CATMANDU teens’ terrain

Meet a rare breed of young people who are role models for innumerable teens and youths from places far and wide. There are so many things that one can learn from them, both from their on screen performances and out of screen life, writes Pragya Rajouria

Seated around two tables joined together at Baneshwor’s Bakery Cafe are the artistes from the popular teen serial ‘Catmandu’. It’s easy to see that the crew are a family and are very much at ease with each other and respect each other (two things that hardly go hand in hand especially where young people work together). Nitish Raj Pant, the director, is no new name to those who watch ‘Hijo, aaja kakura’ on NTV. He has acted as well assisted in direction of some of the episodes of this satirical show. After watching Catmandu you will definitely know how good he is. When you know that he is still in his early twenties you will admire him even more. In a haste he tells you that he’s yet to finish his graduation. Does formal degree matter if you are doing so well professionally, especially if you are into creative sectors like directing and acting? "Definitely," he says. "Studies helps you to expand your knowledge. You stop learning new things if you discontinue your studies in the midway. I will go for further studies in near future," says Pant. "I also tell members of my crew that they must at least finish their graduation before abandoning their studies altogether," he adds.

Santosh Silwal Giri, assistant director as well as one of the male leads (Bhanu) is ‘a teenager’s dream personified’. An RJ with Hits FM, he is into things that are glamorous and bring you to the public front. "I did my graduate studies in Japanese language from JawaharLal Nehru Institute in Delhi. Like what Nitish said, no matter what you study, your studies is very important. It stops your intellectual growth from getting stagnant," says Santosh. He, like the rest of his team is happy about the tremendous success of Catmandu. "Unlike the time when I was a teen, today’s teens are lot more confident, more informed and smarter. But with the problems that changing family structures and urbanisation has thrown up, it is very difficult for today’s teens to find footholds in the society," he says. "In our serial we address universal teen problems like conflicts with parents, looks, love, enmity, worries about future and identity crisis and help the youths to seek a constructive solution to their problems," explains Santosh.

The well loved characters of Catmandu, Ria, Binni and Neeva played by Smita Thapa, Surakshya Shah and Usma Lama are very much like today’s young people Santosh talked about and much more. The typical breed of youngsters who are good-looking, talented and very articulate. The TV icons who are expected to live up to their roles on screen. Sushma and Surakshy are in their late teens and Usma in their early twenties. "I am really happy that I’ve been able to manage my work and studies well. It is nice when people recognise you when you are out on the street," says Smita. "But it’s sad when people come to me and comment on my make-up, hair do and clothing in serials instead of telling me what message they got from it, whether they liked the storyline or not and so on. It feels sad people fail to see what they are actually meant to see," she adds.

"The serial deals with problems which we ourselves face and which our friends are going through. Thing that happen on screen are so true to what happens in an adolescent’s real life," says Usma, a major character in the serial. "Real to life storyline, naturalness of characters’ acting and good direction is behind the serial’s tremendous success," she adds. Usma is doing her BBS and is determined to do well in her studies and continue acting if she gets promising roles. Suman Khand and Sabin Shrestha are other male leads who have charmed the young and the adult audiences alike. Suman who plays ‘Bikas’ is a first year intermediate student. Sabin, who is ‘Junge’ in the serial is into modeling also and organizes shows. "Junge and I were spotted together by the director. We were called for audition and we made it. It is fun working under our director. We are free to voice our opinion and give suggestions," says Bikas.

Music is an integral part of any serial or movie. Bipin Sthapit is the music director of this serial who has given catchy tunes and background music to the drama. "We record live music for the serial," Says Bipin. Naresh Devkota wrote the lyrics for the title song and Elle Sherpa has put life to it with her unique voice.

The 52-episode serial began almost a year back. It addresses adolescent problems which are considered as taboo in our society and often discussed in hush hush. Along with this, their worries, ambition, likes and dislikes are put to picture in such a way that even parents of adolescents can learn a lot from the serial and better understand their children. Though targeted for the urban youths, it has become a rage among the rural youngsters as well because it deals with the problems and emotions of teenagers that are universal. "We get more than 100 letters and innumerable e-mails from youths from places as varied as a remote village in Udaypur and place Sikkim and Darjeeling. Youths relate themselves to the characters in the serials and find it very acceptable," says the director. Not preachy, not at all imposing, and very watchable, this drama is just perfect to keep the whole family together for one whole hour.

