Mars Chale!
“Towards the end of the century, Indians may participate in the planetary civilization that may result in many resourceful Indians inhabitating Mars and entering the space industrial establishment on Moon”.
Thank you Mr. Prez. Your vision for the future is much more grandeur than majority of the citizens of this country. To quote the great Dr. Sarabhai himself “There are some who question the relevance of space activities in a developing nation. To us, there is no ambiguity of purpose. We do not have the fantasy of competing with the economically advanced nations in the exploration of the moon or the planets or manned space flight. But we are convinced that if we are to play a meaningful role nationally, and in the community of nations, we must be second to none in the application of advanced technologies to the real problems of man and society.” Besides designing missiles and being part of the space club, how much of this scientific relevance can be applied to solve the real problems faced by humanity, especially in a country like us with a vast section still deprived of the basic amenities to lead a normal life - take for instance the weather forecasting.
Weather patterns have been on the flip-side for our country this year and call it global warming or the curse of the weather gods, extreme weather let its fury wreck havoc and the victims are thousands of innocent lives plus the material loss, throwing normal life out of gear. Tsunami in the southern part of the country, cloudburst at the city of Mumbai, flash floods at Bangalore and the interminable trail of cyclones that ravaged the state of Tamil Nadu, extreme cold temperatures in the northen part of this country. Seldom did I realize that there is a naming sequence for the cyclones that hit this part of the planet and Baaz, Mala and Fanooz became household names for people who had wondered with awe at the western nations naming their hurricanes Katrina and Rita and had thought of it as capitalistic phenomena foreign to developing nations like us.
I have always had this admiration of the western nations, especially the way in which technology and scientific pursuit had had an influence on their daily life. Weathermen and their detailed forecasts had always been my fascination in the US for I am only used to see female bimbos with their queer smiles reciting the temperatures measurements. This is weather forecasting for majority of the citizens of this country and the only imagery is the tiny map of India from one of the INSAT satellite that we get to see either in couple of national TV channels and few dailies the next day. This is status quo for the past decade or so, while the budgetary allocation of millions of taxpayer money to the department of space and other scientific establishments has only gone up. Not to undermine the count of unquestionable national pride - be it the design of various INSAT range of satellites, our own launch vehicles and the imageries captured by our remote sensing satellites are claimed to be one of the best in the world. Now there is the grandeur vision of building a Chandrayan and our scientific pursuit is all set to go extra-terrestrial. No one can catechize the feats of the ISRO since its inception in 1960s to where we are now with pride. Shouldn’t the next phase be lending more humane touch to our quest and to solve problems that are more native to us?
Weather satellites above us that can watch every inch of this country day-in and day-out or build doppler radar systems that can track any storm and give sufficient time for our citizens to take refuge or a Tsunami Warning System? Streaming animation of these imageries on the information super highway or a dedicated TV channel, and a climateologist educating the masses at time of crisis instead of the ill-informed neophytes creating panic. In Mumbai for instance, had we known the ensuing cloudburst atleast 3 hours in advance it wouldn't have left thousands of people left stranded on the streets for more than two days. Take the case of Tsunami, every news channel was talking about some unusual turbulence in the sea atlesat 6 hours before the real tragedy struck. How many graduates in this country pass-out in meteorological science program and perhaps end-up in an irrelevant IT job? Why not provide this technology to the lesser affluent nations of this region and affirm our super-power status.
Nonetheless, indubitable are our migratory traits - there would be an Indian designing chips, churning-out thousands of lines of code and fixing arterial holes of Martians, some deftly answering in a fake Martian accent, an Indian grocery shop selling from bournvita to betalnuts and a definite Taj restaurant to serve the delectable Indian delights to the outer planets!
Weather patterns have been on the flip-side for our country this year and call it global warming or the curse of the weather gods, extreme weather let its fury wreck havoc and the victims are thousands of innocent lives plus the material loss, throwing normal life out of gear. Tsunami in the southern part of the country, cloudburst at the city of Mumbai, flash floods at Bangalore and the interminable trail of cyclones that ravaged the state of Tamil Nadu, extreme cold temperatures in the northen part of this country. Seldom did I realize that there is a naming sequence for the cyclones that hit this part of the planet and Baaz, Mala and Fanooz became household names for people who had wondered with awe at the western nations naming their hurricanes Katrina and Rita and had thought of it as capitalistic phenomena foreign to developing nations like us.
I have always had this admiration of the western nations, especially the way in which technology and scientific pursuit had had an influence on their daily life. Weathermen and their detailed forecasts had always been my fascination in the US for I am only used to see female bimbos with their queer smiles reciting the temperatures measurements. This is weather forecasting for majority of the citizens of this country and the only imagery is the tiny map of India from one of the INSAT satellite that we get to see either in couple of national TV channels and few dailies the next day. This is status quo for the past decade or so, while the budgetary allocation of millions of taxpayer money to the department of space and other scientific establishments has only gone up. Not to undermine the count of unquestionable national pride - be it the design of various INSAT range of satellites, our own launch vehicles and the imageries captured by our remote sensing satellites are claimed to be one of the best in the world. Now there is the grandeur vision of building a Chandrayan and our scientific pursuit is all set to go extra-terrestrial. No one can catechize the feats of the ISRO since its inception in 1960s to where we are now with pride. Shouldn’t the next phase be lending more humane touch to our quest and to solve problems that are more native to us?
Weather satellites above us that can watch every inch of this country day-in and day-out or build doppler radar systems that can track any storm and give sufficient time for our citizens to take refuge or a Tsunami Warning System? Streaming animation of these imageries on the information super highway or a dedicated TV channel, and a climateologist educating the masses at time of crisis instead of the ill-informed neophytes creating panic. In Mumbai for instance, had we known the ensuing cloudburst atleast 3 hours in advance it wouldn't have left thousands of people left stranded on the streets for more than two days. Take the case of Tsunami, every news channel was talking about some unusual turbulence in the sea atlesat 6 hours before the real tragedy struck. How many graduates in this country pass-out in meteorological science program and perhaps end-up in an irrelevant IT job? Why not provide this technology to the lesser affluent nations of this region and affirm our super-power status.
Nonetheless, indubitable are our migratory traits - there would be an Indian designing chips, churning-out thousands of lines of code and fixing arterial holes of Martians, some deftly answering in a fake Martian accent, an Indian grocery shop selling from bournvita to betalnuts and a definite Taj restaurant to serve the delectable Indian delights to the outer planets!
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