User:Shyamal
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
|
Contents |
Interests
I have been around on Wikipedia since 26 November 2002 and deal with topics on science and mostly those of biological interest and especially those of relevance to the Indian region. Also liable to tinker with many other topics including evolutionary/molecular biology, applied computational and statistical topics. I have a bachelors degree in the agricultural sciences with a major in entomology and a masters with a mix of statistics, computer science and genetics for agricultural research. My work in real life is in the area of computing for scientific applications. My interest in the wilderness and outdoors makes me link aspects of local natural history with topics in contemporary biology. Hopefully, free information will improve society.
- Indian biodiversity
- Biographical articles
- Science related articles
- Images All
- Notes
- Kitsch
- In the backburner
- A visual Template:Clade editor for Windows. CladEd
Other things I do
- Collating and curating bird related information - and software tools for it BirdSpot
Copyright and science in India
Information dissemination and usage has not been a high priority in India. A few science bodies in India have realized the close connection between open-access and the spirit of science. However, the Indian government by and large does not provide information access except through difficult bureaucratic channels such as through the Right to Information act. The idea of a democracy needs literacy, the ability to see functioning and for interaction and informed opinion. The 60/70 year copyright on works of government in Section 28 of the Indian Copyright Act 1957 is probably a relic from colonial rule and provides a good way of avoiding accountability. Most people do not think it is important, but it is now open to comment and your comment may be able to bring positive change here.
The matter is particularly of interest from the biodiversity angle. Taxpayer funded research by the Zoological Survey of India, Botanical Survey of India and MoEF funded NGOs like BNHS needs to follow the ethical policies of global conservation treaties and make their research open for all. This would also automatically improve the state of science. Publishing poor quality material in private journals that are inaccessible is a good way of destroying the framework of science. Here is how the others go about it.
Exchange of information about biodiversity is mandated by the legally binding international Convention on Biological Diversity, as are monitoring and benefit sharing. Yet researchers in the developing world, where most of the biodiversity is found, are unable to access much of this information. This impedes the monitoring of biodiversity: monitoring depends on the proper identification of species, and this is hindered by a lack of both specialists and access to relevant taxonomic information. The number of online publications with taxonomic content is increasing, and online tools are becoming available to mash up taxonomic with other information, for example at ispecies.org (see "Mashups mix data into global service" Nature 439,6-7; 2006). But copyright and high costs put this information beyond the reach of many in the developing world — which is home to more than 95% of species whose descriptions have been published. More than half the 1,600 descriptions of new ant species published in the past ten years are copyrighted, for example, but none are in journals published in the developing world.
This seems little better than biopiracy: taking biodiversity material from the developing world for profit, without sharing benefit or providing the people who live there with access to this crucial information...—Donat Agosti, Letter to Nature, 26 January, 2006 [1]
While some other countries are concerned about such acts, what about the high biodiversity countries themselves ?
- Shyamal, L. 2007. Opinion: Taking Indian ornithology into the Information Age. Indian Birds 3 (4): 122–137. PDF
Illustrations
The possibilities of computer generated bird illustration are as yet untapped. Virtual 3D models reflecting accurate colour and measurement from museum specimens may allow the identification of patterns as well as pave the way for new field guides that can be generated according to location and season and allow side by side comparisons of any species and search by feature and colours. Some ideas here seeking collaboration from museum workers.
I undertake making illustrations in the style followed here. You can make any requests for illustration on my talk page by providing reference photographs (and sufficient time).
 Rufous-crowned Sparrow Aimophila ruficeps |
|||
 Orioles |
|||
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
 Emlen funnel (Bird migration) |
Resources
- Biodiversity Heritage Library
- Species base
- IPNI
- Encyclopaedia of life
- ITIS catalogue of life
- Free sounds including bird calls
- The Internet Archive (giving wikipedia a good run)
- Semantic query dream taking shape
Sources needed
- An Englishwoman in India, The Memoirs of Harriet Tytler 1828-1858, Oxford University Press 1986
Wife of Colonel Robert Christopher Tytler (ornithologist) after whom Mt. Harriet in the Andaman Islands is named.
- Ernest M. Shull (b? - 18 Mar 2002 d) - Naturalist who collected butterflies and birds from the Surat Dangs in India. Possibly went to Indiana and wrote the Butterflies of Indiana.
My watch links
Hes1 Hes2 Pap Pie NymSatMorDanLyc Rio
- Reptiles
- Fish
- Mammals
- Amphibs
- B1
- B2
- B3
- B4
- Bangalore birds
- The French wikipedia - zoologist and botanist biography portal
| This is a Wikipedia user page.
This is not an encyclopedia article. If you find this page on any site other than Wikipedia, you are viewing a mirror site. Be aware that the page may be outdated and that the user to whom this page belongs may have no personal affiliation with any site other than Wikipedia itself. The original page is located at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Shyamal. |
