India To Build Neutrino Observatory 102
TeriMaKiChooth writes "Only the fifth in the world, the facility is being called one of the biggest and most ambitious scientific projects ever undertaken by India. About 90 scientists from 26 organizations will be involved in the Indian Neutrino Observatory (INO), organizers say. Neutrinos are elusive, nearly mass-less elementary particles, sometimes called 'ghost particles.'"
2012 (Score:2, Funny)
I remember this from somewhere... hmmmmmmm
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Horrible film. I have to pretend to like it because my family gave me the DVD for my birthday. Now I know it was full of holes but that russian guy paid three billion bucks for three seats on a ship he could have built a smaller version of for fifty million. It just had to be at the top of a mountain and able to cope with rough water.
And all those Indian people fleeing from the water. They could have walked to high ground and had a chance...
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[sits the AC down]
"Actually, the movie was serious."
I hereby admit that I like nearly anything post apocalyptic and sometimes enjoy The Day After Tomorrow as a guilty pleasure. There, I've said it.
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I liked the plane flying through crevice gag:
1. Taking off from LA(?), the family's small plane falls into the Earth as the runway falls into a sinkhole. The plane must avoid falling debris, but eventually climbs out.
2. Taking off from Yellowstone, the family's small plane falls into the Earth as the runway falls into a sinkhole. The plane must avoid falling debris, but eventually climbs out.
3. Taking off from Las Vegas, the family's large plane falls into the Earth as the runway falls into a sinkhole. The
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Omigod, aside from the repetitive falling runway gag, that movie was full of so much bad movie physics it was barely watchable. Like the Antonov transport plane climbing like a Harrier Jump Jet, or the giant ship bigger than the biggest oil supertanker having a stopping distance of 200 metres instead of 50 odd miles. Then there's the infuriating driving for five minutes looking at everything except the road. That's just inexcusable bad acting.
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I really, really liked how in the midst of all the panic, chaos and destruction, all the cellular networks and intercontinental connections are still running just fine, just so that the Indian researcher can give one last call to his family. How incredibly convenient!
Possibly the worst movie ever (well maybe Transformers was even worse). I need to see it again. Drunk.
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You should really work on these observations of yours... Better luck with the Neutrinos.
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INO, right?
The submitter's name (Score:5, Informative)
is a real bad swear word!
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In what language?
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In Hindi.
Yeah....and....the translation please?
Re:The submitter's name (Score:4, Informative)
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Teri = Your MaKi = Mother's Chooth = Derogatory word for Vagina
Ohh!
It's "cunt" in English!
Re:The submitter's name (Score:4, Insightful)
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All moms have one.
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Teri = Your MaKi = Mother's Chooth = Derogatory word for Vagina
Yes, folks should use more polite terms, like, "Pussy Galore" (James Bond), or "Alotta Fagina" (Austin Powers).
Does anyone else have other examples of international super spies having sidekicks, whose names are euphemisms for female genitalia?
Oh, and good luck to India on this project. Although one could argue that the money would have been better spent on social infrastructure projects, I believe that high tech projects like this tend to "bootstrap" countries.
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Yes, folks should use more polite terms, like, "Pussy Galore" (James Bond)
We took the kids to a movie (forget which one) and that was where I first saw a promo for "Cats and Dogs 2: The revenge of Kitty Galore" My wife couldn't understand why I was laughing. She was only mildly amused when I explained.
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Although one could argue that the money would have been better spent on social infrastructure projects,
No, one couldn't. One has seen this canard a squillion times on /. over the years and one gets ready to punch the monitor every time one sees it.
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I always knew my mother was talented, now I'll remember to wash my hands after using the keyboard every time!
Ghost particle? (Score:3, Informative)
I'm a particle physics grad student, and I swear I have never heard anyone refer to them as ghost particles. This seems to be BBC science writers only...
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Fair enough. It's quite an old reference though, and as I say, not one that people in the field seem to use much. Might check it out.
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They only teach you the cool jargon in the doctorate program. I can't wait to see the fizzlepop numbers on the splugorthian sets after the booboowhistles reach critical mass.
