Alert :Very Long Read. What to do? Wife is busy in the hospital helping one of her patients to add one more to Indias burgeoning population. Being in charge of the kids at home, Im on the bed with them waiting for them to enter their dreamland with the lights turned off and the TV switched off, I have nothing else but bore you people with my thoughts. Today I saw a lot of people screaming their lungs out on TV, writing page after page in newspapers and occupying cyberspace with questions like A) One in two children in India is hungry, do we need to do this? B) 40 % of the population has no access to toilets,do we need to do this? C) No drinking water for all of us,do we need to do this? D) Not enough schools and colleges for our children, do we need to do this? E) Bad Road network and poor infrastructure and connectivity in our country,do we need to do this? F) Our public health system is dying,do we need to do this? G) Without getting our Social security system, emergency response systems, do we need to do this H) Our agriculture systems, methods and infrastructure are woefully outdated, do we need to do this. Many such questions asking Do we need to do this? The people are absolutely right in asking that question but they are asking it to the wrong people. If they asked Mayavati when she was building those grotesque statues of herself along with elephants at a cost of thousands of crores then they are right. If they ask Narendra Modi who in his megalomanical and self promotional objective is setting out to build a statue for 2000 crores then they are right. But sadly they are asking this question to ISRO for spending a measly 440 crores for the MARS mission. Let me explain why these people are totally way off target in even trying to question the only organization in the Indian establishment that is truly world class and easily figures in the top ten in the world.That too inspite of being a Government organization and with budgets that are a fraction of what the other countries in the top ten spend. Point No. 1: Miniscule Spend. 440 crores in Indias GDP and budgetary spend (not very sure, I think about 10 lakh crores) is in the 1/100 th decimal place of a percent. Do you mean to say thats big by any chance? Point No 2: Not Either Or Choice. Well if we close down the space program do you mean to say all the problems I enlisted above will vanish in a jiffy. The above set of problems are a product of poor planning, wrong policies, inefficient governance, haphazard implementation,rampant corruption, inadequate monitoring and lack of political will. The poor Space program has nothing to do with it nor has it robbed the essential programmes off what is due to them. Point No 3: Socialistic Misinformation and Perceived elitist entity: This is what a lot of people with the misinformed old socialist mentality try to do. Tag everything that the poor in India dont require for everyday survival as elitist and batter it without realizing the immense potential it could have. For eg.When Cellphones came they trashed it saying it is only for the wealthy. But today every person, poor or rich, has a mobile.It is a tool for empowerment,employment,education,entertainment for the poor and not the elitist entity it was meant to be.. Then they did the same to Tourism saying it is for the rich only without realising that Tourism has the biggest potential to generate employment and revenue. They are doing it to the aviation sector but will soon realise the benefits of air connectivity to the aam admi(common man) . Likewise Space too should not be seen as an elitist enterprise, it could hand out the biggest promise to our poor. Point No 4: Holistic Development A country will not develop only if it restricts itself to feeding its hungry and healing its sick. It needs all round development. For instance why do many people travel to Europe? Its for the their Art and Culture scene. To Africa? Its to experience nature. Whats our first impression about Australia? A great sporting nation.And for that matter why is it that once every four years we forget that we are Indians and behave like the Samba mad fellows?Yes Brazil at the soccer world cup. So you see that a country to develop cannot stop with only the basic needs but have to look beyond them. Did you know that our world class Space Programs budget is not even 1/20th of our Sports budget and we are officially not even a part of World Sports with the International Olympic Associations ban in place? Point No 5: Benefits from Space Program. When the Indian Space Program was launched many criticised it.And mind you it was launched at a time when India had famine and hunger deaths. But the doyens of the space Program were adamant and went ahead. Today our agriculture has benefited from it , our Television, Radio and Communication has improved. Not to forget the life saving Weather Monitoring has improved. You must have read my post on Cyclone Phailin and how the weather satellites helped in the planning and timing of the evacuation. Not less than 50000 lives were saved because of this. Now can you place a monetary value on human life and that too 1000s of lives. Point No 6: Spin Off Technologies: How many of you have tasted the ITCs Kitchens of India Yakhni Ghoshth Biriyani? Wondering what this has to do with Space. It is a product of the Defence Research Development Organizations research on how to preserve food without preservatives for its troops in the frontline and for space travel. The result.I pay 150 Rs. ,put the satchet in boiling water and open it and start eating the Biriyani anytime anywhere. The same damn Biriyani costs 900 bucks at the ITCs 5 star hotels. On a more serious the technology to design light weight material for space craft has resulted in Calipers for Handicapped children being less than 1/10th their weight making life easier for them.(Abdul Kalam has said that this was the one achievement that gave him the most satisfaction) Space and Defence products are researched and developed to withstand the most demanding of situations and survive the extremes of conditions. And products developed for these purposes can be useful in our everyday lives also. Dont be surprised if a vehicle with better newer and cleaner fuel, appliances that use negligible power, better sound proof material and many more technologies are available to the general public. Space travel is another futuristic idea.Richard Benson is selling a seat on his Virgin Galactic for a two trip to potential tourists at 440000 dollars or roughly 2.5 crores. With our cost efficient methods India could become a space tourist destination for a much cheaper price but with a proven track record. So Space exploration has immense potential and we as a country need to support it. I thinly I have spoken enough in defence of the Indian Space program and thanks for having the patience to read through till the end.
Posted on: Tue, 05 Nov 2013 18:58:35 +0000
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