Author: Akshat Rathi

Akshat Rathi is a senior reporter for Bloomberg News. He has previously worked at Quartz, The Economist and The Conversation. His writing has appeared in Nature, The Guardian and The Hindu. He has a PhD in chemistry from Oxford University and a BTech in chemical engineering from the Institute of Chemical Technology, Mumbai.

TEDxCAM 2010

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A month has passed since TEDxCAM 2010 and yet it as fresh in my memory as the last meal I had. My second TEDx event (after TEDx Warwick) proved to be many times better. It had more speakers, free food and was held in the Cambridge Union. It was a very professionally organised event for which I managed to get tickets only in the last week presumably because of over-subscription.

After a very foggy morning and a 3-hour train journey, I reached Cambridge feeling nippy. The fog was still lingering and all I could think about was reaching the venue on time. I paced myself through the tiny lanes to find the Cambridge Union (CU), and just like Oxford the walk from the train station to the union did not reveal much of the beauty of the town. The Union was located behind a very cute-looking church that was called, very unimaginatively, the ‘Round Church‘. I reached with about ten minutes in hand only to find a long queue of attendees trying to get inside the Union hall. After a brief wait and to my satisfaction, I found a great seat just behind Aubrey de Grey.

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Are fish oil supplements any good for school children?

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Are they any good?

In 2006, Equazen, a company that sells fish oil supplements donated to Durham city council enough pills to feed 3000 children for one year. Their aim was to assess if the supplements would enhance the performance of students and make a difference to the their GCSE scores. In the Guardian, Ben Goldacre pointed out that from the limited number of studies done on the efficacy of these pills, it was not clear whether the supplements are beneficial, have no effect or cause harm. He also suggested that, if the company is carrying out research on such a large scale, it might as well conduct it in a way that allows it to be considered as a proper ‘trial’ by having an equal number of students who were not given the pill (control group). The company paid no heed and nor did the city council persuade them. They went ahead with their plans and gave the children enough pills for the academic year 2007-08. A year later, the GCSE results were announced and instead of a better performance by the students, a decline in GCSE scores was observed (growth in the number of students gaining A* – C grades in 2006-07 was 5.5% and in 2007-08 it was only 3.5%). Eventually, the company made some dubious statements that received a lot of attention from the press and thus achieved their aim of advertising their product. Even then, Goldacre defended his case and stuck to his claims. Now in 2010, a double-blind study has been published in the journal, Review in Developmental Disabilities that investigates the efficacy of these supplements on normal school students.

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Why can’t we embrace the achievements of the Indian diaspora?

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An interesting discussion broke out when Prof. Sriram posted the news of Prof. Nitin Nohria being appointed as the new dean at the Harvard Business School. I thought an emotion-laden argument to be rebutted.

we feel proud when ‘one of us’ heads foreign organisations. is it because we feel accepted by the erstwhile colonists? Is that very stark, dark, harsh truth that a new appointment at IIM or even ICT, a story equally interesting, equally filled with strife and overcoming barriers, doesn’t make the newspapers. We identity with Dr. Nohria as one of us. He inspires us. We talk about him. We put his news on our fb walls. Not because he is dean of a business school. But its Harvard, oh and a phd from MIT an indian who has been tendered global acceptance as one endowed with intelligence. Are we still insecure?  How many shilpa shetty’s winning Big Brother UKs will make the headlines. Why can’t we look within ourselves to seek inspiration. Maybe, that’s why indian’s loose a handsome chunk of its talent to countries like the US. Coz u may be smart, but hey, do u have a degree from harvard? only then, are we talking.

but it us who appreciate HBS more than an IIM-A (getting into which is def more difficult)

Americans were not our colonists. The fact that an Indian genius has been recognised in a place full of geniuses is the achievement we are glad to hear. We are not trying to feel accepted but simply proud that someone has achieved it and someday even we can.

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