Half full glass

As we start the new year, I am quite hopeful that things would turn around this year. Most newspapers editorials today share this view. It wasn't that 2008 was devoid of any good news. We have seen a "regime change" in the US - one that augurs well for all denizens of the world. More recently a friendly government has been voted to power in neighbouring Bangladesh and that is a huge relief. People power has made our government sit up and take a serious note of our internal security issues , non performing heads have rolled and we all hope to have a safer 2009. Democracy and the parliamentary process seems to be functioning reasonably well. I firmly believe that it is because of India's strong influence in the region, entire South Asia is embracing democratic institutions. Elections in Nepal, Pakistan and Bangladesh are a testimony to this fact.

Terabytes have been posted on most of the above. What I would like to bring to notice is an interesting fact - The ISRO Chandrayan mission team has been voted to the 5th position for Indian of the Year in a eight city poll conducted by the Times of India. In my opinion this is indeed significant because of the following -
Indians are acknowledging the stellar success of the lunar mission which sucessfully landed a lunar probe on Nov 14th. ISRO has been one of the most successful institutions built in modern India and has had a string of successes right from its inception. One of the reasons for its success has been the top quality of the ISRO leadership. ISRO has been led by scientists like Vikram Sarabhai , Satish Dhawan, A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, K. Kasturirangan - leaders who have been able to establish and sustain a culture of excellence in ISRO. Interestingly, multiple speakers in the PAN IIT Meet 2008 referred to the excellent quality of research and program management at ISRO.
I also do hope that this success of ISRO Chandrayan mission motivates some our best young brains to take up science as a career. Science is these days figuring at the bottom of the list of most college entrants. This is especially true in metros like Mumbai and Delhi. Cut off marks for science courses are way below commerce, management , arts and computer science in many of the top notch undergraduate institutes. Many countries such as the US are already facing a strong decline in quality and quantity of students in science. We in India cannot afford this if we have any aspirations of making it to one of the top four economies of the world within the next fifteen years.

I end this note with a three cheers for the ISRO team. In an otherwise gloomy year, they have done their bit to make the glass look half full.