The year-old UDAN Regional Connectivity Scheme has mobilised India’s aviation sector, helping consolidate a domestic market for its indigenous commercial aircraft. It can similarly nurture strategic emerging industries – if a national transportation policy is put in place. The UDAN Regional Connectivity Scheme was launched in 2017 to provide
Big Science
In order to march boldly ahead into the deep space, New Delhi must work towards building a station, boost its techno-economic planning and use the Indian Space Research Organisation smartly. The 2020s will be a decade of space stations. The well-established space powers — Beijing, Moscow, Washington, Paris, Tokyo
The two countries’ proposal to carry out a robotic sample-return mission to the Moon in the 2020s is a laudable attempt at catching up with Beijing’s rather more advanced lunar agenda. And there are many lessons that Japan can offer India. India and Japan took their deepening natural
India is missing from the new wave of industrialisation that the space powers – both well-established and new – are ushering in. New Delhi must use the Indian Space Research Organisation smartly to create a competitive industrial base of avant-garde technologies, not regard it a mere revenue generator. The 2020s
The Indian Space Research Organisation’s (ISRO) recently announced intention to visit the planet Venus – the third celestial destination for India after the Moon and Mars – is a significant academic pursuit. But can New Delhi use this opportunity to develop cutting-edge trans-disciplinary technologies and advance its space diplomacy?
Recently, there were murmurs in the media about some apparent funding cuts by the Narendra Modi administration to the government-run scientific research and development (R&D) institutions. To countermand these apparent reductions, the protesters are demanding an increase in the gross expenditure on research and development (GERD) to
The People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) has been steadily building its underwater infrastructure since the 1980s to undertake energy-efficient, long-range and dual-purpose reconnaissance and exploration missions. While the Indian Navy’s superiority is unquestionable, New Delhi should provide it the crucial futuristic paraphernalia. Beijing recently made
New Delhi’s space policy makers have been promoting the possibility of deriving Helium-3 from the Moon for Earth-based applications for over a decade—but it is not a viable proposition and it’s time they stopped placing the cart before the horse. A recent communique from space
China
Naming and claiming territories has become a favourite pastime for Beijing’s apparatchiks - and the game is played with an audacious assertiveness. In international politics nomenclature of geo-spatial zones is more than mere convenience, it is high strategy. Beijing is a dextrous player of this game, but its moves
science planning
The Indian political leadership is realising a long-neglected tenet: In the post-modern world, nations do not build universities but universities build nations. A well-developed, largely autonomous university system can help the Indian middle-class flourish and the economy grow by leaps and bounds. Prime Minister Narendra Modi,
The Indian Space Programme has a mandate to focus on its launch- and earth-oriented capabilities. In the past decade, it has attempted some non-conventional experimental projects under the labels “‘low-cost” and “technology demonstrator”. However the effect of these experimental space projects on India’s techno-economic growth
S&T Policy
After many centuries, India has a chance today to participate on a level playing field in the upcoming technological revolution. Scientific research has today evolved into a multi-trillion-dollar cooperative enterprise for achieving economic and societal advancement, unlike in antiquity when it was limited to a connoisseur’s pursuit.