1. CORRESPONDENCE
some of the academies and societies transparency in government departments. alone their specific areas of research.
mushrooming in the country. The nomi- This would not only enable the masses to These sites are being used, in many cases,
nations are invited, the candidates are know how the public money is utilized, but to only highlight the chief of the organi-
pre-decided, formalities are done and re- also inhibit the bureaucracy from making zation. If the Govt. of India and the Indian
sults announced. The pages of the CVs extravagant expenditures and misutilising Judicial System are really serious about
are not even turned. public money. wiping out corruption from such organi-
• Hijacking of projects is a common Recently there was a news item that zations, it should be made mandatory
phenomenon. several MPs were going to give the details that they put on their websites account of
of utilization of money on development each and every paisa spent by them from
All the above are some examples, which of their constituencies from the MP’s grants public funding. Particularly phone, mobile,
I consider, should be treated as scientific given by the Government. This is a very electricity, fuel, tour bills and all consum-
corruption. healthy sign in order to start transparency able and non-consumable expenses should
Now the most important aspect is finan- in our system. be available on the website to bring tran-
cial corruption in science. Many scientific Several organizations and their labs have sparency and check corruption.
departments in our country are totally their own websites. These websites provide
KUMKUM RANI
funded by the Government using public very superficial information, such as an
money. In the present era of electronic organizational chart and some activities. Central Institute of Medicinal and
media and communication, the highest of Some of the sites provide only information Aromatic Plants,
the authorities and Indian Judiciary are about the Director’s bio-data whereas not Lucknow 226 015, India
advocating and are trying to implement even the list of all scientists is given, let e-mail: rkumkum@hotmail.com
Cataloguing Indian biota
Chavan et al.1 elaborated that database of van et al.1 also mentioned that in some terest in this field of taxonomy, which has
more than 93% (84,000 species) of the cases, single species may even have as almost become a neglected subject while
known taxa (89,451) of Indian fauna have many as 100 synonyms, but so far 47,405 taxonomists are also dwindling in num-
been compiled. I appreciate Vishwas Cha- synonyms of 84,000 species are included, ber.
van and his team for undertaking such a therefore, this number is expected to be
stupendous task for the use of public domain more than valid names. 1. Chavan, V., Watve, A. V., Londhe, M. S.,
and hope that the remaining 5,451 species Despite stating that ‘the information Rane, N. S., Pandit, A. T. and Krishnan, S.,
of IndFauna3 will be completed in the next provided in (http:// www.ncbi.org.in/biota/ Curr. Sci., 2004, 87, 749–763.
few months. fauna) is not guranteed to be correct or 2. Mitra, T. R., Embioptera, Faunal Diversity
When the Indian fauna was accessed ran- complete and conclusion drawn from or ac- in India (eds Alfred, J. R. B., Das, A. K.
domly to know the status of the genus Oligo- tions undertaken on the basis of information and Sanyal, A. K.), Zoological Survey of
toma (Order: Embioptera; Class: Insecta), 29 are the sole responsibility of the user’, it is India, 1998, pp. 204–207.
3. Retrieved from NCBI-Indian Fauna http://
records with valid scientific names and 6 general practice that information retrieved is
www.ncbi.org.in/biota/fauna.
records of synonyms were displayed on 3 used for the publications and drawing the
October 2004, the group on which experts inferences not only by the lay workers but
from the world taxonomists were communi- even by the experts. These references even K. CHANDRA
cated. But after verifying the published data become the baseline for the future work- Zoological Survey of India,
on the same by the Zoological Survey of ers and are quoted at various places, and it 424, New Adarsh Colony,
India, the number of valid species of the then becomes very difficult to return to the Kamala Nehru Nagar,
genus Oligotoma2 was found to be only same fold. Jabalpur 482 002, India
16, which shows that 13 more species of With experience of working on faunal e-mail: crszsijb@sancharnet.in
the genus are also present in India, but that is diversity for the last 22 years, I have a sug-
not the case, since these 13 species are en- gestion for the readers of Current Science,
tered in the database mostly with spelling that such information from websites should Response
mistakes and synonyms, without consulting not be followed blindly and that the subject
any expert on the group or any taxonomist. clarifications must be sought from the While commenting on our article1 on the
If all these valid names are included in experts before being published and also a electronic catalogue of known Indian fauna
84,000 species, there is an increase of submission to Chavan to adopt some metho- (IndFauna), Chandra2 has strongly made
81.25% records in the database of single dology for screening the data of individual a case for increasing involvement of taxono-
genus belonging to order Embioptera, the species through experts before entering mists in development of such catalogues.
order includes only 33 species from India. the website. This will then result in avail- Electronic catalogues (ECAT) develop-
This itself raises the question of documenta- able information being utilized by the future ment is always a ‘work in progress’ and
tion of 84,000 valid species in ECAT. Cha- workers and the site may further create in- dynamic in nature.
532 CURRENT SCIENCE, VOL. 88, NO. 4, 25 FEBRUARY 2005

2. CORRESPONDENCE
Majority of the times errors in such overseas) representing major faunal sys- 2. Chandra, K., Curr. Sci., 2004, 87, 1321.
