Kumar (Mukesh) and Jeetendra (Kishore Kumar)..

Do multiple choice tests really work?

Probably NO, especially for competitive exams in which there is a cut-off mark to qualify. The real problem is the ‘noise’ introduced by random guessing that is rather hard to control.

When should you guess?

You should always guess in multiple choice tests … unless wrong answers have very stiff negative marks

She sings for her-2

As we look at the next set of leading actresses we discover that the best ‘she’ singing for ‘her’ continues to be Lata Mangeshkar.

Que sera sera

A reconstruction of the unfortunate IC 605 air crash on February 14, 1990 at Bangalore. This was an accident that should never have happened!

The dog did nothing at night

Tomorrow’s Sherlock Holmes will need databases and big data analytics

He sings for him-2

In the second part, we find out who was the best singing voice of Rajendra Kumar, Sunil Dutt, Dharmendra, Shashi Kapoor and Amitabh Bachchan.

Being a project guide

My experiences while guiding project students.

She sings for her

While Lata Mangeshkar was the preferred playback singer of every leading lady of Hindi cinema in the 1950s and 1960s, Asha Bhosle and Geeta Dutt too had some memorable moments of success.

“Jai- Simha … Ooohhh!”

Memories of M L Jaisimha, perhaps Hyderabad’s most charismatic cricketer of all time.

Air war in Kargil

A report of a compelling first-person account by an IAF pilot about how the Kargil air war was won in 1999 by using the high flying Mirage aircraft.

“That’s a good question!”

Even the most interesting speaker isn’t so interesting one hour later.

A man of wit and wisdom

He was a raconteur extraordinaire, a gifted writer and always charming, witty and adorable.

A great food scientist

My 2002 tribute to an eminent food scientist who became a sort of friend.

Elements and rituals of a scientific meeting

A scientific conference is meant to exchange thoughts and ideas. But it often ends up being an absurd but entertaining ritual

Manna muses

Manna Dey talking about his songs to a radio anchor.

He sings for him

Which singer suited Raj Kapoor’s voice best? And Dilip Kumar’s and Rajesh Khanna’s? Which singing voice suited which actor the best? These are fun questions to ask among lovers of Hindi film music. And the answers take you to another madly nostalgic journey of melody and music

The run chase

Strategies to win ODI cricket matches keep changing. But the six strategies indicated here should help you win most run chases.

A tribute to Claude Berge

Claude Berge, who passed away on 30 June 2002 at the age of 76, was one of the modern founders of combinatorics and graph theory.

From the other side of the table

Many of us are often critical of the candidates’ performance at interviews. But how well do we, as committee members, perform ourselves?

Judging a science exhibition

What we found most appealing was the demeanour of these young boys and girls: earnest, excited, breathless and so charmingly sincere. I wonder when and why this innocence goes away.

Why are scientific lectures now so poorly attended?

Poor attendance at lectures has been a worry for at least a decade. Now it’s a serious worry! And what’s an even greater concern is that while an erudite scientist will have difficulty in getting a decent audience, a talk by someone like Mandira Bedi will cause traffic jams.

A visit to Dhanbad

Our CFRI experience confirmed what we already know about e-governance: that the big battle is really to conquer the mind of the user.

In love with butterflies

Madhav Gadgil talked of the splash of colour on a butterfly’s wings, its splendid vision and its many enemies and friends … there was even a poem lamenting the fact that the butterfly “will never master the art of flying straight”.

Bangkok in 2005

I was very pleasantly surprised to be greeted by a courteous namaste everywhere I went. The greeting was so graceful, that I wondered if the Thais don’t do it better than the Indians.

The flight of the SARAS

This heady first-person account recreates the magic of the first SARAS flight on May 29, 2004. The SARAS programme sadly suffered a setback when the second SARAS prototype aircraft crashed near Bangalore on March 6, 2009.

Simplifly

Back in 2003, Capt G R Gopinath surprised India by launching Air Deccan as a low-cost no-frills airline. The experiment worked, although Air Deccan itself merged with Kingfisher Airlines. This report describes a 2003 lecture by Capt Gopinath explaining the wisdom and value of low cost carriers.

The wisdom of Prasanta Chandra

I was surprised to read that Professor Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis, the founder of the Indian Statistical Institute, was also a sort of meteorologist. 40 years after he passed away and 120 years after he was born, the “Professor” still continues to surprise.

Thinking of D Basu

I don’t know of a better teacher of probability than D Basu, which is not such a surprise. But what is more worrying is that I don’t know of any good teachers of probability, apart from the few at ISI, IISc and elsewhere. I am almost certain that our high school or undergraduate students have never met a good probability teacher.

An appraisal of DRDO

This detailed 2007 review tells us why we must worry about India’s Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and offers prescriptions on how these concerns can be alleviated.

Rustom shouldn’t have gone so soon

Damania brought to NAL a work ethic model of passionate commitment, deep involvement and great energy and urgency.

Back in Paris after 18 years

Sitting inside a cafe at Boulevard St Michel, and watching the people go by, I asked myself what had changed since 1980. Practically nothing, I discovered. The dresses and pavements were the same – the only clue that we were in 2001 was the almost ubiquitous mobile phone.

A 2001 letter from Berlin

There are still “two” Germanys and this will be so for at least another generation. But the hospitality is gracious, the wines are divine and the toasts are sincere.

Meeting Dravid and Chandra

Memories of brief meetings with two extraordinary cricketers: Rahul Dravid in 2001 and B S Chandrasekhar in 2002.

The story of NAL’s first Director

P Nilakantan, who died half a century ago, was a remarkable Indian. He was among the handful of Indian engineers who visualized a burgeoning Indian aerospace presence in the early years after Independence.

Reviews of films starting with B

I like to buy movie disks the way a book lover likes to buy books. After buying these disks I lovingly enter the film details in an Excel spreadsheet and then arrange the disks on my shelf in alphabetical order. But I rarely ever see the films!

A good manager departs

One of Somashekar’s great strengths was his ability to mentor his best scientists and leave them free to get on with their work – while he managed those irksome purchase files, those awkward audit queries, and those recalcitrant section officers.

Thankless job now?

We are rapidly heading towards a situation where a capable scientist, researcher or professor would rather not accept a leadership role. This is very worrying because it leaves the door open for an incompetent individual to take charge, and eventually seriously hurt the institution.

Lies, damn lies and analytics?

The clamour for analytics can only grow as computer networks proliferate, and more and more data becomes digital. We are currently living through times when data capture and transmission is getting continually cheaper and more efficient. Soon we will face a situation where there’s a data overload, but no one knows what to do with all this data.

I don’t want to do math

If the next generation doesn’t have competent mathematicians, then who will predict cyclones, rainfall and tsunamis? Who will devise better guidance and control systems for our missiles and aircraft? And who will come up with superior stochastic models for risk management?

My Lata top ten

As Lata Mangeshkar enters her 84th year, I pick my ten favourite Lata songs. I of course realize that on another day, or at another time, I might pick 10 completely different songs. And this could go on for many weeks!

In and around the MCG

A memorable 2010 Boxing Day outing to the MCG on a day when the Poms could do no wrong.

Three lessons from the 2011 World Cup

The three lessons were that the DRS is here to stay in the long run, that powerplays add an extra layer of complexity, and that India was best equipped to win with totals in the range 260-280.

The magical years

Living on the ISI campus was almost like living in a monastery

Satish Dhawan would’ve been 92

This is a report of a meeting held at Indian Institute of Science in 2010 in memory of Satish Dhawan