Dr. McSmartipants
Should be good (Score:1)
as long as its not built by cowboys
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Further Explanation Needed (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Further Explanation Needed (Score:5, Informative)
I assume it's a reference to geoneutrinos, produced by nuclear decays/reactions in the Earth's core:
http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/22737 [physicsworld.com]
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"The heat generated by uranium and thorium decay is the driving force for mantle convection, and hence plate tectonics and earthquakes. This result and future measurements using the same technique will provide useful inputs to Earth convection models."
Expensive you say? (Score:1)
India to build only the world's 5th ever neutrino observatory at 1/4th the cost of an Indian home http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antilia_(building) [wikipedia.org]
In other news... (Score:1)
Analysts says that in the first quarter of 2011 the mine industry of Cho Ming Tibet will sky rocket and will need to hire people from other areas just to meet the large demand of mine worker.
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What is this "neutrino" you speak of? (Score:2)
>Neutrinos are elusive, nearly mass-less elementary particles, sometimes called 'ghost particles.'"
Gee, thanks for defining that for us. I mean, it's not like the general public have been hearing about these "neutrinos" since the 70s. I mean, Carl Sagan certainly never talked about them. And it is so incredibly rare to hear the science media mention them - they hardly get any airtime at all, like k mesons, and unlike electrons or photons.
Woah!! (Score:1)
Re:Just what India needs (Score:5, Insightful)
I do not see how this type of project is sanctioned by the Indian government. Half the population is living in slums Most parts of the country have only intermittant electricty There is almost no safe water (by Western European standards) The majority of the population is functionally illiterate. The roads are amongst the most dangerous in the world Pollution (air, water, and waste) is a HUGE problem I suggest that this money could be better spent addressing those problems
I could be wrong, but I feel that progress needs to happen on all fronts. Research, industry, infrastructure, quality of life, etc. are all things that need to be invested in at the same time. The problems you speak of don't have silver-bullet cures - you have to work on them for generations. What will you do till then? Suspend all research spending? At any rate, I'm amazed at the conviction you demonstrate when discussing such issues. You're either a genius (who really has solutions) or someone who hasn't thought this through well enough.
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You're either a genius (who really has solutions) or someone who hasn't thought this through well enough.
Of course he has! He's going to use a neutrino beam that will clear out the pollution, fix the roads, and implant literacy into the populace!
Haven't you seen Star Trek? Neutrino beams fix everything!
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You're either a genius (who really has solutions) or someone who hasn't thought this through well enough.
Of course he has! He's going to use a neutrino beam that will clear out the pollution, fix the roads, and implant literacy into the populace!
Haven't you seen Star Trek? Neutrino beams fix everything!
That's going to take a lot of polarity reversal... Better be sure a damn good deflector dish is included in the spec.
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Of course there's no silver bullet, but the point is, there are huge problems in India and spending money to build the 6th of these things seems stupid.
Suspend all research spending?
Not ALL research spending, but how about research spending on project directly related to solving these issue first?
I'm not sure how you came to that conclusion. Ac
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I am simply amazed that they would prefer to spend their money being number 6, than cleaning up their house.
It's pretty clear to me that they are not doing this simply for the sake of showing off (i.e. "being number 6"). There's plenty of other scientific endeavors a country can spend its wealth on to show off (for example, a space program). Particle physics is hard science. You don't get into it unless you're trying to do hard science.
Re:Just what India needs (Score:4, Insightful)
Considering India's GDP growth rate is among the highest in the world, I'm not sure if they ought to be listening to advice from nations with stagnant GDP growth or negative GDP growth.
Fix your own economy first before preaching. And if you believe your own words, don't breathe, don't take bathroom breaks, until you get out of a recession.
Keep in mind that India's space program is a profit-center. It actually _earns_ more money than the govt. spends on it. That's because placing satellites into orbit is big business, and high-tech services like satellite launches sell for hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars.
South Korea and India were of similar economic situations in 1950, the difference being that S. Korea poured money into technology, and India did what you suggested. Guess what? Getting homeless people to fish just creates lots of poor fishermen instead of lots of poor beggars. Big whoop. The goal is to create more jobs for scientists, physicists, researchers, lab assistants, programmers, etc.
