Interview with Dr.E.G.Rajan, Director&Founder,Pentagram Research Center&Med Vision Pvt.Ltd

His contribution to the state-of-the-art of Electronic Warfare has been well recognized in the Government and industrial sectors. He was a noted teacher in the department of Electrical Engineering of the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur. He received:

• “Distinguished Scientist and Man of the Millennium Award” from Who is Who Bibliographical Records, Cambridge, 2000
• ‘Rashtriya Gaurav’ award for the year 2010 by India International friendship society
• “Veda Vidwad Vibhushan” award by Arshdhara National conference committee,2014

He authored many books like, Symbolic Computing – Signal and Image Processing, Electronic Order of Battle Records of Military Radars, Computers and Information Technology and Foundations of Information Technology.

He is the father of a novel paradigm Symbolic Computing in the Framework of Markov’s Constructive Mathematical Logic. Two of his fifty Ph.D scholars are involved in the design of digital circuits using organic molecules and some of them are working in the novel area of Genomic Signal Processing. He has brought out more than 25 original concepts. One such concept is Codon Space, which advocates the theory of Life Forms as Subspaces of the Information Space called Codon Space. Another concept is a Mathematical Transform, which goes by his name as Rajan Transform. This transform is ideally used for Pattern Recognition and Analysis purposes. He leads the company in his own professorial style and the company is technically strong and steady.

He lectured at hundreds of National as well as International conferences. In his mission to serve nation’s scientific community, he has been organizing “ICSCI International conference”, from past 10 years, so as to showcase the Indian talent to complete world at an international platform and also to help our students to have live interaction with scientists from top notch research institutes like MIT, Stanford University, MIT University and so on. This great attempt helped many students to have international exposure and also prepare themselves for the global competition.

Today D.Sai Charan, Sakshi Education Desk is going to interview the great visionary Dr. E. G. Rajan……………..

You have in your credit awards like “Distinguished Scientist and Man of the Millennium Award”, ‘Who is Who Bibliographical Records, Cambridge, 2000’. What is the secret behind great achievements??
The term ‘award’ refers to ‘recognition’ for what one is doing or for what one has already done. I am of the opinion that the term ‘award’ could be interpreted in two ways (i) ‘recognition’ by one’s own ‘self’ for what one is doing or for what one has already done and (ii) ‘recognition’ by ‘others’ for what one is doing or for what one has already done. Recognition by one’s own self yields satisfaction, self esteem and tranquility and this could be viewed as a kind of achievement. Recognition by others, on the other hand, leads to happiness,pride and commotion and this cannot be viewed as achievement. A karma sanyasi does not get carried away by either type of recognition. I am not a karma sanyasi and at the same time I am not consciously viewing these so called awards as achievements though I was perturbed at times by temporary happiness, pride and commotion.

As a young graduate how did you plan your career and what are the challenges you faced in this progress?
When I was a graduate Engineer in the year 1973, I did not have much career opportunities like in today’s world. So, I did not have the chance of planning for my career. But one thing I was clear in my mind that I had to aim at the stars in order to reach at least the top of a tree. One should not look at the challenges as challenges. Challenges are not insurmountable. In fact, challenges give sufficient will power and of course the opportunity for overcoming all kinds of hurdles in life. These thoughts occurred to me while I was young and even today I do adhere to my own thoughts.

Long back in ancient India, where world class universities like Nalanda and Takshashila, has attracted students from various parts of world, but whereas situation today is totally different. But now people are flooding to western countries. What are the major discrepancies between India and Western academic system?
Knowledge is not a property of an individual or a country. Knowledge is everywhere. A knowledge seeking person, be it an Indian or an American would certainly contribute to the society. Nalanda and Takshashila institutions did flourish because of the very fact that there were very few knowledge seekers in the western world to contribute to the society. But now-a-days, everyone talks about, at least talks about (i) knowledge generation, (ii) knowledge management and (iii) knowledge dissemination. Ancient Indian institutions and the students and faculty working in such institutions sincerely carried out these three operations of knowledge generation, management and dissemination. Today, one must accept the fact that such activities are carried out in western countries also. With zeal and enthusiasm westerners carry out these operations, where as Indians, I observe, do not appear to do so. So there is no discrepancy in today’s Indian academic system but there is a drastic lacuna in the attitudes and mind sets of Indian academicians and students. So what is the point in boasting over the past glories? Let us be proactive with positive suggestions and not reactive to emotions and criticisms.

During 1940-1970,India has produced some world’s remarkable scientists like Sir. C. V. Raman, Dr. M. S. Swaminathan, Shri. Vishweshwariaha, Dr. Vikram Sarabhai, Dr. Homi J. Bhabha, to name a few. Why such people are not born in India today?What is the major difference in the scientific temper you have noticed in present generation and the past one?
Righteous necessity and a common goal like national independence was the reason for the advent of such great people in those days. In addition, parental love and guidance did play a vital role in stimulating the scientific temper and patriotism in them. The present generation is unfortunate to have these two major supporting factors to make them distinguished Indians.

