Professor Vinod K. Gaur from CSIR Centre for Mathematical Modelling And Computer Simulation gave an interview to the online journal "Vestnik ONZ RAN" (means "Newsletter of the Department of Earth Sciences RAS") Interviewer – Karina Bushmina. The cameraman – Ernest Kedrov, GC RAS.
K.B. Hello! Nice to meet you in our Geophysical center. First of all, what are your impressions of your visit to Russia, Moscow? Do you like it?
G. I’ve been visiting Moscow almost every year for the last 25 years. I still remember my first visit to Moscow, I spent 10 days here and I went to a trance because everything that I saw was so beautiful: from your beautiful galleries (I still remember those lovely icons in Tretjakov Gallery and in Pushkin museum I saw several masterpieces of such artists as Van Gogh and others, which I haven’t seen in western galleries before). I was greatly impressed by a great deal that I saw: your metro and great theatres, because I’m a big lover of music and I don’t miss an opportunity to go to the theatre or to the opera. Yesterday I went to an opera to see “Ruslan and Ludmila” by Pushkin and this evening I’m going to see “Evgeni Onegin” for the fifth time. I adore it very much.
K.B. Please, tell us about current situation in India.
G. Science in India is growing, it’s a big country. I’ve seen it growing in our own fields in many ways, physics of the Earth, and some very notable developments have to take place because of the collaboration of Russian scientists and Indian scientists in many fields. We began this collaboration by thinking of way of importing ideas: not just the use of technology and methods works as actually an advent of ideas. For example, how long did it take for the Solar nebula to give rise to planet-like bodies and we believe that at that time we can address this question by making use of two extraordinary complementarities between our two countries – the existence of rare meteorites in the Vernadsky institute and the existence of very incisive and radical instruments in the field of this extra boundary in India. And of course this is just one example, but there are several examples where the scientists from the two countries while having worked together have produced knowledge that is now recorded in a large number of joint papers, publications and journals. And indeed we have cause to be very gratified because of this collaborative research programs.
K.B. And what do you think about the geophysical part of this Indo-Russian program?
G. It has been very gratifying indeed, and several of my colleagues in India have greatly appreciated the opportunity of working with Russian scientists and thereby contributing to the development of geophysical knowledge both about the Indian continent and by comparison with whatever is studied in the Russian continent. The very fact that you and I are here talking to each other is a kind of adventure that nature hasn’t been able to carry out on any other planet except this. And I think it has been a very exciting experience for many of my colleagues in my country to have had this opportunity of coming here and working with Russian scientists.