Research topics chosen by scientists can be obvious - at least that is the topic in today's Wall Street Journal. I found most of it to be hilarious.

Most of the article is shown below:

Want job satisfaction? A "careful choice of career is the key," researchers concluded in a paper this spring in the Journal of Economic Psychology. Choosing a career based on a well-lubricated encounter at a bar, it turns out, may not be the most promising route to career satisfaction. People who choose their jobs carefully are more likely to be satisfied with them than those who take a flying leap into the great unknown.

In April, scientists reported in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research that college students tend to drink much more alcohol than they think. Or, may I suggest, than they like to think. Or than they admit to their parents. Or remember.

Want to reduce problems with medications, such as harmful side effects or drug combinations that will kill you? The solution is at hand: "Communication between primary-care physicians and patients can reduce" such problems and the chance that patients will be harmed. That is especially true if doctors encourage their patients to -- wait for it -- tell them when they experience a bad side effect, concluded a study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine in January. When patients reported an adverse effect, they were more likely to be switched to a different drug than if they never mentioned it. For this, let us be grateful.

In what its sponsors called a "landmark study," scientists found that when your fingers are numb and turning that lovely robin's-egg blue, you make more typing effors. Er, errors. "When employees get chilly," the scientists concluded, "they are not working to their full potential." Achoo!

Investigators working on that finger-in-the-chili case at Wendy's may find inspiration in a study published online in March in the Annals of Emergency Medicine. Every year some 28,000 kids and adults wind up in hospital emergency rooms because some mishap has cut off a finger; one high-risk group is men over 55. Apart from digits lost in workplace accidents, the most common cause of finger amputation in the men is -- drumroll, please -- power tools. So anyone looking suspiciously at, oh, sinks or toasters for their finger-gobbling potential can more profitably focus on chainsaws.

Taking nothing, especially not their readers' intelligence, for granted, the researchers advise men who use power tools to "avoid exposing their fingers to direct contact" with razor-sharp blades spinning at a few thousand rpm. Wise advice, to be sure, although you've got to think that anyone who didn't know this is in for more serious problems than a lost finger.

Just in case you were wondering whether it's a good idea to suck up carcinogens and respiratory poisons when your airways are already crippled, scientific proof is at hand. A study found that asthma worsens the effects of smoking, putting puffers at greater risk for the kinds of lung problems that smoking causes than people without asthma. If you do not have asthma, your airways are in somewhat better shape to withstand a toxic assault. Bottom line: Doctors should urge asthmatics to quit smoking.

Far be it from me to belittle research on forensic science, since I have written about the importance of questioning such conventional wisdom as the reliability of fingerprint evidence and the credibility of confessions. But surely we can do better than a February study in the journal Psychonomic Bulletin & Review that concluded that it's easier to identify someone close to you than someone more than a football-field-length away. At 450 feet, the scientist concludes, "the human visual system starts to lose small details."

If you had found yourself in the nation's capital earlier this month, you might have heard researchers at an American Heart Association conference proclaim that if you work full time and watch television, play videogames or surf the Internet in your off hours, then you are probably not engaging in as much heart-healthy physical activity as full-timers who spend no time with TV, videogames and the computer.

Full-time workers who spend more of their down time in front of a screen also get significantly less exercise than part-time workers who spend the same number of hours glued to one screen or another, but do other things with the rest of their time. (Memo to self: Working full-time eats up . . . time.) While the finding fails the "tell us something we didn't know" test, at least it does so with statistical significance: It was based on data from 4,500 people.

TIME magazine's 100 best films of all time was just released. Amazingly, this is not a US centric list. I was surprised (rather pleasantly) to find that three Indian movies have made it to the list.

The ones that have made it to the list are Nayakan and Guru Dutt's classic Pyaasa - both being favourites of mine.

And of course, the Apu Trilogy directed by Satyajit Ray (consisting of Pather Panchali, Aparajito and Apur Sansar

But there are so many more that I have seen and so many more that are worth seeing. Among them, Godfather (I and II), Purple Rose of Cairo, ET (The Extra Terrestrial), Finding Nemo, Dr. Strangelove, the inevitable Citizen Kane, Casablanca, It's a Wonderful Life, Francois Truffaut's Day for Night, the brazen Pulp Fiction, Raging Bull, Schindler's List, Star Wars.

There is much in it for everyone - please go to the list and read it.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's article in WSJ.

On the event of the present government completing one year in power, the Prime Minister of India, Manmohan Singh, wrote the following piece in the Wall Street Journal dated 19th May, 2005.

A New India

By MANMOHAN SINGH

NEW DELHI -- If a commitment to remain an open society is one of the pillars of India's nationhood, the other is our commitment to remain an open economy -- one that guarantees freedom of enterprise, respects individual creativity, and mobilizes public investment for social infrastructure. Indeed, it would be no exaggeration to suggest that these are the principles to which all countries will increasingly want to adhere.

