YEAR-SCIENCE 3

Atomic scientists announced designing a new version of
Advanced Heavy Water Reactor which will use low enriched
uranium along with thorium as fuel.
The nuclear reactor has a significantly lower
requirement of mined uranium per unit energy produced as
compared to most of the current generation thermal reactors.
Kakodkar made the announcement at the International
Atomic Energy Agency's general conference in September saying
India was ready for export of such reactors in the near
future.
The October announcement about Indian-American
scientist Ramakrishnan being chosen for the chemistry Nobel
had the scientific world upbeat. Many saw the prize as a
recognition of the country's education system.
However, some unguarded remarks by the Nobel laureate
on his being miffed at the deluge of congratulatory e-mails
from Indians whom he hardly knew was not received too well
back home. It also put paid to attempts by the government to
invite him to India to head a research lab of his choice.
Ramakrishnan visited Mumbai, Vadodara and Chennai in
December and gave some lectures to school and university
students.
The scientific establishment was also hit by
controversy when the CSIR decided to revoke the appointment
letter to Shiva Ayyadurai, whom it had made an offer to join
as Scientist/Technologist of Indian Origin and create a
spinoff company to commercialise technologies developed by
CSIR. MORE PTI