Page 112 - Education World November 2022

Books

Lama, Tibet’s spiritual retired civil servants and
leader fleeing Chinese journalists, all cleared by THEY FOUND WHAT? STORIES
atrocities, sought, and was security agencies” whose OF DARING DISCOVERIES BY
granted asylum in India in “findings” should be de- INDIAN SCIENTISTS
1959. This became a casus bated in elite think tanks THEY MADE WHAT? STORIES
b elli for the CPC regime in worldwide to “decode” OF INGENIOUS INVENTIONS BY
Beijing and culminated in China. This task should not INDIAN SCIENTISTS
the 1962 border clash in be entrusted to “currently Shweta Taneja; HACHETTE
the north-east, in which serving civil servants- INDIA; Rs.399; 288 pp
the well-equipped PLA dominated committees
(People’s Liberation Army) in government,” warns
inflicted a humiliating Swamy.
defeat upon the under- This is a fine and tively. She has won several
prepared Indian Army. precisely written histori- awards for her books and
Since then, successive cal account of Sino-India the one under review has Through this book
governments of all shades relations of the past 2,500 been much appreciated as Taneja has made
and hues have become years. It credibly explains well. contemporary science
too timorous to genuinely why despite ancient trade They found w hat? com- research in India
negotiate the Sino-India and cultural ties, the prises 20 stories of Indian accessible to young
border issue for fear that bilateral China-India rela- scientists pursuing their readers, something to
even small territorial tionship has deteriorated chosen fields and success- be welcomed
concessions — impera- to the point of imminent fully overcoming barriers
tive for resolution of the armed conflict. Curiously, to arrive at their eureka
conflict — could prove it has attracted minimal moment. Most of these a rainforest in the middle
electorally disastrous. The media attention, suggest- scientists are alive today of a tea estate; Sonam, an
consequence is the heavy ing the possibility that and working. Through this engineer, discovered ice
burden of defence expendi- it has been successfully book, Taneja has made glaciers to solve Ladakh’s
ture which has devastated repressed by the establish- contemporary science water woes, and so on.
post-independence India’s ment. Nevertheless, it is research in India acces- The biggest challenge in
high-potential economy. mandatory reading for all sible to young readers and writing a book about scien-
Over the past six genuine nationalists cog- adults, something to be tific advances is to make it
decades, the ruthless, self- nisant of the opportunity welcomed. interesting to capture the
serving 100-million-strong cost of sustained misman- They found what? All imagination of children.
Communist party with an agement of foreign policy types of things! Sanjeev Moreover, in a world
Orwellian grip over 1.4 in the Nehruvian era and Das, a biochemist, found flooded with scientific in-
billion Chinese people, has subsequently. ways to eliminate cancer formation on the internet,
expropriated an esti- DILIP THAKORE cells; Manindra Agrawal, one has to write a book
mated 50,000 sq. km of a professor at IIT-Kanpur, that offers something more
Ladakh and the north-east, Science & succeeded in making an than a dry compilation of
India-claimed territory in
facts. Thankfully, this book
equation for primality test-
some of it acquired after scientists for ing (something that had is more than a description
the savage clashes in the long eluded mathemati- of scientific breakthroughs
Galwan region border- children cians); S.P. Vijayakumar, and achievements; it is
ing Pangong lake in May an ecologist discovered also about the people who
2020. Quite clearly, New a frog that established a made them happen.
Delhi and the Indian Army ERE’S A wel- whole new genus, and so How does a child get
are confronted with an come addition to on. interested in an idea and
immoveable object, if not Hpopular-science They made w hat? decide to follow it for the
irresistible force. writing for children in Again, a whole lot of rest of her life? How does
Dr. Swamy has a India. Shweta Taneja, the things and much of it at a she find the path that
solution: formation of author, is passionate about microscopic level: Ramgo- would take her to fulfill her
“consultative committee familiarising children with pal Rao made an electronic aim? How does the world
of genuine Chinese stud- the wonders of modern dog using nanotechnol- help people who have a
ies scholars, current and science and scientists, and ogy to sniff out bombs; dream to follow? It is these
retired military personnel, has been doing so effec- Divya Mudappa created questions that propel the

112 EDUCATIONWORLD NOVEMBER 2022