Plus, India's tax rate is far lower than in Western Europe, and 90% of people are not taxed. So the amount they spend is a tiny drop in the bucket of the annual income of people.
Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_tax_in_India#Tax_Rates [wikipedia.org]
"about 10 per cent of the population meets the minimum threshold of taxable income"
So 90% of the population pays 0% taxes. And the progressive tax rates for the remainder of the population go from 10% to a maximum of 30% tax.
As for literacy, the "majority" of Indians are not illiterate, 32% are illiterate as of 2007, which is still a big number, but not a majority. Much of that illiterate population was born circa 1950. In the age group 7-15, literacy is 90% (10% illiterate).
Moreover, your presumption that they "prefer to spend their money being number 6, than cleaning up their house" is childish if not outright moronic. India's economy is $1.2 trillion dollars, and the project costs $270 million. That's 0.02% of the economy. To put that in perspective, that's equivalent to a 19 second bathroom break a day. And let's not forget that the project could be profitable, and in the very least provides good high-end jobs for their increasingly educated population.
Compare $270 million with the numerous welfare and social programs India provides to poor people. $13 billion to subsidize food for low-income families. $12 billion to subsidize fertilizer for poor farmers. $7 billion for education (at the federal level, states pay more). The list goes on for social programs that are all near $10 billion each.
In the end, they have a democracy and if folks don't like the budget, they'll elect other folks in. Every nation's budget is going to have cutting-edge R&D. It's ludicrous to suggest otherwise. Overall, their nation is doing fine, rapidly progressing with envious growth rates. It's not _your_ tax money being spent (and even for Indians, it's only the tax money of the upper 10%), so relax and let them build a nutrino research facility. If you're interested in nutrinos, I'm sure they'll love for you to pay them money to use their research center.
How do you know? (Score:3, Interesting)
Suspend all research spending?
Not ALL research spending, but how about research spending on project directly related to solving these issue first?
How do you know that they're not doing that?
Just because a story is published about India doing physics research, how does it logically follow that they're not also working on social and economic issues?
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I could be wrong, but I feel that progress needs to happen on all fronts. Research, industry, infrastructure, quality of life, etc.
Ideed $270 million could be used to give everyone in the country 24 cents or provide an incentive for the best and brightest to stay in the country and for bonus points inject money into the Indian high tech industrys.
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As a physicist, let me say that neutrino detection, while interesting and challenging, should definitely take a back seat to some of the poverty and sanitation issues facing India. If this was research that offered immediate benefits to the country (like a new medicine), then I could understand it. But as much as I would love to see more neutrino detectors built, I can't justify it being done with money that could be put to such a better use.
Re:Just what India needs (Score:5, Insightful)
As a physicist, let me say... If this was research that offered immediate benefits to the country (like a new medicine), then I could understand it.
As a physicist, you should know better.
Once upon a time I was a neutrino physicist, both at one of the large labs (SNO) and on a small reactor neutrino experiment. A table-top detector I designed actually detected reactor neutrinos.
Since that distant day I've worked mostly as a software designer and medical physicist. I've run my own business, and I'm an adjunct professor in the Department of Pathology at the local university helping the biologists and MDs deal with the large numerical datasets that genomic technology is producing. For my next career I'm trying to decide between robotics and poetics, and will probably do some of both.
I can do that diversity of things because of the kind of education I got as a physicist. In the course of the past fifteen years I've intereacted heavily with biologists, pathologists, cardiac surgeons, orthopedic surgeons, chemists, electrical engineers, mechanical engineers and software developers, and because of the foundations my education rests on I have been able to learn to communicate with all of them quite effectively, and contribute to a number of projects that are likely to make the world a better place.
Projects like this Indian neutrio detector are factories for the production of people like me, and personally I'm arrogant enough to think that India could use a few more people like me. I've worked with physicists from all of the world--the US, Canada, Poland, and Israel, the UK, Sri Lanka, Australia, China...--and the Indians I've known have been as good as any. Projects like this will help keep them in India, where when they leave academia--which is the most common outcome for PhDs in any discipline--their skills and education will be more likely to be applied to local problems.
