I enjoy your insightful commentaries, especially on India – that area of darkness, as VS Naipaul called his first book.
And I agree with the title you've chosen this time: Insanity in India: Mars Mission amidst Astronomical Poverty.
You remind us that the cost of the mission was $74 million (modest compared with the US or China) and $1 bn is the annual space budget.
You then point out in contrast:
- a third of the world's poor (about 1 billion people) are to be found in India
- two-thirds of Mumbai's 21 million people live in slums.
- two-thirds of India's population live on under $2 a day (this being the World Bank poverty line) and half of them have to do with under $1 a day.
- Some 60 percent defecate in the open
- the government spends just 1.2% on public health (compared with 8.7% in Afghanistan, 5.6% in DR Congo)
- India manufactures little and has to buy most hi-tech equipment. It is the world's biggest arms importer and the 4th largest army [which is mostly used to keep order at home. Some half a million servicemen have been stationed in Kashmir for decades, more than the US deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan.]
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Let's add a few more facts:
1. The Hindus are very devoted to their gods and before every satellite launch, the Director himself of the Space Organisation visits a temple he favours and offers prayers for success and again after a successful launch. The same was done at the Mars Orbiter rocket launch.
2. India may have some nuclear and space capability but still misses respect or admiration from the western media which still hangs on to its stereotypes of India as a land of snake charmers, cow-worshippers and shabby little shopkeepers
a. Indian petty shopkeeper in the Simpsons series
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