It's More Than Rocket Science

A world record 104 satellites at one go in February, four rockets in four months, indigenous cryogenic engines with heavy-lift capability…why does ISRO tick where almost every other government department fails in India? Put it down to work ethic.

- Ajay Sukumaran

TAKE a step back from the techno-Babel that surrounds you: the incessant chatter of satellite TV, your OnePlus5 pinging as the nearest Uber locks into your GPS, the urgent messages to link your UID to PAN to bank account.... Take a step back from all that, and you see a void. Most of what we fill our lives with is borrowed modernity. It’s the 21st century, one that apparently belongs to Asia, yet most of the time we need to take solace from ancient glory. at frustrated moments, one might even feel India’s contribution to the things that run our world pretty much adds up to that old concept we invented: zero. In the private sphere, reverse engineering rules. But the starkest failures belong to the zone that had both the monetary support and the mandate: the public institutional space.

The oft-quoted example is that of the Indian Railways. Its accomplishments—or lack of them—can be easily comprehended. (Look only at the number of miles of new tracks added after the British left. Or the primitive sanitation, or the coaches that have stayed essentially unchanged from way before Gabbar Singh’s hordes chased after the heroes in Sholay.) But there’s also the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO). The organisation whose brief it was to make India self-sufficient in defence technology is nearly 60 years old—it has to be judged by the arms purchase deals from the West or Israel that still make the headlines. (Unless, as the wags quip, you count the Leh berry juice as a strategic asset.) It’s against this empty canvas that one institution stands out in sharp relief: the start-up that Vikram Sarabhai founded on I-day in 1969.