Nobel winners: science 2002

Medicine: The Noble Prize in Medicine was awarded to an American and two Britons for gene discoveries. They won the prize for discoveries about how genes regulate organ growth and a process of programmed cell suicide. The Nobel Prize committee said that their work on information about programmed cell death has helped scientists understand how some viruses and bacteria invade human cells. Their findings shed light on the development of many illnesses, including AIDS, strokes and heart attacks.

British scientist Prof. Sydney Brenner at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California showed that the tiny transparent worm C. elegans was useful for studying how cells specialise and organs develop. He also demonstrated that a chemical could produce specific genetic mutations in the worm, allowing different mutations to be linked to specific effects on organ development. British scientist John E. Sulston of the Sanger Centre at England’s Cambridge discovered that certain cells in the developing worm are destined to die through programmed cell death. He described visible steps in the cell-death process and demonstrated the first mutations of genes that participate in that process. American scientist H. Robert Horvitz of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology identified the first two "death genes" in the worms and showed that humans have a gene similar to one of them.

Physics: The Noble Prize in Physics was awarded to a Japanese and two Americans for astronomy research. They won the prize for using some of the most obscure particles and waves in nature to increase understanding of the universe. The Chairman of the committee said that their works have opened new windows to space.

American scientist Riccardo Giacconi of the Associated Universities Inc. in Washington, D.C. was cited for building the first X-ray telescopes that provided completely new and sharp images of the universe. His research laid the foundation for X-ray astronomy, which has led to the discovery of cosmic X-ray source, black holes and allowed researchers to peer deep into the hearts of the dusty young galaxies where stars are born. American scientist Raymond Davis Jr. of the University of Pennsylvania and Japanese scientist Masatoshi Koshiba of the University of Tokyo pioneered the construction of giant underground chambers to detect neutrinos, elusive particles that stream from the sun by the billion. Neutrinos offer a unique view of the sun’s inner working because they are produced in its heart by the same process that causes it to shine. Davis verified that the sun is powered by nuclear fusion. Koshiba worked at the Kamiokande neutrino detector in Japan. His experiments extended Davis’ work. He discovered neutrinos coming from distant supernova explosions and some of the brightest objects in the universe.

Chemistry: The Noble Prize in Chemistry was awarded to an American, a Japanese and a Swiss for inventing techniques used to identify and analyse proteins, advances that revolutionised the hunt for new medicines. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said that because of their work chemists can now rapidly and reliably identify what proteins contains and produce three-dimensional images of proteins molecules in solution. Scientists can both see proteins and understand how they function in the cells. The techniques are proving useful for diagnosing some cancers.

American scientist John B. Fenn of Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond and Japanese scientist Koichi Tanaka of Shimadzu Corp. in Kyoto worked on an analysis technique called mass spectrometry, which lets scientists rapidly identify a substance. Two scientists were honoured for finding ways to extend the technique to large molecules to make the individual molecules separate and spread out as a cloud in a gas without losing their original structure. Mass spectrometry is used in tests for doping and illegal drugs. Swiss scientist Kurt Wuethrich of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich and the Scripps Research Institute in San Diego was honoured for improving a technique called nuclear magnetic resonance. The technique allows scientists to develop three-dimensional images of molecules in a solution, which is the natural environment of a protein in a cell. His work allowed the technique to be used on large molecules like proteins to determine its complete structure.

Effects of violence in mental health

DR SHISHIR K REGMI

What is violence? Violence is an in   tentional act of doing bodily harm to another person. It includes physical and sexual abuse, assault, rape, robbery and homicide. What can be the mental effects? Many people try to cope by talking with others, praying, making donations, and participating in other welfare activities. The degree of response in not predicted simply by the nature or amount of violence, it also depends on the use of specific coping strategies shortly after the event.

