India Ascendant: Gravity’s grasp versus poverty’s clasp

Harimau

`.....India is the only country I know of where international flights arrive anytime after at 11pm and departures start at 12:30am....`

I have always wondered why it should be so. Not only Air India but also other airlines land and fly at the ungodly hour close to midnight. Is there any good reason for that?

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Ref ajeet #8

[India sits in the center of a quarter of the globe, with entire continent of Africa, Europe, middle east, china, southeast Asia and Australia within easy reach, It could become a great center of communication and a hub for this entire area. The first step in this direction should be an airline network with a major hub in the south India, where planes from all over can come and passengers can change planes for a destination for any where else. Thus an australian can come to to this hub and fly to Russian, Europe or South Africa or a South African can land here and then fly to Japan China or Europe.]

Provided the planes leave at a decent hour.

India is the only country I know of where international flights arrive anytime after at 11pm and departures start at 12:30am. A more ungodly hour cannot be devised by the worst medieval torturers. When Air India also synchronizes its schedule so that its own flights fit this pattern, it shows the utter contempt people in power have for the travelling public. Every country bans flights landings and takeoffs between 11pm and 6am but in the capital of India (and in Bombay and Chennai), this is the time when international flights land and take off.

I think India must have work on spy satellites and GSM then moon program .it will be more fruitful

Ref arjun_m #6

[++
avid readers of the various aerospace magazines who then spout acronyms on the fora to sound knowledgeable.
++

As opposed to to people who get their knowledge from the FAS website and THEN try to sound knowledgable?]

As opposed to those who aren`t willing to swallow propaganda and do their search on the web.

I remember reading in 1987 in ``The Hindu`` a statement by the Secretary to the Department of Electronics (under some Ministry of Technology or Communications or whatever existed at that time) that in 10 years` time people will be able to speak commands to a computer and the computer would execute them. This was cleverly interposed in an interview where the secretary was talking about research in India on computer science, the implication being that Indians would do it. My first response on reading this was: so, what number do I call in 1996 and what language do I employ in talking to the computer. Needless to say, no Indian working in India did one frikking thing that resulted in speech recognition. On the other hand, Dragon Systems out of Taiwan came out with the first commercial speech recognition program.

Writing HTML code is NOT cutting edge work in Computer Science. Yes, it puts food on the table for several tens of thousands of code coolies but let us not call it ``research`` or ``advanced work``.

Yaaawn!!!!

There is no problem with reaching for the moon, but there are a lot of things, which can be done in the meantime.

India sits in the center of a quarter of the globe, with entire continent of Africa, Europe, middle east, china, southeast Asia and Australia within easy reach, It could become a great center of communication and a hub for this entire area. The first step in this direction should be an airline network with a major hub in the south India, where planes from all over can come and passengers can change planes for a destination for any where else. Thus an australian can come to to this hub and fly to Russian, Europe or South Africa or a South African can land here and then fly to Japan China or Europe.

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Ref AlephNull #2

I normally don`t go to the Bharat-Rakshak site for only one reason: the guys who post there seem to be avid readers of the various aerospace magazines who then spout acronyms on the fora to sound knowledgeable.

Here are links to the Federation of American Scientists website. This is about Chinese launch vehicles:

http://www.fas.org/spp/guide/china/launch/index.html

These are about Indian launch vehicles:

http://www.fas.org/spp/guide/india/launch/pslv.htm
http://www.fas.org/spp/guide/india/launch/gslv.htm

As you can see, China has a larger number of launch vehicles capable of carrying far greater payloads.

But even more importantly, China gets contracts from the US (from companies such as Hughes Aerospace) to launch communication satellites into geosynchronous orbits. They are willing to let the Chinese launch a $200-300 million satellite because they feel pretty sure the Chinese wouldn`t fail.

So if you are talking about comparing yourself to anybody, first compare yourself to China before you start thinking of comparison with Ariane or the US.

I am all for scientific research and spending money on space probes. But the typical Indian attitude of `chalta hai` would have to go if we want to make a mark in the world. My point about not having a package that can go head-to-head against SAP or Oracle is to raise awareness that Indians try to tag along but not lead.

Hi Harimau,

The basic tenet of benchmarking is to benchmark against the best. So, if a Pakistani were looking to win the New York marathon, she / he would have to look at the Kenyans and not at the, well, Chinese or Indians. Also, in order for a Pakistani to win the New York Marathon, its not a pre-requisite for Pakistan to win the Olympic gold medal in Hockey or the World Cup in cricket.

But yes, I agree that India`s IT guys should have developed an Oracle or a SAP. The only Indian s/w product that is world class is probably Flex Cube by I-Flex in the Banking industry.

And no, this was not meant to be an article on chest thumping but rather an exhortation to surge ahead in the space arena. Anyways, thanks for reading the article and the critique, Harimau. Appreciate it.

Also Harimau,

As far as the ``India doesn`t even have a launch vehicle capable of lifting a 3 ton satellite into earth orbit,`` statement, here goes.
India`s Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) series was developed to place 1000 kg class Indian remote sensing satellites into Polar Sun Synchronous Orbit (SSO). PSLV also has the capability to launch 3500 kg satellites into 400 km Low Earth Orbit and 1000 kg satellites into Geo-synchronous Transfer Orbit (GTO). Since the first successful flight conducted in October 1994, the capability of PSLV has been enhanced from 805 kg to 1200 kg into 820 km SSO. This was demonstrated when PSLV-C3 launched three satellites -- Technology Experiment Satellite (TES) of ISRO-1108 kg, BIRD of Germany - 92 kg. and PROBA of Belgium - 94 kg into their intended orbits on October 22, 2001. More recently, on October 17, 2003, PSLV-C5 launched an Indian Remote Sensing Satellite, IRS-P6 (RESOURCESAT-1), weighing 1360 kg into an 817 km high polar Sun Synchronous Orbit (SSO).

India`s Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) deals with launching 2,000 kg class of communication satellites into geosynchronous transfer orbit. The second developmental flight GSLV-D2 launched GSAT-2 satellite, a 2000 kg class experimental communication satellite, on May 8, 2003.

Hope that helps.

#1 harimau

{{India doesn`t even have a launch vehicle capable of lifting a 3 ton satellite into earth orbit}}

I don`t think this is true. PSLV and GSLV seem capable of placing 3700 kg and 6200 kg payloads, respectively, in low earth orbit. Planned developments of GSLV will supposedly be capable of placing more than 4400 kg in geosynchronous transfer orbit.

Guys,

When you can produce a piece of software -- in case you have forgotten, this is in your chosen field of expertise, IT -- that unseats Oracle or SAP from their positions, you can talk about sending a satellite to the moon.

As to that stupid comment about ``lets benchmark our space programs against best in the breed i.e. the Americans, Russians and Europeans and not against nations like China or Nauru``, you seem to conveniently forget the fact that China sent an astronaut into orbit just last month whereas India doesn`t even have a launch vehicle capable of lifting a 3 ton satellite into earth orbit, let alone recovering a satellite safely when it attempts to return to the earth.

This article is a pathetic attempt at beating one`s chest. I for one am reminded only of King Kong.