Interdisciplinary studies and its positive outcomes: A review

Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire or CERN situated in Switzerland is the house for the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) which is the world’s largest and most powerful particle accelerator. The LHC consists of a 27-kilometer ring of superconducting magnets with several accelerating structures to boost the energy of the particles along the way. The beams inside the LHC are made to collide at four locations around the accelerator ring, corresponding to the positions of four particle detectors, namely, ATLAS, CMS, ALICE, and LHCb. Its mission is to, provide a unique range of particle accelerator facilities that enable research at the forefront of human knowledge, perform world-class research in fundamental physics, unite people from all over the world to push the frontiers of science and technology, for the benefit of all.

Re-read the last part of the previous paragraph. The sentence shows that one of the missions of CERN is to “unite people from all over the world to push the frontiers of science and technology”. How would people from different parts of the countries get united to the team that will be working on such sophisticated and futuristic researches? The term “people” here do not mean those who can just represent a country or nation. The “people” in the team have to be “the best” in the lots of people in a country. And here arises the challenge to build such brilliant minds from the civility. Brilliant minds are built through education and training. And where do we get facilities to school, educate and train? The answer is – in the places of teaching, which are links to the massive chain called “the education system”. In this context, we need to see the efficacy of the new education policy promulgated by the Government of India in 2020. 

The new education policy 2020 of India is a path changer for the betterment of all the citizens in India. There are many chapters in this policy that are different from the present one. We shall discuss one out of all these, namely, - THE INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCHES. It is a welcome step with regards to:

It will integrate information, data, techniques, tools, perspectives, concepts, and theories from more than one discipline of specialized knowledge to solve problems through advance fundamental understanding. Interdisciplinary works will bolster the earlier created platforms where students have groomed themselves by studying subjects of their choices. Students having schooling with a combination of subjects like chemistry, economics, and music can frame practical researches. Let us give an example.

The news of “stubble burning” by the farmers in the agriculture fields adjacent to Delhi NCR has already started attracting noises from different levels, including political. The noise is the only repetition of the rhetoric we have been hearing for the last couple of years. This will now get aggravated with the festival of lights, deepotsav. Suddenly we will find debates on tv, social media, and all other platforms as if the sky will come crumbling down. While we appreciate the menace of air pollution and its adverse impact on all living beings, we at the same time find it difficult to digest the fact that the problems are left for discussions alone, and no solutions have been coming forward. It only gives a feeling that whether the central research institutes funded with we taxpayers money are doing works in these directions or they are just producing research papers and doctoral students. Whether the private research institutes and NGOs too are yielding workable solutions or they are showing research projects for tax exemptions. 

Here comes the unprecedented vision focussed on the Education System, the NEP 2020. The importance of interdisciplinary studies and also the importance of allowing children to choose subjects of their passion will create individuals, who can understand, comprehend, conceptualize, and take forward practical researches. 

I will leave the subject of interdisciplinary studies and give food for thought to the readers of my blog to suggest ways to tide over the problem of (a) “stubble burning” post-harvest and (b) crackers during deepotsav.

See you soon.

-the alchemist