Despite attempts to cope with stress, majority of victims suffer from various disturbances. Some people may look normal immediately after the traumatic event. However, they may begin to suffer from psychological difficulties even after 4-5 months from the trauma. Post-traumatic stress disorder is one of the worst effects of violence. The dreaded event is relieved in dreams and in waking thoughts. They act or feel as if the traumatic even is occurring repeatedly. They tend to avoid any place or activity that can act as a clue to the violence. They might have problems with their sleep. Affected people get difficulty in controlling their anger. Many also get concentration difficulties. Some become hyper-aroused and startle even with small noise or any other stimuli.

Many people visit health care facilities with various symptoms directly or indirectly related to violence. Besides, immediate distress, many other long term adverse consequences are seen in such victims. Many of them get pain over different parts of the body. They feel sad, tired, fearful and helpless. Some of the victims may feel guilty and some even attempt suicide. Affected people also get various forms of eating and sleep disturbances. Some get frequent mood swings and sexual problems. Many of them seem to be withdrawn and least bothered about the surroundings. They do not care what is happening around them. In most cases, the effects are so severe that the person loses the ability to work or even take care of himself or herself.

How does it affect our children? Violence in the society promotes aggressive behaviour in children. Some behave like the aggressors and may try to implement the aggressor’s way to their problems. This will only inculcate violent behaviours and attitudes in people. The exposed children may also develop a callous attitude towards violence. Some children become fearful, and are seen to be worried about their own safety and the safety of their family members. For them the world may be a gloomy and threatening place. It affects their healthy development. These children also suffer an enduring fear and they may face many uncertainties. The affected children perceive their future dark and do not look for other opportunities in their life. They may decide to end their life.

How does it affects our society? We can now see the dreaded effects of violence in individuals. When violence is widespread in the society, the society as a whole is caught up in a vicious cycle of violence and counter violence. Gradually more and more people are affected and the peace loving society ultimately turns into a violent one. This is why people preach non-violence. Why are we concerned? It is seen that violence can cause widespread psychological, emotional and social effects. The psychological effects of a major trauma are also seen in people who watch them through the media or come to know by any other means. Thus, people who are not present at the site of trauma can also experience stress reactions. Many of these who experience the violet incidents firsthand and those who come to know by other means suffer in silence. Those professionals who work in rescue field or other related areas throughout their careers get their daily lives affected and may get intense stress reactions.

What can be done? Each victim of violence needs to be kept in a comfortable environment and prevented from further violent acts. The affected ones should be encouraged to talk about their sufferings and associated feelings. If they are able to share their feelings several times, it helps them. They should always be encouraged to make and follow a daily activity schedule. Physical exercise and some form of meditation also help. If they are complaining of pain over different body parts, try to find out whether the pain has any physical reason. Often the pain is felt or becomes worse with the increase in their stress. If this is the case, the victims need to be informed about the relationship between pain and stress. We should ensure that they are taking adequate amount of drinks and food. However, caffeine-containing foods are best avoided. It is important for all the affected ones to learn how to recognise, understand, and cope with the stress in their lives. They need plenty of affection, love and reassurance.

When to consult a health facility? If the sufferers start seeing things or hearing voices that are not seen or heard by people around them, they may be getting hallucinations. At times the affected people get depressed for several days. Many of them may be extremely fearful and are scared of things that are not around them. They may be excited or look extremely vigilant. Some even shout, cry or scream. Others may show abnormal behaviours. If the victims have these symptoms, they should be taken to the nearby hospital immediately. The victims also need to contact a hospital if any of their symptoms are severe and if they start drinking heavily or get repeated fainting attacks.

(Dr. Regmi is a Psychiatrist at Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital)

Can Nepal export IT?

Sudan Jha

In the recent years, the Ministry of Science and Technology has spelled out encouraging words about software export, IT Park, attracting foreign investor and companies, and software industry. While developing countries like India and China are earning billions of dollars per year from software export, Nepal has failed even to take into account software export industries due to the ineffective implementation of appropriate government policy and lack of technical manpower. This has hindered the development of IT industries seriously. Entrepreneurs are lamenting that such helplessness among the aspiring businessmen has gravely discouraged the future growth of the software industry.

