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Journalism of Courage
Naba Mondal still feels a pang when he remembers his last experiments at the Kolar Gold Fields in Karnataka. Abandoned deep underground in the mines was an ambitious Indian laboratory detecting neutrinos 8212; invisible, chargeless particles that penetrate Earth from cosmic rays, and are still a mystery to super detective physicists.
A decade after Kolar8217;s shut-down in 1992, an excited buzz in labs says our physicists will go underground again in another seven years. Near Ooty or Darjeeling, at a minimum Rs 250 to 300 crore cost 8212; and that8217;s putting it mildly.
Neutrinos were first detected at Kolar in the sixties. 8216;8216;It was Indian science8217;s greatest tragedy that Kolar8217;s readily available mines were closed,8217;8217; Bikash Sinha, director Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics, told The Indian Express from Kolkata. 8216;8216;At first, nobody thought we could rebuild it, but today the tempo is very high,8217;8217; he added.
Last September, the Department of Atomic Energy united a 55-member group of 15 science organisations to plan if they can build and run an Indian Neutrino Observatory INO. At Mumbai8217;s Tata Institute of Fundamental Research TIFR, Mondal 8212; particle physicist and INO project leader 8212; is creating a prototype particle detector and simulating experiments for a Kolar re-take.
Operational deadline is 2010, 1 km below the Nilgiri Hills or Rammam, West Bengal. Design ideas are flying from the Gran Sasso National Laboratory in Italy and Fermilab, USA, to India, but foreign collaboration is undecided.
By Nature magazine8217;s June estimate, building the lab will cost Rs 2.5 billion. The feasibility report is costing 1 million. Mondal says a budget revision has reduced funds for the feasibility report from Rs 5 crore to Rs 4 crore, but manpower will be more a problem than money.
The 15-member group includes TIFR, BARC, Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics, Kolkata, Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Chennai.
