YEAR-SCIENCE 4

Ayyadurai, who had joined as consultant to CSIR, had
circulated a report which was highly critical of the science
leadership, which an overwhelming number of top scientists
said was way off the mark.
The CSIR responded by issuing him a gag order on October
23, prohibiting Ayyadurai from speaking with scientists,
terminating his Internet access and e-mail and finally
withdrawal of his appointment offer on October 26.
A professor at Indian Institute of Technology-Kharagpur
had to forego his prestigious Swarnajayanti Fellowship after
it was found that he had reproduced his own research paper as
the completion report for his latest research project.
India also inked pacts for cooperation to build nuclear
plants with at least seven countries, including the US,
Russia, France to significantly augment the share of atomic
power in its energy mix.
The fifth nuclear reactor of the Rajasthan Atomic Power
Station (RAPS-5) at Rawatbhatta, with a capacity of 220 MW,
attained criticality late November making it the 18th nuclear
power reactor to be commissioned in the country.
It is fuelled by uranium procured from Russia, the first
consignment to be shipped to India after lifting of the 34
year global nuclear embargo.
A significant highlight of the year was the increase in
research papers produced by Indian scientists in leading
journals. The findings were equally significant which included
a couple of studies of population movements and also on genome
sequencing. MORE PTI