Every Indian has reason to feel proud of our space scientists, who successfully put Mangalyaan into Mars’ orbit in their maiden attempt. No other country has been successful in doing so at the very first try. Of course, the Indian Space Research Organisation alone deserves the credit for this feat. India became the first nation in all of Asia to achieve this distinction, a fact which even China acknowledged most grudgingly. Prime Minister Modi, while
expectedly making a play around the acronym MOM, was unstinted in his praise of our space scientists. This was a tribute to the visionary ISRO founders and the former prime ministers who, despite financial constraints, did not starve the space programme of adequate funding. India has now reached a take-off stage in our space programme, equipped
to use the Mars orbiter for exploring other planets in the solar system.
Of course, Mangalyaan is yet to land on Mars, its successful orbiting is merely a stage short of achieving that outcome. Only Russia, the US and Europe have landed on Mars so far and at much greater cost and after spending much more time than ISRO did. The pay-offs from the success of MOM will be tangible and in diverse fields. For one, it would lead to more ambitious missions by ISRO in the near future. Notably, the time taken by ISRO in accomplishing MOM was only two years. Two, the budget for ISRO could be stepped up given the real and emotional benefits that flow from its series of successes. Three, and no less significant, dozens of small, medium and big industrial and scientific units, both in the private and public sector, which supplied materials to MOM, are set to gain commercially from Wednesday morning’s stupendous success, which the PM rightly called ‘ near impossible.’ These companies can expect orders from domestic and foreign companies for the supply of specialised parts and systems that made MOM a huge success.
Meanwhile, a vital takeaway from the success of ISRO in our view is that whenever the political-bureaucratic-judicial establishment has left an institution alone to pursue its wholesome objectives, it has shown its full capabilities. It should be noted that if there is one institution where there is little or no interference from ruling politicians it is ISRO, though the scam-laden UPA had even here perpetrated what came to be called the Antrix scam. That being an exception to the rule, successive governments at the centre have indeed left the top scientists and engineers at ISRO undisturbed. And, to be fair, ISRO has more than repaid the trust reposed in it by the country. Its MOM has given the hard-pressed `aam aadmi’ something to cheer about. It truly deserves the nation’s gratitude.
Baby with the bathwater?
Without in anyway questioning the bona fides of the apex court, we do get the feeling that it is increasingly entering territories where it should think twice before so doing. For instance, the relief and rehabilitation package for the flood-affected in J and K, the height of hydel power dams, the arrangement to protect visitors to zoos, etc., etc., can well be left to the state and central executives. Judges are tasked to interpret the laws, but they cannot pretend to be all-knowing experts of everything under the sun merely because they are judges. We are constrained to make the above comment particularly in view of its order on Wednesday in the coal scam, cancelling all but four coal block allocations made since 1993. The cancellation of as many as 214 allocations was akin to throwing out the baby along with the bathwater. Exemplary costs on the wrongful allottees would have met the ends of justice.
Also, saddling the corrupt and inefficient state-owned Coal India Ltd. with the cancelled 214 coal blocks is clearly asking for too much. Given that it was its failure to produce enough coal to meet the needs of a growing economy which in the first place caused a huge hole in the forex reserves, with the import bill totting upwards of $85 billion alone per annum, the Supreme Court ought to have found a via-media to ensure that the sorry state-owned monopoly is not burdened with further responsibilities. This virtual backdoor nationalisation of coal-mining is a retrograde step and will tell on the economy in myriad ways in the coming weeks and months. Punishing scamsters is most welcome, and we are second to none in seeking strong punitive action against them, but it should be borne in mind that in so doing, the greater good is not jeopardised.
