I have spent three years of my life serving in NISCOM the earlier avatar of this institution as a scientist fellow in the Science Reporter Division. I had the good fortune with some really good science communicators, Biman Basu, Hasan Jawaid Khan and Sukanya Dutta during this "brief tenure'. The CSIR has a provision of appointing Scientist Fellows, without the usual fanfare of advertisements etc. So, when CSEC was not able to support me as a Visiting Fellow in 1998, Professor P. K. Srivastava, then the director of CSEC approached his close friend Dr Ashok Jain, who was the the Director of NISTADS and also the acting director of NISCOM. Both were located in the same building. Dr. Ashok Jain like Professor Srivastava is a perfect gentleman and a scientist to core. I was appointed for a year, without undergoing the usual painful formalities. The tenure was extended after one year without the slightest demur because I was found rather useful by Biman Basu, who was then the editor of the Science Reporter magazine, the only worth mentioning popular science monthly from India now.
The time was fairly pleasant till its new director, V. K. Gupta took over, who was earlier with NIC and was brought to NISCOM by Dr. R. A. Mashelkar, then the DG of CSIR. Gupta was a thorough bureaucrat, a total misfit to the NISCOM culture, obviously he was brought to NISCOM for administrative reasons. He could not really gauge my worth for the institution, so when the three year term (maximum allowed under the Scientist Fellow, Quick recruitment scheme) was over he refused to recommend my extension in NISCOM.
So that is the end of my story about NISCOM
Now, let me tell a bit about NISCAIR. The easiest and the way for this is to quote from its website:
National Institute of Science Communication and Information Resources (NISCAIR) came into existence on 30 September 2002 with the merger of National Institute of Science Communication (NISCOM) and Indian National Scientific Documentation Centre (INSDOC). Both NISCOM and INSDOC, the two premier institutes of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), were devoted to dissemination and documentation of S&T information.
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NISCOM had been in existence for the last six decades (first as two Publication Units of CSIR, which were merged to form the Publications Division, which was later renamed as Publications & Information Directorate and in 1996, as NISCOM). Over the years, NISCOM diversified its activities, and through a host of its information products, comprising research and popular science journals, encyclopaedic publications, monographs, books, and information services, it had been reaching out to researchers, students, entrepreneurs, industrialists, agriculturists, policy planners and also the common man.
INSDOC came into being in 1952 and was engaged in providing S&T information and documentation services through myriad activities such as abstracting and indexing, design and development of databases, translation, library automation, providing access to international information sources, human resource development, consultancy services in setting up modern library-cum-information centres. INSDOC was also host to the National Science Library and the SAARC Documentation Centre.
Now, with the formation of NISCAIR, all the above multi-faceted activities have been amalgamated, making NISCAIR, an institute capable of serving the society using modern IT infrastructure in a more effective manner and taking up new ventures in the field of science communication, dissemination and S&T information management systems and services. Broadly the core activity of NISCAIR will be to collect/store, publish and disseminate S&T information through a mix of traditional and modern means, which will benefit different segments of society. |
If you are keen for a career in science communication, and know someone fairly senior in CSIR who would push your name. then this is the institution for you.
Do explre about it on its website:
http://www.niscair.res.in/