Just as developed industrial economies enabled "economies in transition" to graduate into open economies, developed democracies should also assist "societies in transition" to become open societies. I believe India's policies toward the world have been shaped by this commitment, and we should be proud to identify with those who defend the values of liberal democracy and secularism across the world.

Over the past decade, the debate in India on the nature of our interaction with our wider Asian neighborhood -- and with major powers -- has also been shaped by sweeping changes in our economic policy. The initiatives India took in the early 1990s toward economic liberalization have not only altered our interaction with the world, but have also shaped global perceptions of India. Indeed, they have shaped more than mere perceptions. They have altered the manner in which other nations, big and small, relate to us. Today, there is a greater willingness internationally to work with India -- and to build relationships of mutual benefit.

The steps that successive Indian governments have taken since 1991 have helped to finally remove what development planners used to refer to as the "external constraint" on growth. Indian industry and Indian professionals have demonstrated their ability to step out with confidence from a highly protected environment into a mercilessly competitive one.

We do have a vast unfinished agenda of social and economic development, and my government's priority will be to implement this. Doing so will further enable us to deal with the challenges of globalization. The global environment has never been more conducive to India's economic development than it is today. The world wants India to do well. However, we recognize that our real challenges are at home. It is for this reason that we place such great emphasis on increasing investment in infrastructure, agriculture, health and education, urban renewal and the knowledge economy. Having ensured that there is today no external constraint on growth, we must now ensure that there remain no internal constraints to development.

* * *

To say that the external constraints on growth have gone, however, is not to suggest that we are making full use of new opportunities. There is much more that we can do to draw on global savings and global markets. As a developing economy, we must tap international resources to fuel our development. We should be more open to global capital flows and better prepared to take advantage of new markets for goods and services. India is wholly committed to multilateralism in trade: But we will seek the reform and democratization of multilateral institutions.

Globalization is both an opportunity and a challenge. A decade ago, who could have imagined that India would be a major software services exporter and that a new process of "brain gain" -- not "brain drain" -- would be created by opportunities in these sectors? We now ask ourselves if we are doing enough to secure this edge. The growth of India's knowledge economy has opened up new markets for science- and technology-based products. In manufacturing, too, there are global opportunities. The end of the multifiber agreement opens up new vistas for trade in textiles.

India would like to make globalization a "win-win" game. How we deal with its challenge -- and how we make use of its opportunities -- will shape our relations with the world, and the perception of our capabilities as a nation. This has already happened in substantial measure. Our relations with major powers, especially the U.S. and more recently China, have increasingly been shaped by economic factors. Who could have imagined that China would emerge as our second largest trade partner? In the case of the U.S., an acceleration of people-to-people contact and the consequent business-to-business interaction has forged closer state-to-state relations. Shared values and growing economic links have enabled a closer strategic engagement.

Similarly, business and commerce also underpin India's strategic partnership with the European Union. It must be our endeavor to ensure that economic and commercial links contribute to a strong and new element in our traditionally friendly relations with Russia. In fact, I believe that our strategic relationship with the Russian Federation can be greatly enriched by a greater focus on bilateral economic relations. Renewed cooperation in the economic field is giving a new profile to India's relations with Japan, with Japanese investment flows set to increase. Concern for energy security has become an important element of Indian diplomacy and is shaping our relations with a range of countries across the globe, in West Asia, Central Asia, Africa and Latin America.

It is notable that the response of other countries to India's national security concerns is being shaped by perceptions of business and economic opportunities. Countries that imposed sanctions on India when we declared ourselves a nuclear weapons power are building bridges with us, to take advantage of the opportunities for mutual economic benefit. None of us can underestimate the role of economic interdependence in international relations. The example of the EU, Asean and Apec, Nafta and other regional groups shows that the most dynamic economies are creating such relationships for mutual benefit, regional security and peace.

Indeed, India seeks to be more closely engaged with such regional groups. Our links with each of these regions is both civilizational and contemporary, with people of Indian origin acting as a cultural bridge between our multicultural societies. Our foreign policy is, of course, shaped by our civilizational values, and by our commitment to peace and freedom. But it is now equally shaped by our commitment to our economic development, within the framework of an open society and an open economy.

Mr. Singh is prime minister of India. He completes a year in office on May 22.

I just read that Ismail Merchant dead. It is indeed a sad moment for the Merchant Ivory combination that one half has died. They produced some stellar movies, many of which were critically acclaimed, but bombed at the box office.

Incidentally, Ismail Merchant was responsible for rescuing many of Satyajit Ray's movies from almost certain death and putting them back in print. I wonder what will happen to that effort now.

I read this article about Dr Jayant Patel disappearing from Australia and being the cause of death of some 87 patients (still being investigated) truly shocked me! What is going on?

I have always thought that Indian doctors are among the best in the world! Especially the ones that have practised in the US!! And here we have the case of a doctor, graduating from MP Shah College of Medicine, Gujarat in 1973, coming to the US and getting certified as a surgeon, then getting reprimanded, escaping to Australia, practising there and being the cause of so many more deaths.

Is the craze for money so great that human lives mean nothing? Does the Hippocratic oath stand for nothing?