It is utterly myopic to attack a project like this as not addressing India's problems. It is ONLY projects like this that will solve them, by creating the only thing that will ever solve them: highly trained, intelligent, mathematically an technologically literate, curious, empirically-oriented human beings.
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Besides... (Score:1, Offtopic)
Mod parent troll (Score:2)
Aren't you anxious to know if a really hot curry actually does emit neutrinos, or if it is hot because it somehow interacts with neutrinos?
I was just wondering how far down I'd have to scroll to find some racist troll rolling out the traditional curry joke. Some people just can't comment on anything India-related without having a pop at their funny food, funny accent or funny customs, can they?
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At first glance I read your comment as "wondering how far down I'd have to troll". And I was right.
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At first glance I read your comment as "wondering how far down I'd have to troll". And I was right.
You weren't right. You were wrong. My post said "I was just wondering how far down I'd have to scroll to find some racist troll rolling out the traditional curry joke." This is a different statement from "I was wondering how far down I'd have to troll."
Calling racists out on their racism is not trolling, it is anti trolling. I am a troll buster.
Why do you find racist jokes so defensible?
Why are you such a racist?
Why do you hate America so much?
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You know there's millions of homeless people in America right? Perhaps we should shut down NASA too.
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As a physicist, let me say that neutrino detection, while interesting and challenging, should definitely take a back seat to some of the poverty and sanitation issues facing India. If this was research that offered immediate benefits to the country (like a new medicine), then I could understand it. But as much as I would love to see more neutrino detectors built, I can't justify it being done with money that could be put to such a better use.
Are you really a physicist or are you just calling yourself one? I can't imagine someone that is trained and is good at problem solving cannot imagine benefits aside from money. Money should always secondary to real science, be it NASA, FERMI labs, CERN, ITER or anything else that creates intellectual wealth.
Physicists that do not work as physicists are the most sought after individuals in science related industry (ie. non-arts related industries). They are *problem solvers* - something that is vital to and
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Besides, the above poster could have applied the same argument to tell Newton to stop mucking about. There really is no way to reason with luddites that think we should do nothing but treat symptoms instead of
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Re:Just what India needs (Score:4, Insightful)
People forget that when one builds something (e.g. Neutrino observatory) the money doesn't go to bricks and detectors. Eventually all the money goes to people. In order to build the observatory you need builders and other low-tech workers in addition to the all-knowing scientists.
Big projects such as this create jobs. And even after it is completed, it will continue to employ many people, both educated and uneducated. The road to progress goes through development, not through throwing money at people directly. Enter cliche: If you give a man a fish, you give him a meal for a day, but if you teach him how to fish, you give him a meal for his whole life long.
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Duck? (verb, not noun - for all you Whoosh-able).
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I find them a tern off.
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He gets an impressive resume and gains admission to any PhD program of his choosing? Becomes a professor, and... uses his teaching assistants as an endless supply of cannibalistic food?
Sorta (Score:5, Interesting)
Sorta, but not exactly. Sure, it eventually trickles and creates that Keynesian multiplier.
But, and here's the important part, so would spending that money on something more useful like schools or water pumps. The money spent on those would create just as many jobs, you know, and you'd also have some schools or clean water instead of a national penis size symbol.
Think of it this way. If you spend X dollars, a Keynesian multiplier of Y says effectively you've put X*Y dollars into the economy. But if you invested that original X into something pointless, effectively you now only have X*(Y-1) that actually goes into anything the country actually needs. Unless Y is at least in the hundreds, you'll still see a difference.
And actually a more reasonable multiplier to expect is somewhere around 1.25 to 1.5. The highest ever multiplier recorded for a government investment was 1.73.
So basically even if you're uber-lucky, a million invested in useless crap will also bring 730,000 that trickles into more useful stuff. Whereas if you invested that million into something useful, well, now you'd have 1.73 million worth of useful stuff.
Basically that multiplier isn't a blank check to do any stupidity whatsoever with the public money. It doesn't mean you can just blow it on any crap and let the multiplier distribute it for you. At the end of the day, a million wasted is still a million wasted.
