Editorial

The office memorandum issued by the Department of Space (DoS) in response to the mass resignation of scientists and engineers from the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) leaves many questions unanswered. While the Centre underplayed the order’s significance, ISRO has taken an opaque position on the matter. The chairman offered no clarity on how many people left, what led them to take such a step, or what measures the space agency plans to take in addressing this trend. According to the memo, voluntary retirement and requests for resignation from scientists and technical staff associated with Gaganyaan and other “important” missions may no longer be routinely accepted. Since “important” missions are left undefined, this restriction could apply to all projects undertaken by DoS institutions. The memo revokes a previous order that empowered institution directors and unit heads to approve these requests. It instead centralises all decisions at the ISRO headquarters. ISRO has not denied reports of 100-120 scientists and technical staff leaving the department over the past year. This coincides with the rise of a private sector boasting over 400 startups. Skyroot Aerospace’s successful launch of Vikram-1, India’s first privately developed space vehicle, underscores this upswing. A growing commercial industry offers better pay and greater work flexibility. The DoS should have anticipated this market dynamic when the sector was opened for private participation in 2020, and advised the government on a proactive talent retention strategy. This line of thinking was noticeably absent. India’s technological growth is also a story of professionals shifting from public institutions such as DRDO, ECIL, ISRO, and BARC into private companies. The DoS order adds a layer to this story. Neither the government nor ISRO has demonstrated a strong intent to resolve the challenges this shift poses. As private players expand their footprint in the business of space, their demand for trained talent was inevitable, and ISRO was always going to be the first and natural source. The agency, however, did not have a comprehensive strategy in place to retain its workforce in the face of competition from the private sector. The solution does not lie in restricting employees from leaving. A few years ago, the Indian Air Force (IAF) faced a similar situation when it tried to prevent pilots from exiting before completing their service period. Then, an IAF Chief took a more pragmatic position, as he recognised that demoralised personnel are of little value to the force. ISRO would do well to learn from that episode and introspect on its career frameworks. (Source: DH)  

On July 18, a rocket that owed nothing to the Indian Space Research Organisation raced through the sky over Sriharikota and did what no Indian company had ever done: it reached orbit. Skyroot Aerospace’s Vikram-1, flying under the mission name Aagaman — Sanskrit for “arrival” — made India only the third country after the United States and China to host a privately built orbital launch vehicle. It is a genuine milestone. It also lands amid the loudest talent crisis ISRO has faced in years, and the timing is not a coincidence. The scale of Saturday’s achievement is easy to understate. For six decades, reaching orbit from Indian soil has meant one thing: ISRO. Vikram-1 breaks that monopoly, built by a company founded only eight years ago by two former ISRO engineers who started with a team of ten in Hyderabad and first touched space with a smaller suborbital rocket back in 2022. That the rocket flew customer payloads on its very first attempt, rather than merely proving instruments, suggests Skyroot is not just demonstrating a capability but opening for business. That matters because it validates a bet New Delhi placed in 2020, when it opened spaceflight to private capital after decades of treating it as an exclusively sovereign function. The reasoning was that ISRO, superb at frugal science missions, was never built to chase the fast-growing small-satellite launch market. Vikram-1 is the first hard proof that reasoning held: India can now offer commercial customers a private alternative to the PSLV and GSLV, edging toward the model in which NASA shares American skies with SpaceX and Rocket Lab rather than flying every mission itself. But the same fortnight that proved the private-space bet also exposed its price. More than a hundred ISRO scientists have resigned or taken voluntary retirement in recent months — enough that the Department of Space, just four days before Vikram-1 lifted off, moved to block routine exits of scientists working on Gaganyaan and other flagship missions. The pull is not mysterious: start-ups founded largely by ISRO alumni offer two to three times government pay, equity, flat hierarchies, and freedom from layered bureaucracy. Those leaving are not junior hires; many carry specialised experience from missions such as Chandrayaan-3 and SpaDeX, and they are exiting a public agency already facing missed deadlines on some of its own flagship launches — for a private sector that, not incidentally, just launched India’s first private orbital rocket. Optimists call this redistribution rather than drain, likening it to how engineers cycle between NASA and SpaceX in a maturing market. That comparison could prove right — but only if India’s space ecosystem grows large enough to absorb the churn, keeping ISRO staffed for the missions only a state agency can run even as it keeps seeding the companies extending India’s reach commercially. Vikram-1 shows what that ecosystem is capable of when it works. Whether ISRO stays intact enough to keep supplying it, mission after mission, decade after decade, is now the harder question hanging over India’s space programme. (Source: The Pioneer)