ECATs are mere reflections of the errors tematics agencies and individuals have 3. Mitra, T. R., Embioptera, Faunal Diversity
(such as spellings, synonyms, taxonomic volunteered themselves for taxonomic scru- in India (eds Alfred, J. R. B., Das, A. K.
opinions, etc.) that exist in the sources of tiny of data collated in IndFauna. During and Sanyal, A. K.), Zoological Survey of
India, 1998, pp. 204–207.
literature. For instance, species Oligotoma the next 2 years, we have planned to hold
4. Das, A. K., Rec. Zool. Surv. India, 2003,
annandalei has been spelt by Mitra3 (p. several taxonomic scrutiny workshops, 208, 530.
205), Das4 and Kapur and Kripalini5 as which, we believe, will complement and 5. Kapur, A. P. and Kripalini, M. B., Trans.
Oligotoma annandalei, while Mitra and expedite the process of web-based collabora- Entomol. Soc., London, 2003, 109, 111–134.
Srivastava6, on p. 293 have spelt it as O. tion. However, the process of taxonomic 6. Mitra, T. R. and Srivastava, V. D., Embiop-
anandalei and on p. 294 as O. annandalei. scrutiny being collaborative and partici- tera, Animal Resources of India (Protozoa
Therefore, developing ECAT is a dyna- patory in nature, is expected to take longer. to Mammalia), Zoological Survey of India,
mic and on-going process for which peri- Further, even widely used global and Calcutta, 1999, pp. 291–296.
odic reviews are essential to maintain the regional ECATs such as Integrated Taxono- 7. Integrated Taxonomic Information System,
quality, authenticity and current taxo- mic Information System (ITIS)7 and others http:// www.itis.usda.gov/.
8. Retrieved from Integrated Taxonomic Infor-
nomic opinion. Further, this is crucial as are also not entirely scrutinized. ITIS
mation System, 5 January 2005 (http://
changes in taxonomic opinions need to currently collates data of about 334,000 www.itis.usda.gov/itis_primer.html).
be archived in such catalogues. ECAT scientific names. Out of this, about 45%
thus forms a baseline dataset that can expe- remains to receive taxonomic scrutiny or
dite the process of taxonomic revision1, verification6. This only stresses the urgent
as it forms the much required collabora- and increasing involvement of taxonomists
tory environment for taxonomists to initiate in development and updating of ECATs, VISHWAS CHAVAN*
dialogue for much essential taxonomic which can act as ‘digital registry of names A. V. WATVE
scrutiny involving taxonomic data authenti- of organisms’ once taxonomic treatment N. S. RANE
cation and validation, as well as taxonomic is received. Hence, we wish to congratu- S. KRISHNAN
revision. late Chandra2 for this, as such a statement
Our experience of IndFauna suggests that from a seasoned and reputed taxonomist
because of its web-based nature, distributed would certainly encourage fellow colleagues Information Division,
taxonomic expertise can share and exchange to actively participate and collaborate. National Chemical Laboratory,
their views and get themselves involved Dr Homi Bhabha Road,
in the virtual process of data authentication, 1. Chavan, V., Wavte, A. V., Londhe, M. S., Pune 411 008, India
curation, and quality control. In fact, over Rane, N. S., Pandit, A. T. and Krishnan, S., *For correspondence.
100 taxonomists (both within India and Curr. Sci., 2004, 87, 749–763. e-mail: vishwas@ems.ncl.res.in
Rice–wheat cropping system
In the rice–wheat cropping system (RWCS) stubbles are ploughed into the soil after
1. Rajendra Prasad and Nagarajan, S., Curr.
in India wheat is taken soon after rice. harvesting the grains and wheat is sown Sci., 2004, 87, 1334–1335.
Since there is not much time gap between after that. Soil microorganisms decompose
the two crops, rice stubble after harvesting the stubbles and thereby enrich soil with D. J. BAGYARAJ
is burnt in situ. The authors have rightly nutrients. Perhaps, we can follow this in our
pointed out1 that burning besides causing country together with the addition of some Department of Agricultural Microbiology,
loss of precious plant nutrients also creates decomposing organisms at the time of University of Agricultural Sciences,
environmental pollution. I understand that ploughing in rice stubbles in order to hasten GKVK Campus, Bangalore 560 065, India
in Russia, where RWCS is followed, rice the process of decomposition. e-mail: djbagyaraj@vsnl.com
Nano-energy
The observation of a measurably small Of course, these are elegant experiments. nology last year in paid advertisements in
voltage generated by some liquids/gases The results of the experiments have been national newspapers, the DST hailed the
flowing through a single or multiwalled viewed by the Department of Science and observations as a significant achievement
carbon nanotube, or over the surfaces of Technology (DST) to be a new source of of Indian science, and supported its
such semiconductors as Ge and Si has energy. While highlighting the signifi- statement graphically by showing an ob-
been reported by Sood and coworkers1,2. cant achievements in science and tech- served linear plot of voltage generated as
CURRENT SCIENCE, VOL. 88, NO. 4, 25 FEBRUARY 2005 533