Slashdot Mirror
Indian Moon Mission Launched
hackerdownunder writes "India's maiden lunar mission (Chandrayaan-1) got off to a flying start today. Describing the launch as 'perfect and precise,' the chairman of the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), G Madhavan Nair, said that it would be 14 days before the satellite would enter into lunar orbit.
Chandrayaan carries eleven payloads: five designed and developed in India, three from the European Space Agency, one from Bulgaria and two from NASA."
India is not / no longer part of the third world. Wake up and smell the coffee. It is Asia that is going to rule the world this century. China and India are both in a race into space, both large players in the world economy (outsourcing of technical staff to india, industry to China). Besides, India and China have 1 billion+ innhabitants each so a third of the world population is living there.. Where America fails to deliver payload to the ISS (where Russia is succeeding) Asia is quickly catching up. The whole world should turn their economy towards renewable energy and towards Asia instead of Oil and America. As european i don't understand where the american arrogance (and ignorance) comes from.. No flamebait intended
The lost opportunities and economic stagnation of the past 50 years under the social welfare state show how such narrow mindsets can wreak havoc on a country.
This (often repeated) story about "lost opportunities during first 50 years of India" etc is a myth. It shows a lack of understanding of post independence history of India.
When India became independent there were groups of politicians who repeatedly argued against setting up of national laboratories and research institutions that exist in India right now. They argued that there is no need to "waste" money in those for a country like India, since one can always buy things from outside. If India had followed that approach it would be society with significant problems with poverty and related social tensions right now (If you need proof just look at the state of development of society in the country which is neighbor to India, which became independent during the same time).
It is ridiculous to not to notice significant success of poverty reduction and increase in living standard in a complex society like India without creating major social tensions (if you do not know - famines with repeated crop failures were common in pre-independence India). A lot of the credit for this goes to development of strong independent research and industrial base during the early stages (Indian space program is a part of this).