But it gets even better, actually. The multiplier itself is different for different things you do with the money. A million invested in something could have a multiplier as low as 0.23 (actual historical case too: yes, it's possible for such an investment to actually be a loss) or as high as 1.73. Like any investment, basically, you get a different ROI. It doesn't mean just blow the money or anything and expect it to trickle just the same.
Or in less complicated terms, think of it like this: a country has a certain amount of resources, including manpower. Tying up X thousand people into one project (including making those bricks and supplying the factory and whatnot) means X thousand you won't have for something else. Even if it creates Y thousand other jobs somewhere else too, that original X thousand is still tied up in activity A instead of activity B. If A is less needed than B, that's not a good use of manpower.
Also, I'd say that one should look at the actual conditions in a country before cheering for a waste. The exact multiplier and number of jobs created depend a lot on the local conditions. The way it works in a western post-scarcity economy, where really at worst you just diverted some people from marketing jobs and services and other ultimately just ways to do something when you don't need them in actual production, may not be the same for a country which still has a scarcity economy.
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But, and here's the important part, so would spending that money on something more useful like schools or water pumps. The money spent on those would create just as many jobs, you know, and you'd also have some schools or clean water instead of a national penis size symbol.
Have you ever been to India, it is great when so many people here point out Illiteracy & safe water? Even if you have schools, uhm how many poor people are going to send their kids to school. Oh wait, forget the the poor people, how many of those who are bit better off are going to send their kids to higher education when the attitude is, what
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What you are not seeing here is that this is probably a better investment than direct investment in schools. Projects like these open up more employment opportunities for those involved in fundamental science and research, which in turn motivates more people to choose that line of study and work. It also retains people who are genuinely skilled in these fields from migrating over to higher paid fields like applied engineering and IT.
Overall, in a country of contradictions like India, it is highly neccessar
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The way it works in a western post-scarcity economy, [...] may not be the same for a country which still has a scarcity economy.
Post-scarcity economy: A contradiction in terms. Where there is no scarcity, no economic system is necessary. It's a utopian concept that hasn't been reached by any existing nation. There are degrees of scarcity, but no country has yet achieved zero scarcity. When Anthony Giddens used the term, he had something different in mind from what you're implying. Do not make artificial distinctions to bolster your ill-founded sense of western superiority.
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If you give a man a fish, you give him a meal for a day, but if you teach him how to fish, you give him a meal for his whole life long.
And if you set him on fire he will be warm for his whole life long...
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Enter cliche: Build a man a fire and he will be warm for a day; set him on fire and he will be warm for the rest of his life.
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Re:Just what India needs (Score:5, Informative)
I do not see how this type of project is sanctioned by the Indian government.
With money that is bookmarked for such projects. Believe it or not, third world countries have finance ministers who plan and reserve portions of funds for different causes and do not simply dole out cash to whoever asks for it.
Half the population is living in slums
Nonsense, unless you call the huts that a lot of tribes live in or cabins built in the mountains as slums too. People are fairly self-sufficient and are generally healthier than the average city yuppie. A very small number of people are actually in such a dire situation that they're dying from starvation.
Most parts of the country have only intermittant electricty
Rural areas do have this problem, but every place from small towns and cities have regular power supply. It is definitely not a problem in "most" of the country.
There is almost no safe water (by Western European standards)
There are almost no people with weak immune systems (by Western European standards)
The majority of the population is functionally illiterate.
Now where did you get that from? And what do you mean by that?
The roads are amongst the most dangerous in the world
They're definitely not as safe as the ones in the more developed countries.
Pollution (air, water, and waste) is a HUGE problem
in the entire world, not just in India.
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Half the population is living in slums
Nonsense, unless you call the huts that a lot of tribes live in or cabins built in the mountains as slums too. People are fairly self-sufficient and are generally healthier than the average city yuppie. A very small number of people are actually in such a dire situation that they're dying from starvation.
Most parts of the country have only intermittant electricty
Rural areas do have this problem, but every place from small towns and cities have regular power supply. It is definitely not a problem in "most" of the country.
There is almost no safe water (by Western European standards)
There are almost no people with weak immune systems (by Western European standards)
The majority of the population is functionally illiterate.
Now where did you get that from? And what do you mean by that?
