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Journalism of Courage
Child prodigy, overhyped son of an ambitious father with weird ideas, child blunder8230; At 15, Tathagat Avatar Tulsi has been through all of these and more. But the prestigious Indian Institute of Science IISc in Bangalore has closed the debate. Tulsi has become the youngest student ever to secure admission to its illustrious doctoral programme.
8216;8216;We went through a normal admission procedure and found him good and up to the mark so we selected him,8217;8217; says Professor Goverdhan Mehta, director of IISc which is known for its exacting standards of academic excellence and strict admission policy.
He is doing some mandatory course work that any PhD student is required to do. Before the end of this year, he hopes to start work on his research 8212; an acceptable theoretical framework which will explain how high temperature super conductors work.
Tathagat, who has registered with theoretical physicist Prof H.R. Krishnamurthy, says his effort would be to identify super-conducting materials which will not need excessive cooling. Dubbed room temperature super conductors, these futuristic materials are today only a dream and when it happens electricity losses would be reduced to minimum.
Krishnamurthy says: 8216;8216;There are many things Tathagat has to learn before he can proceed with his PhD. He is self-taught and has many holes in his knowledge-base.8217;8217;
The professor adds that Tathagat has to prove himself since nobody at the institute will give him extra credit for his younger age.
Tathagat says the academic ambience at the institute is very invigorating and that his colleagues and seniors are very co-operative and treat him like an equal.
Born into a lower middle-class family on September, 9, 1987, Tathagat holds the Guinness World Record for obtaining an MSc in physics from Patna University, at the age of 12 years and 2 months in 1999.
Tathagat passed the GATE exam and then routinely applied for admission to IISc, which is also called the Tata Institute, and managed to clear two tough rounds of interviews to get selected for the research program, which earns him a standard scholarship. He was also supported by the Department of Science and Technology for an overseas exposure in Europe.
For the first time in his life, Tathagat is staying away from his family in a single room provided by the institute in the students hostel. Tathagat says he now gets more time to peacefully read books from the 8216;8216;very rich library.8217;8217;
He says he joined the doctoral programme at IISc, on advice from Human Resource Development Minister Murli Manohar Joshi who 8216;8216;was very keen that he does his PhD in India and not go abroad.8217;8217; 8216;8216;I heeded Joshiji8217;s sage advice,8217;8217; says Tathagat.
But he aspires to go abroad for post-doctoral programme either at Princeton University or at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology MIT after his stint at IISc.