Software industry in Nepal received the first formal attention in the budget announcement of 1998/99, but it is sad that virtually nothing has happened between policy formulation and successful execution. During the past month, the Government has formed a series of IT acts and bills. The recent one being "IT policy – 2002". The vision for Nepal was to export software worth Rs 10 billion within the next five years. The policy promises the enforcement of software development and expansion. It states, "legal and policy framework will be adopted for the simplified software export." (Computer policy - Software Development (Article 61)).

Nepal needs to learn a lot from our two IT power neighbours. While, China sold 5.26 billion dollars worth of IT products with 30 percent growth; India’s turnover from the IT industry in 1998/99 was 2 billion dollars, enjoying a growth of 28.77 percent. Countries in South East Asia like the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam are also ahead in IT export business. Singapore has reaped huge profits in the world market.

Some Nepalese companies export software to Japan, USA, Canada, Denmark and other countries. Among 15 software-developing companies, only six are overseas export-oriented and the rest of them cater for the demand of the local market. Although the exact export figures are unavailable, an unofficial data states that the software export of Nepal amounts to Rs. 150 million per annum. However, lack of a copyright law has hampered the expansion of the existing companies who mainly focus on developing tailored software. In recent years, most of the Fortune 500 companies have started the trend of concentrating more on their core competencies areas, leaving other areas for other software organisations. While Nepal is aiming for diversification in its exportable items, the software exporters have been forced to earn money by meeting the local demands. The software developing companies have to rely on demand in software for personnel, financial, school and hospital management, accounting and banking, airlines, hotels, police, power companies, various database systems and other application areas for their business.

Labour costs in Nepal are amongst the cheapest in the world, enabling an IT industry to grow even with a small investment. One can start a business for a mere Rs 50,000. The number of computer graduates in Nepal is estimated to be about 200. However, after four years Nepal is expected to produce an annual number of 20 computer graduates. The number of companies dependent of IT related services in Nepal are estimated to be about 250 with around 150 in Kathmandu valley alone. Many companies in the Kathmandu valley are equipped with the latest computers and operating systems (LAN and UNIX). These organisations have already started data communication through telecommunication lines and internet. Services such as word processing, map digitising, application software, data processing, web page designing, documentation, desktop publishing, hardware assembly, software development and technical consultancies have large prospects of being a significant foreign currency earner for Nepal.

The time has already come when Nepal should look for a new dimension in the possibilities of earning foreign currencies and utilising the unemployed IT human resources. Nepal must prepare herself so that she can reap the benefits of this rapidly emerging service industry in the world.

Science behind a bad apple

Schon’s dismissal from Bell Labs casts a shadow on what many consider the fastest moving research area in science today—a field that holds the promise of entirely new approaches to computing and new industries to capitalize on them.

Robert Lee Hotz

It seemed almost too good to be true.   cientists at Bell Labs discovered late last year a way to construct a transistor out of a single molecule. The man behind it all was Jan Hendrik Schon, a 32-year-old physicist who seemed destined to win a Nobel Prize one day. But Schon’s discovery was exposed as a fake Tuesday, and now his case is raising troubling questions about how well the community of physics—whose work is the foundation of key military, industrial and commercial developments—can police itself. Schon’s dismissal from Bell Labs casts a shadow on what many consider the fastest moving research area in science today—a field that holds the promise of entirely new approaches to computing and new industries to capitalize on them.

Physics, like all fields of science, is in an enterprise that traffics in facts but is sustained by faith in its own integrity. Some experts say that many physicists are too trusting or simply unwilling to look too closely at research practices. The peer review process meant to guarantee scientific integrity is too much the paper tiger, they say, too easily influenced by a researcher’s reputation. The extensive pattern of misconduct in the Schon case also highlights the responsibility of other scientists who lend their names as co-workers to the research papers that are published. They share in the discovery and take some credit for it, yet often they may not be able to vouch for all the work that went into an experiment.

