Cake brownies

At the end of my first year at graduate school, the Charlottesville public library had a sale. That is where I purchased my first library. Amongst the books I picked up was a book titled Cookiemania by Jeri Dry and Alix Engel. It was a second hand book. One of the recipes was for Chocolate Munchies. Against this the original owner (hopefully) had written "Jeremy does not like these".  I often wonder who Jeremy was and why he did not like these cookies.
I worked through the book, making many cookies, except for chocolate munchies (after all Jeremy must not have liked it for a reason), for my friends and family. The major problem is that almost all the recipes call for eggs and when I want to make these for my students I have to work around the egg issue.
This week I decided to make Brownies. There are those who swear by fudge brownies and those who swear by cake brownies. I do not care as long as it is chocolate.
The Cake Brownie recipe in the book is fabulous with a rich frosting. When I made them yesterday I omitted the frosting.
So here is the recipe.
1/2 cup butter, 1/2 cup oil, 1 cup water, and 4 tablespoon cocoa should be mixed and brought to boil. Remove from fire and  add it  to 2 cups flour and 2 cups sugar mixture. I also added chopped vanilla pod instead of vanilla essence.
Then the original recipe calls for 2 eggs. I replaced it with 1/2 cup applesauce and 1 teaspoon baking powder.
To the above mixture, I added applesauce, baking powder, 1 tsp baking soda, and 1/2 cup buttermilk and vanilla essence.
I stirred in some walnuts (I did not measure this) and poured the batter onto a 9 X 13 inch greased and floured pan.

The brownies were baked at 180oC till done.

Multipe identities

I have got into the habit of carrying my multiple identity cards in my purse along with my mugshots. In the US, all I had to do was to remember my social security number. Every thing was linked to it. Here there is PAN number for tax purposes. Then the voter's id for voting purposes. And now the Aadhaar supposedly for everything but for nothing. Finally, most of the forms require a photo so it is useful to carry photo every where.
Now that the government is trying to implement the Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT), life has really become a case of multiple identity cards.
Yesterday I went to my LPG distributor to get my LPG connection linked to my aadhaar card. I filled the form and got my Adhaar card photocopied. However, there was a problem. The girl at the agency explained it very succintly as this:
"Ma'am, in those days when you got your connection all the names were entered incorrectly. So we will have to first correct your name in the our records. You need to fill the Know Your Customer form."
"But I did it couple of years back."
"You have to do it everytime some thing has to be changed in our records."
The KYC form required an address proof. My Aadhaar card has my old address and after making one attempt to change it, I kind of gave it up.  So  I whipped out my voter's id which has the new address and put that in. The form also required a photo so I pulled one out of my purse.
I do not know whether my LPG connection will be linked to the aadhar card or not. I met my colleague outside the shop. She had filled the form but there was a problem. She did not know what the problem was. She was frazzled. That is when I decided. If it is not linked after all this trouble, I am going to give up my subsidy. I cannot deal with this anymore.
On the other hand, maybe it is the clever ploy by the government to make us give up our subsidy.

Jugnu Bread (Zucchini Bread)

Last year when I got my oven I made zucchini bread and gave it to Sumitra, my maid. She loved it. Unfortunately, she could not pronounce zucchini and called it jugnu bread. So Jugnu Bread it is.
I made it yesterday for the lab meeting today.  The recipe is from allrecipes site. As I love to experiment (and drive my students crazy  by coming up with new experiments just when they are heaving a sigh of relief of getting their thesis done) I made some changes. I replaced the 3 cups of flour with part maida and part atta.  The 2 cups of white sugar was replaced with 1 cup sugar and 1 cup jaggery.  Oh, the zucchini was replaced with a mix of zucchini and carrot.
Since many of my students do not eat eggs, the 3 eggs were replaced with 3 mashed bananas.
Here it is:

At the UGC

Last year UGC overhauled its project proposal submission format. They told us that it would be done online. The only thing I can say about it was that the submission was an adventure. The entire system got hung up on the last day and there were many moments when I thought it was not worth it. The only thing that every paisa helps and the fact that my student was working very hard on the project motivated me to go through the entire process. I finished submitting about 8 in the evening and realized that the next day was Deepavali. So I ran to the mall opposite and picked the first dress off the hanger as the new dress for the festival. I also had my nephew staying with me and I took some of my frustration out on him by yelling at him.
It took UGC one year to process the application. In  November 2014 I was told that the I had to come for an interface meeting at UGC in January.
That day happened to be one of the foggiest and coldest and windiest.  The staff at UGC put up a tent in the back of the building and told us to wait there. So we waited. And waited. Till they would call us inside the building. And then we waited there some more.  My turn came after lunch. UGC does not believe in presentations. They wanted to know how many papers I have published and why I was doing this particular project. That was it.
Again if I had not wanted that bit of extra money (I can buy three antibodies, yay!) I would have walked out. It was humiliating.
I learned few things about teachers from other parts of country. I would not have survived in those conditions. Every one is Ma'am and Sir.  Including the clerk who was issuing attendance certificate (needed if one had taken duty leave to attend the meeting. As I had simply snucked out, I did not bother about it). Why is it that we cannot call each other by our given names? 
The Hindustan Times reports that UGC is set to go. This was proposed by the UPA government itself.
All I can say it is Good Riddance but it all depends on what will replace the UGC. The UPA government had proposed a mega structure encompassing UGC, AICTE and various other bodies. That would be a disaster.
What we need is to give Universities more autonomy with respect to hiring, salary structure, and fund raising. That is how Universities abroad function. But I doubt if it will even happen. I believe, seeing how this government is functioning, it will be just old wine repackaged in a new bottle.  With a dash of saffron thrown in.
Oh yes! I got the grant. As I said, I can buy three antibodies. Yay!

More on Indian National Science Congress

Long ago, when I was a graduate student and the internet had not evolved so far, there used to be usenet groups. These have merged into google groups now. One of the usenet group was soc. indian.culture.tamil where there would be regular posts by Tamil fanatics. The gist of their posts was that everything was wonderful in the land of Tamils in 2000 BC. And then the Aryans came...
I was reminded of it when I read about the fantastic claims being made at the Indian National Science Congress.  Everything was wonderful in Ancient India when Sanskrit ruled the roost (never mind that it was inaccessible to every one except a minute population).  In our ancient texts lies the solutions to everything- aviation, nanotechnology, medicine...the list is endless. And then...
Ugh!

The Indian National Science Congress and the Government

So, today the TV channels are beaming Modi's speech at the Indian National Science Congress. He has said that he will  make Science and Technology a 'priority' and promised to facilitate research. I wonder what kind of research is he planning to facilitate.  This year there is a session on Ancient Indian Aviation Technology. This is somewhat like what Vishaka Hari and others of ilk blithely declare that today's science is bunkum and that our sages and such like people knew real science (It is one of major reasons I dislike Vishaka Hari's discourses). 
The problem with right-wing politicians is that they are unable to differentiate between mythology and science. The real mischief is when they introduce these mythological tales as science in schools and when they promote research in these 'areas'.
If Mr. Modi is seriously interested in promoting science, then he would do well to stop talking about how creation of Ganesha is vindication that the ancient Indians knew plastic surgery and how the birth of the Kauravas implies that someone at that time knew Genetic Engineering and cloning. 
If Mr. Modi is serious about promoting research then he better figure out how to rejuvenate our crumbling universities. If he is truly serious about this, then he better think how he is going to attract good faculty and keep them in India.  And he better get a good, competent minister to helm the HRD ministry.