On July 12, the Philippines, the United States, Japan, and 11 other countries reaffirmed their “unwavering commitment” to a “free and open Indo-Pacific” through a joint statement commemorating the 10th anniversary of the South China Sea arbitration ruling. In 2016, the Permanent Court of Arbitration, under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), ruled that Beijing’s maritime claims to economic and historical rights over the South China Sea had no legal basis. On July 11, the European Union released a statement reminding both Manila and Beijing – but more directed towards Beijing – that the ruling must be “respected and fully implemented”. In response, Beijing asked the US and others not to ‘fan the flames’, reiterated that the ruling was a “worthless piece of paper, that is illegal, null, and void”, and repeated that it would like to settle the dispute with the Philippines bilaterally. While the arbitral tribunal’s ruling does not directly reference India, New Delhi’s larger interests are intertwined with many nations at the receiving end of Beijing’s high-handedness in the South China Sea and the Indo-Pacific Region. The joint statement and EU’s stance point to wide international support against China’s unilateral actions in the region. Control over the South China Sea will enable power projection across the Indo-Pacific. Over the years, China has gotten into multiple maritime disputes with the Philippines, Taiwan, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Brunei. Heightening tensions, on July 6, it fired an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) from a nuclear-powered submarine in the South China Sea, inviting criticism by many nations over the threat to regional stability. New Delhi must take note of Beijing’s ICBM test and reflect on what it needs to do to close the operational and strategic gap this opens. This has the potential to heighten competition in the Indian Ocean Region and reshape the nuclear balance in the Indo-Pacific. The reaction to the missile test and the 10th anniversary statements, when read together, show that an increasingly aggressive Beijing is inadvertently bringing other nations in the region together. As China was testing its nuclear capabilities, Australia and Fiji were signing a defence treaty. Recently, New Delhi enhanced its defence cooperation with Tokyo, Jakarta, Manila, and Hanoi. India must focus on improving defence, trade, and diplomatic ties with Southeast Asian and Oceanic nations intimidated by a hostile China. New Delhi’s call for freedom of navigation in the South China Sea and its backing of the 2016 ruling are steps in that direction. (Source: DH)  

The Supreme Court’s ruling on Monday, affirming that the status of an individual’s citizenship must rest on a “fair, lawful, and reasoned process”, is a welcome intervention at a time when the criteria and methods used to determine citizenship remain unclear and contentious. It set aside verdicts by the Gauhati High Court that upheld foreigners tribunals’ rulings branding 27 Assam residents as foreign nationals. A bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta observed that decisions on citizenship and foreigner status hold significant constitutional weight, and that the state’s objective of preventing illegal immigration must not come at the cost of procedural fairness. The apex court rejected the High Court’s reasoning that the tribunals were right to rule against the appellants simply because they failed to appear despite being served notices. The High Court had relied on Section 9 of the Foreigners Act, which places the onus of proving citizenship on the individual concerned. How does a person prove her citizenship when the concept is not clearly defined, and the required documents are unspecified? The petitioners argued that they were unaware of the tribunal’s proceedings, which relied on an Enquiry Officer’s hearsay rather than substantive proof. This raises a critical question: can individuals be declared foreigners and stripped of their fundamental rights through ex parte proceedings solely due to their absence from court, especially when they possess official documents that support their claim to Indian citizenship? Foreigners’ tribunals have been criticised earlier for arbitrariness and bias, stripping individuals of their citizenship over issues such as minor spelling discrepancies or brief memory lapses. Even a war veteran who served the nation for decades has been declared a foreigner. The Citizenship Act defines national identity, but its practical execution remains obscure to the public. Notably, the Election Commission of India (ECI)’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls employs a similarly exclusionary mechanism. By shifting the burden of proof onto the individual, the Commission now requires new voters to produce documents proving their parents were part of the previous SIR before they are allowed to enrol as voters. In both voter registration and citizenship determination, the state’s focus has shifted from inclusion to exclusion, making bureaucratic processes more protracted. The Supreme Court, regrettably, allowed the ECI to proceed with this undemocratic exercise. Given the procedural barriers and complexities, it is unlikely that there will be consensus on what constitutes a truly “fair, lawful, and reasoned” process to resolve citizenship issues. (Source: DH)  