As a professor you have backed 30 years of experience with IIT’s and many other Indian as well as foreign universities. What is the major fallback you have identified between foreign universities & IIT’s as well as other colleges? Why this perception is growing with time?
While faculty and students of foreign universities are self motivated and they do academics based on academic interest, most of the Indian students and faculty do academics based on unwarranted financial interest. Most of our Engineering students do Engineering just to end up in coveted IT jobs. Most of our Medical students do medicine just to end up as money making machines. The attitude of service to the society is rarely found in most of these ‘professionals!?’. Indians pursuing academic programs in any foreign university have to fulfill various academic and societal requirements to complete their programs where as in India degrees and diplomas are being liberally awarded to both deserving and undeserving students and this is the primary reason for their ‘unemployability’. One funny example I would like to present here. Last year, an Electronics graduate from a popular academic institution came to me for recommendation. The candidate wanted me to recommend him for complete fee waiver and a sumptuous financial grant from a foreign university of his choice. I asked the candidate one question only in order to judge whether the candidate deserves to get into the reputed foreign university. I asked the candidate to draw the circuit symbols of a semiconductor diode and a PNP transistor. The candidate in turn told me that he is not aware of diode and transistor. What kind of degree (First Class with Distinction from a reputed university) the candidate has, I just wondered. I am sure that I have made my point clear to this question.

Sir from past 10 years you have been conducting an international conference where you were able to bring scientists from top research institutions of the world like NASA, Russian Academic Sciences, MIT, Stanford etc... What is the noteworthy difference between Indian academic community and rest of the world scientific community?
The main purpose of organizing these conferences is to bring Indian students and faculty to a common platform so that they interact with such elite foreign academicians and professionals to sharpen up their intellectual ability. Indeed, during the ten conferences organized as on date, I observed our people interacting with these special invitees with overwhelming interest. But, the subject of their interactions in most of the cases were aimed at getting admission in their universities with big financial support and fee waiver or getting into their institutions as post doctoral fellows. Very rarely I found our people talking to them science and technology.

Also you might have looked into 1000’s of student’s research papers. Why are these research papers not transforming into reality? How can they generate self enthusiasm among themselves and to translate their creativity? Even if they start up, but have failed in long run. What are the main reasons for these failures and how can this be overcome?
‘Plagiarism’ is the only answer I have now to reason out for the failure of creativity. Students and faculty should at the first instance study and understand the subjects of their interest. One cannot be creative with peripheral knowledge. Education is a combined exercise of both teachers and students. There must be a conjoined effort made by them in knowledge generation.

In this global competitive research field, what are the key qualities a student should posses to achieve great strides?
Start asking questions. Stop bothering about money making. Students must learn from teachers, learn from self study, learn from colleagues and learn from experimentation. Nature is the best teacher.

Many reports claim that young entrepreneurs and leaders are failing to mark big, due to lack of skills to manage success and even more importantly failure? From your own experience, can you explain how leaders should manage success and failure?
I myself do not know the meaning of success and failure. Materialistic success is many a time treated as real success. To my knowledge it is not so. I have been interacting with people who have made marks in business. Almost everyone said that they have failed in life. On the other hand, middle class people always worry about materialistic success and unfortunately they lose their peace of mind. It is up to an individual to draw a line of demarkation between success and failure.

What is the importance of interdisciplinary knowledge, the importance of which has been sidelined by our education system?
Lack of research aptitude among students especially and parents and society are responsible for this problem. A Mechanical Engineer seeks job in software companies as advised by parents. Then what would happen to the development of domain knowledge? Where is the question of interdisciplinary knowledge when people are ignoring their own domain knowledge for the sake of pecuniary benefits? The one, say an undergraduate Engineer who has interdisciplinary knowledge is like a general physician in medicine. Of course one can develop interdisciplinary knowledge only after getting a vast experience while carrying out graduate programs and the like in many fields directed by company or institution requirement. So what I would like to comment here is that advanced development of interdisciplinary knowledge is a research requirement basically.

There has been impulsive growth evidenced in the field of electronics. What are the key areas that may gain major attention, that present student community have to concentrate to have a jubilant future?
The field of Electronics is an ever growing area. Starting from vacuum tubes, this field has witnessed the advent of transistors, integrated circuits, and compact devices like microprocessors and microcontrollers. Further on experts are working on developing devices based on nanotechnology and MEMS. Electronics students who seek bright future in this domain area should develop working knowledge in VLSI and Embedded Systems Design and Development.

In the recent years bioelectronics is gaining more focus, can you detail us about this field and its career opportunities in the present and future? Also which is the best university, offering this course?
Bioelectronics is a naive area in which people are working on the theoretical aspects of developing devices using chemical molecules and biological macromolecules. Only students interested in research should opt for this course. Major institutions like Yale University, University of Alabama offer graduate programs (especially PhD) in this area.

Though India has marked its presence in software industry, but lagging in electronics industry. What can be reason for this failure?
India denied many opportunities offered by the USA in the past for deploying FAB LABS in India. Countries like Korea used this opportunity and so they are the world leaders now. The denial was made due to political reasons and I do not have any right to comment on this.

The millennium was marked by software revolution. What is the area that can mark future revolution?
Software revolution was marked in western countries and not in India. India did a great job in getting businesses that are outsourced. Indians can also contribute to further development. For instance our people can focus on novel techniques related to symbolic computing, gene computing, and quantum computing and algorithm development. Algorithms are essentially solutions to solve problems and so they are the life line of a company. Only subject experts can develop heuristic and intelligent algorithms. Paradigmatic algorithm development is an evergreen area in software development. In addition, one can concentrate on Software Engineering and Architecture. Parallel algorithms development also plays a very important role in developing techniques to solve problems in mission critical situations. Students should also focus their attention in applications development.

What is your message to students, researchers and young scientists?
Keep up your scientific temper. Make everything in India. You can do it if you “WILL”.