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2000-2002
After my M.Sc., my immediate aim was to qualify National Eligibility Test (NET), a test conducted by CSIR to determine eligibility for Junior Research Fellowship & Lectureship. The minimum age required to appear in the exam was 19 years and I was only 12 then. After some problems, finally Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), Government of India granted me special permission to appear in the exam and I took this exam in Dec. 2000. The permission was on the basis of positive recommendation of an interview-committee consisting of physicists of National Physical Laboratory (NPL). The examination result was announced in May 2001 and declared me successful. It was the first time that I qualified a national level competitive exam and hence it became a news. I got invitation from Department of Science & Technology (DST), India Government, to join a team of young scientists, for participating in Nobel Prize winners' meeting held in Germany from Jun.25-29, 2001.
I was quite excited. It was my first foreign visit and I was going to meet the greatest minds of physics world. I enjoyed my two-week long Germany trip completely. I came back to India on Jul.09, 2001. The most unfortunate event of my life occured soon after my return. On Aug.08, 2001, the headlines of all Indian newspapers was that I am a fraud. Why?, because DST was "reported" to admit that it was a blunder to send me to Germany without checking my certificates. I was shocked. Those people, who were praising me, now started hating me. I was again in limelight but as a fraud. For a 14-year old child, it was more than a disaster and I went into a state of depression. I can't describe in words what happened to me at that time. After two days, a twist came in story. DST issued a press-release saying that it hasn't made any statements like this and the media reports were baseless. So, according to DST, it was a totally right step to send me to Germany. It gave me a relief. I hoped that people will know the fact, but alas newspapers didn't publish this news. After all, how they can admit the fact that their recent headlines were "baseless".
Same situation; nothing changed. Finally we had to move to court for justice. We filed a defamation suit, which is still under trial. I was not able to get in Ph.D. anywhere that year, because of the controversy. It was only after one year that I got Ph.D admission in IISc after qualifying GATE exam and IISc interview. From Aug.2002, I started a new life, for the first time away from my family.
My Childhood School life Golden Period 2000-2002 I & IISc