This is interesting article though. But people should understand the limitations of working in universities and departments in India. How many young researchers do get an opportunity and access to various treatise and herbaria which are mostly kept outside India. Even in India, How easy is the access to vouchers at national herbaria? How easily do the experts, who are actually much elder, respond to requests on mail? A common researcher, is he funded enough to do all such things on his own?
If I have never seen an ideal horse in my life, then for me all four legged Equidae are like donkeys. Because I dont know how Horse looks like. I have read books by Fraser-Jenkins and Dr. Kholia too. Dr. Fraser Jenkins is so much obsessed with wrong identifications especially by Indian scientists that he once wrote a book titled, New Species Syndrome in Indian Pteridology. Is he sure, he never made mistakes? Our own, Dr. S.P.Khullar in his book wrote a big note against him on his mistakes and this virtual war went on and on and on. I just checked plant list. Of the 49,961 pteridophyte names (including infraspecific names) only 9,800 are accepted where as 18,680 names are synonyms. Please check how many of them are given by Europeans and how many are by Indians. Undoubtedly Dr. Fraser-Jenkins is one of the world renowned experts, but its us who allowed him to work in India and then he bites on our back and we do nothing. Because we are Indians and we always respect our guests probably. He himself describes the reason at the end, "If proper credence and funding were given to plant and animal taxonomy, Indian workers could easily become experts in the field,". I have a friend at a big organisation in India. She is working on revision of one genus of Orchid in India. How much fund she has....make a guess... 5000 Rs/year. Now make out how she can revise a genus with that fund? To add to this, we have National Biodiversity board, who doesnt allow us to send scientific samples outside unless some does it illegally. We are not allowed to work with proper funding and we are not allowed to take help!! I am really lucky that I had a very good PhD supervisor but I know all are not so lucky. At the same time, I also agree to a bit that some foul taxonomists have created a bad impression about India in general. There are some loop holes and there are some other reasons like PUBLICATION PUBLICATION among the academicians that leads to such problems!!! But I truly hope that the sun is about to rise!! Regards Pankaj On Nov 3, 1:15 am, Gurcharan Singh <[email protected]> wrote: > Thanks Giby ji > But I personally think this paper is no academic discussion, just washing > dirty linen in public to further their gains and putting Indian taxonomy to > mud-slinging. Misidentifications are not only an Indian phenomenon, rather > an obvious global phenomenon, and if you are doing exhaustive taxonomic > research, you are bound to make some mistakes. It would be fit > to re-butt such articles which put Indian taxonomy in bad light. This is > more essential for practicing researches. > > -- > Dr. Gurcharan Singh > Retired Associate Professor > SGTB Khalsa College, University of Delhi, Delhi-110007 > Res: 932 Anand Kunj, Vikas Puri, New Delhi-110018. > Phone: 011-25518297 Mob: 9810359089http://people.du.ac.in/~singhg45/ > > On Wed, Nov 2, 2011 at 10:12 PM, Giby Kuriakose > <[email protected]>wrote: > > > > > > > > > An interesting paper. > > > Regards > > Giby > > > -- > > GIBY KURIAKOSE PhD > > Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE), > > Royal Enclave, > > Jakkur Post, Srirampura > > Bangalore- 560064 > > India > > Phone - +91 9448714856 (Mobile) > > visit my pictures @http://www.flickr.com/photos/giby
