oppn parties Chandrayaan-3: All Eyes On The Landing in August

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  • Supreme Court questions the continuing relevance of two-child norms. The Court observed that falling fertility rates have weakened the population-control rationale behind laws disqualifying people with more than two children from contesting local body elections. It referred the issue to a larger Bench for consideration
  • Supreme Court declines to shift Tirupati laddu case outside Andhra Pradesh. The Court rejected a plea seeking transfer of the trial, despite arguments that political statements by Andhra Pradesh's Chief Minister and Deputy Chief Minister could affect the fairness of proceedings
  • Supreme Court transfers Azam Khan's fresh ED bail plea to Allahabad High Court. The apex court declined to consider the Samajwadi Party leader's bail request in a fresh Enforcement Directorate case and directed that it be listed before a division Bench of the High Court on November 16
  • Two killed in Delhi building collapse; contractor booked. Two bodies were recovered after a building collapsed in Chawri Bazaar. Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta said the contractor had been booked and the concerned junior and assistant engineers suspended
  • Uttar Pradesh voter rolls show a 2.4-crore discrepancy. A difference of approximately 2.4 crore names has been reported between the state's panchayat and rural Assembly voter lists. The Election Commission has ordered the two sets of rolls to be matched
  • Gujarat announces 3% dearness allowance hike. The state government announced a three-percentage-point increase in dearness allowance for government employees and pensioners ahead of Diwali
  • Sensex and Nifty post their strongest single-day gains in months. The Sensex surged 2,008.61 points, or 2.60%, to close at 79,310.01, while the Nifty 50 climbed 576 points, or 2.40%, to 24,536.60. Financial and automobile stocks led the rally, supported by falling crude prices and renewed foreign investor buying
  • Maaya Rajeshwaran reaches WTA-level quarter-final. The 17-year-old Indian defeated Poland's Weronika Falkowska 6-4, 6-3, becoming the first Indian woman since Sania Mirza in 2012 to reach a quarter-final at a WTA Tour-level singles event
  • Tanvi Patri reaches Youth Olympics badminton final. The 15-year-old defeated Japan's Yuzuno Watanabe in the semi-final, assuring India of a medal and becoming the first Indian badminton player to reach the girls' singles final at the Youth Olympics
  • India beat Pakistan 3-2 in SAFF Championship. India defeated Pakistan in a closely contested match, having led 3-0 before conceding two late goals. The victory was reported as a significant result for India's second-string side
  • India beat Japan 4-1 to win a record sixth Asian Champions Trophy. India recovered from an early deficit to defeat Japan in the final at Mohali, extending its record as the tournament's most successful men's team
  • The Supreme Court issued notice to the Centre and the Election Commission on a petition challenging Section 16 of the Chief Election Commissioner and Other Election Commissioners Act, 2023, which grants the CEC and Election Commissioners protection from legal proceedings for acts performed in their official duties. The petition argues that such blanket immunity could leave citizens without an effective remedy for alleged wrongdoing by the Commission
  • The Supreme Court told voters whose names were deleted from Delhi's draft electoral rolls not to be apprehensive about seeking re-enrolment through Form 6, after the Election Commission assured it that such applicants would not be prosecuted merely because their names had appeared in earlier rolls
  • Congress leader Rahul Gandhi opened the party's campaign for the 2027 Punjab Assembly elections with an Insaaf rally in Sangrur, Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann's home district, accusing the AAP government of failing to control drugs, gangster violence and corruption. Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge outlined six commitments, including a drug-free Punjab, protection of farmers, employment for young people and action against corruption
  • Rahul Gandhi accused the AAP government of running Punjab through a remote control from Delhi and questioned Bhagwant Mann's ability to tackle drug abuse, making personal allegations about the Chief Minister's conduct during their time together in Parliament
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Chandrayaan-3: All Eyes On The Landing in August

By Our Editorial Team
First publised on 2023-07-17 06:46:54

About the Author

Sunil Garodia The India Commentary view

The successful, near-perfect launching from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota and the perfect first maneuver to put Chandrayaan-3 in an elevated orbit are more feathers in ISRO's cap. Learning from the mistakes that led to the disappointment of Chandrayaan-2 not making a landing on the moon, ISRO has fine-tunes processes and added several mechanisms to avoid such a situation. It is hoped that in the last week of August, ISRO will be able to make a safe and soft landing on the moon to confirm India as only the fourth nation in the world, after the USA, Russia and China, to do so.  Since the Chandrayaan-2 mission had failed, the principal aims of Chandrayaan-3 remain the same - demonstrate safe and soft landing, demonstrate rover operations on the moon and conduct on-site scientific experiments on the lunar surface.

But ISRO's aims and ambitions go beyond Chandrayaan-3 and the moon. It will be a milestone in its space journey no doubt but with Gaganyaan, India's first manned space mission lined up after this, the future is exciting. There is also no doubt that making a landing on any planetary body opens up many possibilities for the future and gives the space agency huge confidence in exploring other planetary bodies and it will also allow ISRO to build on the success and take up more ambitious missions in future.

The failure of Chandrayaan-2 and the pandemic have pushed back ISRO's timeline in many projects. However, it has kept itself busy by launching satellites and other research work. But with the launch of Chandrayaan-3, ISRO is now poised to take up more such projects, either alone or in collaboration with other space agencies. India has already signed the Artemis Accords, which seeks to send humans to the moon again by 2025, with the ultimate goal of expanding space exploration to Mars and beyond. ISRO is likely to play a huge role in that.