Despite deteriorating health and appeals from multiple quarters, Sonam Wangchuk has refused to end his hunger strike. Amid legal pleas that seek to hospitalise and force-feed him, the activist has maintained that ending the agitation without a response from the Union government would undermine the purpose of the protest. He has urged people to participate in the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP)’s proposed Chalo Sansad march to Parliament on July 20, and called on educational institutions to dedicate that day for experiential education. Wangchuk’s fast signifies more than an act of defiance; it is more than an attempt to exert pressure on Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan to resign over the mismanagement of examinations and paper leaks. It strikes one as an assertion of moral resolve, seeking accountability and integrity in public life and office. Wangchuk’s fast has drawn nationwide attention because of the moral authority he enjoys and his reputation as a non-partisan figure above political affiliations. The government has consistently attempted to project him as an Opposition proxy whenever he has voiced his opinion on social or developmental issues. However, these accusations have failed to diminish his credibility. In a broader sense, every moral or social act is political. Wangchuk’s agitation has revived a form of politics that has been losing ground in the recent past. It is the first major strike with a national resonance since the demonstrations against the Citizenship [Amendment] Act (CAA). It has also invited comparisons with Anna Hazare’s 2011 fast. However, given the massive shifts in the country’s socio-political landscape over the past decade, comparisons in terms of outcomes can be unwieldy. While the reasons to protest have not come down, the space for expressing such dissent has been steadily shrinking. This shift can be traced to a government that has been insensitive, and even hostile, to assertions of free, democratic expression. This raises a crucial question: is satyagraha still a viable tool of protest against an indifferent dispensation? Wangchuk may be providing the answer here. An act of satyagraha that transcends the individual to address a broader social or moral failing can never be futile. Fasting was also a self-cleansing act for Mahatma Gandhi, who remained unconcerned if a protest failed to meet its immediate objective. Every principled action that moves minds and hearts has a social utility. Even in the face of a hostile, unresponsive system, such action can serve as proof that society retains an alive and resilient conscience. (Source: DH)

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent diplomatic tour of Indonesia, Australia, and New Zealand came against the backdrop of a perceived shift in the United States’ strategic position regarding the Indo-Pacific region. The deliberations and the subsequent signing of agreements underscore India’s policy of strengthening key bilateral partnerships across the increasingly vital region. In Indonesia, Modi was conferred with the nation’s highest civilian honour, the Bintang Adipurna, while signing major strategic, defence, and trade agreements. These included deals for BrahMos and Astra missiles. The talks formalised a commitment to enhance maritime connectivity by jointly developing ports in Aceh and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, alongside collaborative Coast Guard initiatives in the regional waters. The agreement to jointly develop Sabang port near the Strait of Malacca gives India a strategic edge in countering China’s expanding footprint in the Indian Ocean. Both countries have committed to fostering a region that promotes unimpeded commerce and adheres to a rules-based order. Among the major outcomes from the bilateral talks with Australia is the agreement to supply Australia’s uranium for India’s civilian nuclear energy programme. Australia holds about 28% the world’s uranium reserves. The agreement ends uncertainty following Australia’s reluctance to export uranium over concerns that it would be used for weapons. Geopolitical shifts and India’s assurance that the uranium would be used exclusively for peaceful purposes have led Australia to reverse its policy. The two countries have agreed to deepen defence cooperation and build robust supply chains for critical minerals. Australia will support India’s spaceflight missions through space-tracking capabilities from the Cocos (Keeling) Islands. Both sides have also agreed to begin negotiations on a free trade agreement (FTA). As a major Pacific power, Australia offers India an opportunity to leverage a key strategic partnership. Closer ties across the domains of trade, energy, security, and space would be mutually beneficial for both nations. The Prime Minister’s visit to New Zealand carried symbolic and substantive import. It was the first visit by an Indian prime minister in 40 years to the nation which has a sizeable Indian diaspora. In line with a changing regional scenario and strategic realignments, the two countries have elevated bilateral ties to a comprehensive strategic partnership. Building upon the recently signed FTA, India and New Zealand are set to enhance cooperation across diverse sectors, including trade, defence, and education. Major outcomes of Modi’s multi-nation visit underline an emerging consensus among regional players to expand bilateral ties to achieve the larger objective of stability within the Indo-Pacific. (Source: DH)

