What's wrong with us, Dr. Kumar?

Dr. H.D. Kumar is the senior most Professor of Biological Sciences in India..and man, is he pissed!
At 73, he's the author of over 33 textbooks and 150 scientific publications on Botany and Biotechnology. Two days back, Dr. Kumar came to the village to deliver a series of lectures on Nanotechnology, Nanobiology and Regenerative Medicine and there were two notable aspects of Dr. Kumar's being that I couldn't ignore.

First was his obvious compassion for animals, especially the animals used for clinical trials in laboratories..
Second was his anti-establishment, anti-Indian sentiments as a consequence of the plight of Bio-scientists in India.

He said that there were several students in the Indian universities with loads of Scientific aptitude and talent, that essentially remains latent, due to non-conducive lab conditions (electricity, water, etc.). He stated numerous instances of Indians succeeding in labs abroad, while their friends back in India gave up.

Another fact that he revealed was the stringent rules in Amrikka for obtaining sanctions where clinical trials involving animals was concerned, as opposed to the lax system that we have in India. In fact, many Amrikkan scientists have tie ups with Indian laboratories for the clinical trial part (bole toh..our animals are cruelly treated while Amrikka gets the credit for development), because there, PETA would've screwed them!

At the time of Mandal Commission and the strikes that followed, Dr. Kumar was a Professor at BHU, Varanasi. The students on strike there had blocked the entry to the department of life sciences and shut down the power supply for over two weeks. Dr. Kumar needed a few slides for a lecture that he was to deliver elsewhere. The poor old man begged and pleaded with his students to let him in, but wasn't allowed. He was later let in on the condition that he'd be escorted by 2 students, and was not to touch a thing inside...just pick up his stuff and leave. What he saw inside was that the animals kept for clinical trials hadn't been fed since the strike and were dying. He brought this to the attention of the students, but by the time normalcy was restored in the university, most animals had died, and many of his microbial cultures involving years of research had been destroyed.(they'd turned off the power supply, remember!)

When a man of this stature appears helpless and exasperated with the state of the affairs of the country, there is something terribly wrong. Shine on you crazy India...keep gloating about IT..while yet another "Nobel for Medicine" eludes you!
Why am I writing this? I ain't no Vir Sanghvi..but..humour me, wouldja please!