vUnj Editorial Fulcrum of Development Most of the advances won by women’s in teenagers) in improving communication movements have benefitted white middle with members of the ‘opposite’ sex. However, class women more than others in the rest this does not translate into improving of the world. Such an inequity, and there relationships or altering views about the E-mail: [email protected] are more, is ignored in most forums. Our status of women. It often reinforces the culture seems to establish and reinforce this traditional views about sexuality and gender and awareness alone will therefore not be roles. Are men and women fundamentally There is woefully inadequate research adequate to commence altering the system. different? Perhaps there are many similarities in the area of science communication in (Sex is biological and given by genetics while between the sexes and yet experience, general and gender communication in gender is what society constructs and a lot heredity, orientation, class and education particular. A lot of empiricism is witnessed more complex.) I am convinced that you can have given rise to gender disparities. in the few field campaigns that have been be empowered to think more carefully and While traditional value systems are not launched. One’s own class, education, sex, analyse critically with a gender lens. comfortable in the urban middle class, we are etc., influences how such campaigns and the Indian women had no voice till a not yet convinced about the alternate views. communication material are used. few decades back. Most had no access to The rural community is more orthodox and Communication will be at the higher education and neither could they faces an even bigger barrier to change. This heart of any social change. Only this can own property. They were viewed as frail causes frustration in the community and challenge views that constrain individuals and delicate for any hard assignment or at the same time heightened interest in the and create inequities. Public discourse will intellectual work. Dowry, marriage and keen observer. be the key objective of any communication other social customs ensured their lower Gender, culture and communication strategy and this should guide our collective status. Views, even of women, will require are interlinked. We cannot address efforts. Communicating issues of gender more time to change. Family serials on most one without impacting on the others. development and the underlying concepts of entertainment television channels reinforce Perplexing questions need to be addressed science will form the core of the programmes the stereotypical roles. There are major by communicators when designing a mass supported by Vigyan Prasar. changes necessary before men, women and communication campaign. This is even The posters, books, films and radio children can live more humane and fulfilling more complex when the subject is gender programmes that are under preparation will lives. inequality. The exercise will be worthwhile help the community to initiate dialogue You talk to your friend about gender if it is effective. We celebrate International and begin the process of orientation of equity and as a result she changes her Women’s Day this month and issues of views and attitudes. Stereotypes are not perception. A teacher can influence her women’s health and nutrition have been easy to overcome but the challenge has students to evaluate their course and syllabus identified as areas of focus. to be addressed. Increased understanding differently. A person may seek to influence Regardless of whether you are privileged of the core messages will be a significant his employer to make more gender sensitive or oppressed by society, this editorial may achievement. This will encourage more work environment. Information through be unsettling. You might find it helpful to critical thinking on development agendas interpersonal communication is important begin by taking positive action and that of governments and the attitudes of the and effective. It helps to form opinions and would have served the objective of this page. individuals. attitudes that will change behaviour. I believe that change is needed in the way we There is a growing fascination (not only view and enact gender development. o Anuj Sinha Editor : Er Anuj Sinha Vigyan Prasar is not responsible for the statements and opinions Address for Vigyan Prasar, C-24, expressed by the authors in their articles/write-ups published in correspondence : Qutab Institutional Area, New Delhi-110 016 “Dream 2047” Tel : 011-26967532; Fax : 0120-2404437 Articles, excerpts from articles published in “Dream 2047” may e-mail : [email protected] be freely reproduced with due acknowledgement/credit, provided website : http://www.vigyanprasar.gov.in periodicals in which they are reproduced are distributed free. Published and Printed by Dr. Subodh Mahanti on behalf of Vigyan Prasar, C-24, Qutab Institutional Area, New Delhi - 110 016 and Printed at Aravali Printers & Publishers Pvt. Ltd., W-30, Okhla Industrial Area, Phase-II, New Delhi-110 020 Editor: Er Anuj Sinha 43 Dream 2047, March 2011, Vol. 13 No. 6 Derek Harold Richard Barton Maker of conformational analysis an essential part of organic chemistry “One of the fundamental conditions for life on the Earth is the ability of carbon atoms to Dr. Subodh Mahanti bind each other to a practically unlimited extent. They form chains, often very branched, E-mail: [email protected] but also rings and networks. The number of carbon compounds is thus very large — some years ago I saw the number two million — and many new ones are discovered or prepared decarboxylation, and the Barton-McCombie every day. It is obvious that a multitude of different substances are required to build up a deoxygenation. Barton published more than living organism and make it function.” 1,000 research papers. Derek Harold R. Barton Barton was born on 8 September 1918 “Conformational analysis may be described as the correlation of the preferred shapes in Gravesend, Kent, England to William or conformations of organic molecules with their chemical and physical properties. Thomas and Maude Henrietta Barton. Frequently it is possible to assume a preferred conformation from the molecule and thus He attended a number of schools, viz., to deduce something of its chemical and physical properties.” Gravesend County School for Boys (1926- Derek Harold R. Barton 29), King’s School in Rochester (1929-32), and Tonbridge School (1932-35). Finally “Barton’s first paper, published in 1943, described the volatile excretion of ethylquinone he had to leave school without getting any from flour beetles when under stress. Clearly, even the beetles knew that they had to qualifications because of his father’s sudden respond to the steely gaze of the young man and consequently (as they died) they exuded death in 1935. He had to help his family. He chemicals with interesting properties. That aside, this began his lifelong interest in natural worked as an apprentice in the timber trade. products even though some of his later years were largely dedicated to inventing chemical In spite of adverse circumstances Barton reactions.” harboured firm determination to excel in his Steven V. Ley in Biographical Memoirs of the Fellow of Royal Society (2002) life, to do something great in life. In 1937, he joined the Medway Technical College in erek Harold Richard Barton (mostly Gillingham. He joined the Imperial College Dknown as DHRB among his friends, of London, London University in1938 from colleagues and students) played an where he graduated in 1940. He not only instrumental role in making conformational obtained a first class honours degree but also analysis or the study of three-dimensional won the prestigious undergraduate prize, geometric structure of molecules as an the Hoffman Prize. He obtained his PhD essential part of organic chemistry. In 1950, degree in 1943. His doctoral adviser was Ian Barton published a brief research paper Heilbron, a Fellow of the Royal Society of entitled “The Conformation of the Steroid London. Nucleus” in a journal called Experimentia. Like all others Barton had to join the In this paper Barton showed that organic War efforts and worked for the government molecules in general and steroid molecules in during 1942 to 1944 at a military intelligence particular assume a preferred conformation. unit at Baker Street in London. The work in Barton reached to such a conclusion by which he was involved did not interest him analysing results accumulated by chemical much and undertook research work at night physicists, particularly by Norwegian in the laboratories of the Imperial College. chemist Odd Hassel (1897-1981). Barton’s At the end of the war he worked for Albright paper introduced the field of conformational Derek Harold Richard Barton and Wilson Ltd. in Birmingham as research analysis and its significance was soon realised chemist. He got involved in the synthesis of by fellow organic chemists. It revolutionised in chemistry”. organophosphorus compounds. Industrially organic chemistry. Barton’s paper was hailed Barton’s work on oxyradicals and the work was important but it failed to as the first real advance in stereochemistry his predictions about their behaviour in provide enough intellectual stimulus to since the theory of Jacobus Henricus van’t reactions helped in the development of a Barton. And so after a year Barton joined Hoff (1852-1911) and Joseph Achille le Bel simple method for synthesising