DAE to launch new medical cyclotron centre in Kolkata

Srivastava was present at an interaction session with his teacher Bikash Sinha where they recalled their companionship of 43 years at Sinha's residence in Kolkata on Wednesday.

According to Dinesh Srivastava, the new medical cyclotron centre will be very powerful which will produce and export step isotopes.

Srivastava said, "The building of this project is ready near New Garia Station area and the interior set up is going on."

Sinha former West Bengal chief minister Budhhadeb Bhattacharya had given 5 acres area absolutely free to set the project up. "We are thankful to Budhhadeb Bhattacharya and will surely invite them on the day of inauguration," Sinha said.

Srivastava said working jointly with Sinha gave him a lot of benefits. "Bikash corrected my broken English language very gently and I am enjoying his company from the  very first day. People came to know about me just for Bikash, because everyone in this field knows Bikash and his works," he said.

Sinha said most of the scientists do not  understand literature which  is "very bad." "Dinesh is a very good prose writer. I noticed an anti-literature mentality in most of the  scientists which is very bad. Science and literature both are creativity. Where writers write literature taking help of science,  scientists should have good knowledge of literature," he added.

Padma Bhushan (2010) winner scientist  Sinha thinks that a leader should not push ideas or orders to the students which is a mistake that many scientists commit.  "If you give anyone a responsibility, let him/her do. Don't interfere in that project unless the student does a huge blunder. Pushing orders never brings creativity," he added.

Srivastava said the number of scientists in India is very poor since there is a little scope and placement is bad. "If you calculate the numbers of scientists in India with the respect of total popularity, the number of scientists is very few which is not good for a country. This number is very high in Finland," he said.

Sinha said most of the students think about job, salary and savings. "Very few students think about science. This is another big reason of the poor number of scientists in this country," he added.

He thinks that a long time interaction can give birth to new ideas. "A constant interaction with people from every field is necessary to get a new idea and such a trend is declining day by day," Sinha lamented.

According to  Srivastava, reproduction does not have any value in science. "you have to think new everyday," he said.

Srivastava said the number of nuclear physics scientists were increasing in the state. "When I joined, there were 4-5 scientists in this filed. But now over 150 people are working here," he said.

Talking about Geneva-based CERN (Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire - European Organization for Nuclear Research) Sinha said hundreds of Indian scientists were working there. "CERN is willing to use us," he added.

(Reporting by Deepayan Sinha)