The Indian space effort.

A long time ago, in the early 1960's, an Indian physicist called Vikram Sarabhai was busy pulling all the strings he could and then some. And some of those strings were quite powerful: Sarabhai had, as a close friend Homi Jahangir Bhaba, the man who would later be called the father of India's nuclear programme and go on to establish the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research at Bombay. He (Sarabhai) was a man of impressive credentials- he had worked with C.V Raman (NL) at the hallowed Physics Dept of the Indian Institute of Science. He was much more than a scientist.. he was a visionary of sorts- had had helped establish the Physical research Laboratory at Ahmedabad when he was only 28. Anyway, coming back to the original thread of the story: why was he pulling all those strings? The reason was the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO). This was Sarabhai's baby and his gift to independent India. Of course, there were detractors and naysayers: there always have been and always be. And they were not wrong when they pointed out that the meagre resources of a fledgling state should not be squandered on grandiose dreams when so many of our people lived off scraps of food and lived in hovels. But nations have been built out of the obstinacy of strong willed men; and Bhaba and Sarabhai were of that colour. They dreamed big and dared anyone to stand in their way.

Unlike any other space programme, the ISRO was not born out of military considerations; it's ancestry had nothing of ballistic missile development in it. Decades of effort amidst cash crunches, changes of government, hostile ministries and even more hostile Western influence who proceeded to sanction the hell out of any ongoing projects followed. The scientists persevered. Small successes were interspersed with tragic failures. Work went on. Sometime in the mid 90's, when the US government was twisting arms around the world to sign the NPT, one Indian minister made the following comment: 'the nations who are signing the NPT do not have the industrial capacity to produce safety pins. We have a satellite footprint which stretches from Malaysia to Abu Dhabi'.

So why this story? Well, yesterday, the ISRO successfully launched 10 satellites on a single PSLV rocket to polar orbit. This is a record for the largest number of satellites launched on a single vehicle and signals the successful entry of India into the highly lucrative business of space based applications and delivery systems. The full story is here. And the message for all Indians is this: be proud. And do your bit.