The roads are amongst the most dangerous in the world
They're definitely not as safe as the ones in the more developed countries.
Pollution (air, water, and waste) is a HUGE problem
in the entire world, not just in India.
I'm a caucasian male American who lived in NOIDA, UP, India from May 2004 through Jan 2006.
Your responses do not reflect the reality that I lived in India.
"Slums" is a very generous word for some of the conditions I saw. Hell, in the US, at least one can squat in a relatively stable structure. A ripped tarp over a frayed rope firmly anchored into a large pile of dirt and gravel; with three families living in/around it. A three story brick building under construction; at least one worker family living in it.
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I never denied in my post that there is a lot of scope for improvement of infrastructure and a lot of need for it too.
At the same time things are not as simple as what the OP suggested or you concluded through your observations over 2 years. There are certain standards that are very important to us and you will recognize them too, but there are other standards that we don't really care about. For example, a lot of people in the west are paranoid about cleanliness of water and food hygiene. While we in Ind
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The power outages last an hour everyday during summer, not more than that. If it's more or even erratic, you need to register a complaint and it should get fixed. These outages can be bought out from MSEB in exchange for higher electricity bills that are more in line with other power suppliers (Reliance, Tata). For example, MSEB supplies power to the navi mumbai region of maharashtra and there too they used to have similar power cuts for the same reasons. Through a petition, they got rid of the power cuts i
Pot, Kettle - So how is California these days? (Score:3, Interesting)
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Re:Just what India needs (Score:4, Informative)
1. Half the population is living in slums. - Incorrect. According to J Urban Health. 2007 May; 84(Suppl 1): 27–34. , 28% of the Urban population, which is itself ~40% of total lives in slums. You have a roughly 200% error in your estimate.
2. India also has a educated middle class equivalent to the population of Central Europe.
3. India has a burgeoning economy with the second highest growth rate at about 8.5%
4. India has a developing science program, ranking in the top 5 countries with nuclear and space technologies.
5. You have an incorrect assumption that throwing more money at a problem solves it faster. Even if it did, the social disruption caused by solving a problem can create new ones. Sometimes, deep-rooted problems that were developed over centuries of colonization have to be solved at a controlled rate, on the same time scales.
EXACTLY what India needs (Score:1)
How easy it is to do so, without having any ground knowledge of the state of things in the country, right?
Perhaps, a bit easier, than taking the troubles to know that all the basic things to be ta
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There he is. Everytime theres a story about a developing nation spending on something scientific, atleast one guy has to come up with this sameoldsameold bullshit.
There are problems in the developed world too - problems that could use money that the developed world wants to spend on the ISS or the LHC, to name a few "big science" examples. US doesn't even have universal health care for cryin out loud! Why don't they stop all their space funding and use that to provide universal health care first instead?
The
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I'm so happy to see this "spend money on social programs first" junk finally being modded troll and not insightful.
You're responding to a post about a:
(*) Technical innovation in a developing country
( ) Product shipped to a developing market
( ) General discussion about IT in the developing world
The location is:
( ) Africa
(*) India
( ) Bangladesh
( ) China
( ) Somewhere else in Asia
( ) South America
( ) Central America
( ) Other _unspecified_
You're objecting to it on the basis that:
(*) Poverty hasn't been eliminat
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You forgot to mention the most retarded part of the "spending" concerns. India's Fed. Govt. isn't increasing the Dept. of Atomic Energy's budget. It merely gave clearance to the DAE to build the facility using the DAE's existing budget. If the Fed. Govt denied clearance, the $270m stays with the DAE, and _cannot_ be spent by the Dept. of Transportation for roads or the Dept. of Education for schools or the Dept. of Agriculture for farm subsidies. If the DAE didn't build a nutrino detector, it would ju
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If you read the original article, you'll learn that India's DoE is building it out of its own allocated budget -- it is _not_ requesting a budget increase from the Federal Govt. All the fed. govt has done is given _clearance_ (NOT _funding_) for the DoE to build it. It's up to the DoE to find out how to scrape together $270m from their budget.
To put it succinctly, if the nutrino detector isn't built, the DoE would have an extra $270m to spend on something else. You'd rather they build a nuclear reacto
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