The Gujarat High Court’s confirmation of the death penalty for 38 individuals convicted in the 2008 Ahmedabad serial bomb blasts marks an unprecedented moment in India’s judicial history. The devastating attacks, planned and executed by the banned extremist group Indian Mujahideen, killed 56 innocent people and injured many others. The severity of this coordinated, violent act, indeed, calls for accountability. In its July 7 judgment, the court cites the “humongous” conspiracy involved in the dastardly act. However, a judgment that upholds a mass death sentence also challenges the tenets of modern jurisprudence. The central argument against capital punishment posits that a civilised, constitutional society must not respond to killings with state-sanctioned killings. Legal systems must prioritise justice over retribution, even when they engage with acts of terror. It is not the finality of execution that achieves real justice; it is the adherence to the rule of law and compliance with the established constitutional processes. Now, the convicts have been met with the violence they inflicted on society. A legal stamp of approval notwithstanding, this furthers the idea of retributive justice. Capital punishment may be legally permitted for the “rarest of rare” cases. The blasts could be considered within the scope of that definition. However, legality and justice are not the same. The ruling – by a division bench of justices A Y Kogje and Samir Dave – is also marked by its scale. A death sentence is wrong even for one person, and multiplying it across 38, in a single case, makes it 38 times as wrong. In this context, the claims of “just and equal” treatment are misplaced. Many hail the judgment as evidence of the state’s resolve for strong action against terrorism. But the state is a human institution. It must be humane before it becomes strong. The state has evolved over centuries, but the legal systems it prescribes are sometimes based on a primitive idea of justice that considers it right to take an eye for an eye. As Gandhi said, that would make the whole world blind. The legal system should be rooted in an idea of justice that is reformative, not vindictive or retributive. Most countries in the world have either abolished the death penalty or have suspended its operation. India should join them and honour its own rich, traditional values of humaneness and compassion. Executing 38 people at once would not deliver lasting justice; it would only leave the nation’s sense of humanity with a stain. (Source: DH)

Recent developments in West Bengal – centred on the rape and murder of an 11-year-old girl, the subsequent lynching of an innocent man, and the police killing of one of the accused – have exposed serious shortcomings in the two-month-old Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government. The incident occurred in Baruipur, near Kolkata. Women’s safety was central to the BJP’s campaign against the previous Mamata Banerjee administration, with the 2024 rape and murder of a trainee doctor at Kolkata’s RG Kar Medical College cited as evidence of governmental failure on this front. Responding to the latest case, Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari asserted that his government was making every effort to prevent such incidents, reaffirming what he called a long-standing commitment to protecting women and girls. This position merely echoes the assurances offered by Mamata Banerjee’s government. Meanwhile, the victim’s family has alleged that the police were slow in the initial stages of their investigation, raising questions about accountability. The discovery of the young girl’s body triggered mob violence, resulting in the lynching of a man whom police later confirmed was not a suspect. Adhikari had a communal take on the incident, insinuating that political interests were in play, and “fundamentalists” may have targeted the man based on his Hindu identity, given that the murdered girl was Muslim. Since the protests started, police have arrested more than 30 people. Bringing a communal or political angle into the rape and murder of a child is perverse. Such divisive narratives only serve to divert public attention from the heinous crime, undermining the pursuit of justice for the victim. The state government constituted a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe the crime, leading to four arrests. However, one of the accused men has been killed in a police encounter. The authorities offered a familiar justification: the accused allegedly tried to snatch a service rifle, forcing the police to shoot. This reflects a troubling trend where instant justice and encounter killings are becoming normalised. Senior BJP leader Dilip Ghosh defended the police action, labelling critics “anti-socials”. Yet, most encounters are calculated, extrajudicial executions rather than acts of self-defence. They are a gross violation of due process and the rule of law. Governments are elected with a constitutional commitment to uphold the law. Encounter killings and “justice” through bulldozer action are fundamentally illegal. People accused of crimes, even the most heinous of them, have a right to a fair trial. The police are only investigators with no legal right to punish the offenders through arbitrary executions. (Source: DH)

