Saturday, October 4, 2014

Dinesh Kamath's Editorial 'Congrats, ISRO!!!!' that was published in Newsband

Congrats, ISRO!!!!
India’s Mars Orbiter Mission has swept with effortless ease into orbit around the Red Planet, making this country the first to achieve such a feat in a maiden attempt. Thus far, only the United States, the former Soviet Union and the European Space Agency have succeeded in doing so. But they too did not achieve this feat in their maiden voyage. India and its space agency, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), now proudly join their ranks.
It is a tribute to ISRO and the professionalism of its scientists and engineers that every minute detail for such a complex mission could be attended to in the course of a project completed in just one and a half years. India’s Mars effort costs Rs.460 crore, an economical price tag by Western standards.
Our tireless scientists have been working for years to achieve this. The success of ISRO demonstrated that we are behind no one as far as brains and will power is concerned. The dedicated team of scientists, engineers, technologists and other staff deserve to be commended for this concurrent engineering feat. Electronics and communications, computing sciences, material sciences, structural engineering, electrical technologies, remote sensing and many other such disciplines have come together concurrently to make this possible along with the foresight, vision, planning, administration and management capabilities of a team of scientists and engineers. ISRO should also be looking at giving a thrust to civilian spin-offs from these technologies. It is also gratifying to see that many women and youngsters are at the fore-front of these projects. Organisations like DRDO, ISRO and CSIR should strive to raise the productive workforce from 30 to 40% now, by taking steps to institute the right work culture and strategies and educate the youngsters on such approaches. The results from such a galvanizing of human capital can be staggering!
For the most of the Indians who do not understand the science of space exploration - the engineering part and the mathematical part of guiding the craft - remains a matter of little interest, and perhaps rightly so. There is a sense of triumph and pride which the whole nation shares with the hundreds of scientists of the ISRO. ISRO’s success in the mission to the Red Planet is creditworthy and a justifiable reason for national pride and celebrations

With the success of Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM), a new chapter has been opened in India where a purely government organisation (ISRO) has worked with professionalism, competence of the highest level in scientific field and above all with the much requried economy. The ISRO stands out as the finest government organisation today and should inspire other government agencies to emulate ISRO's standards. Generally, Indians do not have a good opinion about anything involving our governments at any levels and accordingly they do not expect any quality work from the governments. But ISRO is definitely going to change that perception of average Indian not only in within the country but also outside, towards government organisations. Apart from its scientific value, ISRO is setting higher standards of work which is as much important as the MOM. This is the beginning of a new era in India's overall work culture and ISRO gets the lion's share.

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