My kudos to Hrishikesh Mukherjee, who immortalised a Botanist (Dharmendra) not to be a nit-wit and proves that he is more worthier than prejudiced to be. Times have changed but the concept of a Botany professional hasn"t changed. Again hats of to the late Hrishikesh who I presume to be the only director in Indian cinema who has immortalised the role of a Botanist in his movie "Chupke, Chupke!" I think even "Collegu Ranga" the kannada movie portrays Kalyan Kumar asa Botany Professor but he is not the major protagonist of the movie. If you do come across any other movie which has a Botanist as a lead role, do let me know.

Around ten to fifteen years back a typical college scenario would be the classes brimming with degree students especially in the science stream and commerce was assumed to be a topic chosen by less intellectuals. Each and every college had general science combination of PCM, CBZ and later introduced donation oriented courses of Microbiology, Electronics and Computer science. Jobs of all types were offered to science graduates even jobs meant for the commerce graduates. There were lesser students opting for Engineering. I belonged to that era and thus I chose to become a post graduate in Botany.

At present the scenario has changed. The Commerce stream is brimming with students and no more it is a course taken up by less intellectuals and rather it is taken up by aspiring future capitalists, bankers and financiers. This situation is due to opening up of market, liberalisation and globalisation. Adding to the plight of degree colleges are the mushrooming Engineering colleges which have taken a centre-stage and liberalised their criterion of in-take thus facilitating even the least intellectual student to opt for an Engineering seat. This has resulted to be the last nail in the coffin of General science subjects. The present trend has led to the extinction of general science post graduates and the course itself. If this trend continues, tomorrow a situation might arise where there is lack of teaching professionals and chances are that general science subject and their study would only be available in developed countries which would make the under-developed and developing countries to hugely rely upon these countries for technology transfer. We as a country would end up as cyber coolies, legal coolies and medical coolies of the developed countries with no option of independent growth of science or technology blossoming in our nation.

Courses without any opportunity of obtaining donations do not hold a stand in the Education Market. You might have noticed the banners screaming with words B.sc-Microbiology, B.sc.-Biotechnology, B.sc.-Biochemistry, etc. These are ways and means of fooling the guillible people by different institutions who hide the combo subjects offered along with this subject. Bangalore University doesn"t offer any honorary degree or B.sc. Mains course, rather it offers a combination of three subjects with equal status and syllabus. University should take some steps to curb these false ads and see to it that institutions running these courses display all the combination so that there is no possibility of step-motherly treatment by the students. From the ads to the media and the government lack lustre response has made the student conditioned to the mindset that the general science subjects are of no importance and they are just necessary evils which cannot be avoided. This mindset has not only affected the students but also the people framing syllabus, who give more importance to these subjects and neglect the sole opportunity of educating the students with chapters that are pure science at the PU level. The syllabus of PU-Biology is one such example, you find the syllabus having more importance to biotechnology, molecular biology and other subjects. In the process they have neglected the topics of Behavioural Biology, Social organisation, Phytogeography and other subjects. Even the syllabus is conditioned to facilitate the students to take up the donation oriented subjects. I have no personal animosity with these subjects I rather feel that there is a huge imbalance which would result in the death of the other subjects at the cost of one. Policy makers, syllabus setters and decision-makers should remember that "Science has given rise to technology which are applicable in industries and not the vice versa". Death of any science subject whether it is industry oriented or general science would lead to the death of civilisation. This is not an exaggerated or far-fetched statement but the harsh reality.

The solution for this problem would be a higher pay-scale to the teaching professionals which should be lucrative when compared to other professions so that it attracts the intelligentsia of the country to take up this profession. Providing health insurance and social insurance would go a long way in prosperity of education and also security of the teaching professionals. Once education prospers the social, economic and political growth would be higher. I hope the policy makers, decision makers and private institutions awake to the burning issue rather than sweeping it under the carpet.