Europe is in the grip of a severe heat wave that has caused widespread health problems, upset lives and lifestyles, and posed risks to most economies. Over 1,500 deaths have been reported across the continent, with France and Britain suffering the worst so far. Britain recorded its hottest June in history, while Spain, Portugal, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Germany have all seen temperatures soar to 40 degrees Celsius, which is boiler-class weather in Europe. It is 10-12 degrees above normal. Some deaths occurred when people jumped into rivers to escape the heat and drowned. Weather alerts have been issued across many regions. Schools have closed, advisories urge limited travel, and train services have been curtailed amid fears that rail lines could expand and cause accidents. Much of Europe’s infrastructure, houses and other buildings are not designed for this level of heat. Humans and animals alike are struggling to adapt to the new climate reality. Europe is now caught between hot winds from Africa and a warming Arctic region. Climate change has disrupted weather patterns worldwide, making extreme events increasingly common. Predictions that each year would be warmer than the previous one are proving true. The chances of weather extremes have increased a hundredfold in the last two decades. Nearly half of the 850 cities across 30 European countries have broken, or are expected to break, heat-stress records. Scientists warn that Europe is the fastest-warming continent, with temperatures rising at twice the global average since the 1980s. Many argue that the global warming predictions by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which present a scary scenario, may need revision, as the situation could worsen. Experts have called for adoption of techniques to avoid heat stress, which include better ventilation and creation of more green cover in cities. But it is difficult for people to adopt measures that need longer-term planning and investment. When the risks from climate change are discussed, it is always said that the poor countries will be the worst affected by it. But it is increasingly becoming clear that climate does not discriminate and the whole world will have to pay the price. Climate negotiations have stalled because the rich world has failed to accept its historical responsibility for creating the conditions for climate change and to support the poor world to counter it. The climate disasters in Europe should prompt the rich countries to change their attitudes and policies. (Source: DH)    

When Prime Minister Narendra Modi touched down in Melbourne on Wednesday evening, fresh from a warm reception in Jakarta and Yogyakarta, he was on an important leg of a three-nation Indo-Pacific tour. This is his third visit to Australia as Prime Minister — a frequency no Indian premier has matched — and it says something about how central Canberra has become to New Delhi’s calculus east of Singapore, defined by ‘Act East’ policy. At the third Australia-India Annual Summit, Modi and his host Anthony Albanese oversaw what officials describe as eighteen distinct outcomes: a Joint Declaration on Defence and Security Cooperation that upgrades the relationship with an Annual Defence Ministers’ Dialogue, a new maritime security roadmap, and — most striking — a commercial uranium supply agreement building on the 2014 Civil Nuclear Agreement, under which Australia has so far shipped uranium to India just once, in 2017, to feed India’s ambitious 100-gigawatt nuclear power goal. Talks on the long-pending Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement were formally accelerated, building on the 2022 Economic Cooperation and Trade Agreement that was India’s first developed-country trade deal in a decade. Education, critical minerals, and cultural repatriation rounded out a genuinely wide canvas. Trade negotiators have set a target of AUD 100 billion in two-way commerce by 2030, roughly double current levels, and Thursday’s acceleration announcement gives that number a fighting chance.  For decades, India and Australia were bound loosely by cricket and Commonwealth ties rather than strategic convergence; the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, now six years old, has since matured from rhetoric into structure. A 2021 logistics agreement already lets warships use each other’s ports, and the new defence declaration reads less like an aspiration than a maintenance upgrade on an alliance-adjacent partnership. But it was not smooth sailing for the Indian Prime Minister. Rights groups, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, used the visit to press Canberra to raise India’s democratic backsliding, a criticism that has trailed Modi’s Australian visits since 2023. It was indeed a low point of the visit but was not allowed to overshadow the visit. Where does this leave the two countries? Well, the trajectory is unmistakably upward, but increasingly instrumental rather than sentimental. Both governments now speak the language of supply-chain security, critical minerals, and an “open, rules-based” Indo-Pacific. The Quad remains the scaffolding; bilateral deals are increasingly the substance built upon it. If the Jakarta leg was about breadth — reviving an old civilisational friendship into hard defence contracts like BrahMos — the Australia leg was about depth, converting decades of trade and strategic dialogue into binding commitments. The test now is delivery: whether CECA is actually concluded, whether uranium shipments follow the ink, and whether the partnership can absorb criticism without either side flinching. (Source: The Pioneer)