"The physic community may be less on guard and more willing to take results on trust," said Yale University science historian Daniel Kevles, who has written extensively on research misconduct. Mostly, however, other scientists are asking themselves just how Schon thought his fabrications would withstand sustained scrutiny. "I am absolutely mystified about what made him think he could get away with such a thing," said California Institute of Technology physicist and vice provost David Goodstein. "This is high profile stuff that people would want to build on to make new advances." Schon had been recruited to join Bell Labs by Bertram Batlogg, one of the most prominent physicists in the world.

Batlogg, then head of Bell Labs’ Materials Physics Research department, was looking for an experimental wizard to study the possibility of building organic transistors—vanishingly small electronic components based not on silicon, but of carbon. These organic, molecule-sized components were seen as the next breakthrough technology to replace silicon circuits, which are approaching their physical limits for miniaturization. Chips made out of organic materials, like plastics, could not only lead to vastly more powerful computers, but also a host of new uses, such as flexible electronic displays. The problem was trying to make something on such a small scale. Many researchers had tried and failed miserably.

But Schon eventually began publishing a series of breakthrough papers that described a method of transforming organic crystals into electronic components. At the height of his success barely a year ago, almost everybody at Bell Labs admired Schon’s modest and unpretentious style. They lauded his deep grasp of condensed matter physics and solid-state devices. He worked such long hours in the lab too, they said, always wiring up new samples of the exotic materials that were the subject of his experiments. Most of all they were dazzled by his ability to write such clear, coherent research papers at such a remarkable rate—one paper every eight days last year. He and his colleagues churned out more than 90 papers since 1998.

His findings sent an entire field of physics buzzing. The company that employed him did not shy from trumpeting his success. "This work pushes the miniaturization of electronics to its final frontier," Bell Labs vice president Federico Capasso said in a news release for one of Schon’s discoveries. "I was blown out of my chair by his work," said University of California, Los Angeles chemistry professor James Heath, who is a leader in the field of nanostructures. "I thought it was just amazing." He had a pretty grand run for two years.

"We tried to do experiments inspired by his findings," Heath said. "Our results were not as inspired as his. Groups tried very hard to reproduce these results and fell on their face trying to do it." No one was trying to disprove Schon’s work at first. Rather they sought to emulate it and build on it to make new advances. A new field of molecular computing was taking shape and everyone wanted to be counted among its founding fathers. As lab after lab tried and failed to duplicate the experiments, however, the buzz about Schon’s brilliance took a disquieting turn starting in the summer of 2001. Then several researchers noticed that the graphs published in support of several different experiments were suspiciously alike. By last spring, awe had turned to doubt. The whispers gave voice to formal allegations of fraud.

In May, Bell Labs organized its own committee of outside experts to investigate the problem. Allegations of fraud and misconduct had been leveled at 25 published research papers involving 20 scientists. The questions, however, involved less than a quarter of his publications over the past five years. Many of his unchallenged papers also claimed significant breakthroughs. Schon could not be contacted Thursday to review the report’s conclusions. When the five investigators—themselves prominent scientists and academics—started asking questions, they found that those who had spoken most glowingly of the young researcher acknowledged that they actually knew almost nothing about the experiments he had performed.

Indeed, in a field known for its collaborations and collegiality, Schon made almost all his discoveries alone, they learned. Although his papers bore the names of many other scientists, none of them directly participated in the breakthroughs, the investigating committee determined. What the Bell investigators eventually found out about Schon’s work was far from reassuring. All his electronic data files had been deleted. More tellingly, perhaps, there were no laboratory records, such as signed notebooks, dated sheets of experimental data or logs, like those most scientists are accustomed to maintain. All of the hundreds of devices that Schon claimed he had studied were either damaged during experiments, broken when being moved to his new lab or simply discarded. He readily admitted that he substituted and altered data to make the experimental results look better. Some of the substitutions, he said, were honest mistakes. But he told the panel: "I truly believe that the reported scientific effects are real, exciting and worth working for." But there were so many such mistakes, the investigators said, that it showed a "deeper problem."

(LA TIMES-WASHINGTON POST)