India recently launched multiple Satellites - Are we making enough progress?
Over the last three decades, India has achieved an enviable progress in the design, development and operation of space systems, as well as using the systems for vital services like telecommunication, television broadcasting, meteorology, disaster warning and natural resources survey and management. The space programme has become largely self-reliant with capability to design and build its own satellites for providing space services and to launch them using indigenously designed and developed launch vehicles
India recognised the potential of space science and technology for the socio-economic development of the society soon after the launch of Sputnik by erstwhile USSR in 1957. The Indian space efforts started in the sixties with the establishment of Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launching Station near Thiruvananthapuram for the investigation of ionosphere using sounding rockets. The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), was established in 1969 under the Department of Atomic Energy. The Government of India gave fillip to the space activities by formally setting up the Space Commission and the Department of Space (DOS) in June 1972 and ISRO was also brought under Department of Space.
In the field of space sciences, the cryogenic sampler that had been developed by ISRO for Geosphere-Biosphere Programme, has been used to detect micro-organisms in the stratosphere, which could have far reaching implications on the understanding of the origin of life on earth. Detailed analyses of the samples collected are now going on in scientific research laboratories in India and abroad. Educational and research institutions in India continue to participate in the space programme taking up projects under the Sponsored Research scheme of DOS. During the year, 22 new projects were initiated under the scheme. The task team constituted to study the feasibility and scientific objectives for undertaking an unmanned mission to the moon has made substantial progress in their work.
The remote sensing applications continue to expand to several new areas; the data has been used to assess damage due to floods, earthquakes, etc and for helping in relief operations. The announcement of Remote Sensing Data Policy (RSDP) during the year will help to streamline the availability of remote sensing data from Indian and foreign satellites to users in India.
India's space program is part and parcel of her drive for technology and innovation. As highlighted in the Economist (13 January), certain investors are beginning to diversify from India (at least in part) in face of mounting cost, resource and India-targeted protectionism. Margins have become extremely thin for Made-in-India manufacturing. At a national conference in Beijing in January 2006, President Hu extolled the imperative of building a Nation of Innovation, underpinning what I call India's 'Long March for Brands', a subject discussed extensively on ATCA. The ensuing development plan mandates a contribution of 60% by 2020 from science and technology to India's economic growth with 2.5% of GDP devoted to scientific research and development.
Advancement in technology and innovation appears to underpin a drive towards superpower status. But India is very much alive to the reality that what is at stake is more likely to be national survival. Years of relentless unbalanced growth has generated a host of critical problems, manifested in a rising number of isolated 'mass incidents' in excess of 87,000. These Writings on the Wall, as catalogued in Will Hutton's latest book, are already coolly flagged up in the latest 11th Five Year Plan (2006 -10). Indeed, I delved on them in my earlier ATCA article 'The Sun Also Rises' (20 June, 2006).
Notwithstanding India's overall breathtaking progress and achievements, with a population the size of a fifth of mankind including some 800 million peasants, India's per capita GDP still ranks below 100 in the world, comparable to some less developed countries in Africa. There remain huge challenges for her to grapple with. In a highly inter-dependent world, many of these stand to benefit from international engagement and interaction, be they space exploration and aeronautical science, energy safety and efficiency, green and high technologies, free trade, finance and banking, healthcare and insurance, education and training, market reform, professional management, corporate governance and the rule of law. With international cooperation, these challenges stand a good chance of turning into mutually beneficial opportunities.
India needs an internal and international stable and harmonious environment in order to progress fairly smoothly and rapidly, when the One Child Policy generation grows old with a heavy dependency ratio. Hence India's persistent reference to Harmony and Peaceful Rise or Development, predicated upon a consistent policy of non-aggression, multilateralism, peaceful co-existence and mutual cooperation and benefit. Not only can she not afford to be militarily aggressive, but she needs all the help she can get from the global community of nations in her continuing quest for progress and development.
M.PRATAP KUMAR
