[monsterix]

Both Bollywood and Mangalyan are a distraction from the core issues, poverty being one of them. Why do people react to criticism that is inevitable for such a mission?

In my opinion, space probe to Mars is a good idea for space engineers and for the idea of adventure, it should be nurtured. But the moment the Indian Government a$$holes (who have eaten up more than 10000X that amount which a Mangalyan costs) and their media toots start projecting this achievement of engineers as their own "moment of glory" and a proof towards India becoming a global superpower, everything falls flat on the face.

There should be no doubt that poverty IS the biggest challenge for us (I am an Indian) to work on, and there are people with achievements in rural tech to help people over with just that. No space wizardry, just basic engineering. Heroism, inspiration and aspiration should be centred and drawn around those people too, India needs it more.

[jlmorton]

And this is part of working on poverty, in India and everywhere else. Forget all the other reasons. People need inspiration, and this is one way to provide it. The payoff may not be immediate, but it will come.

[XorNot]

They also need local jobs in high-tech industries, rather then a continuous brain-drain off to Western nations.

India's poverty also has very little to do with "lack of money" as does poverty everywhere - i.e. why does the US have poverty, despite it's incredible wealth?

[bobosha]

Why did Kennedy call for the moon landing instead of fixing the civil rights problem? why did LBJ setup medicare/medicaid instead of fixing racism and other inequities? Why did Obama setup Obamacare without fixing poverty in America?

why oh why?

[Tloewald]

LBJ did more to address poverty than any president save Roosevelt. If you're going to ask that specific question, ask about the money wasted on the Vietnam war and mayne the space program -- medicare/medicaid and the "Great Society" programd directly tackled poverty, and LBJ passed the civil rights act which, oh by the way, was Kennedy's legacy. Fixing healthcare is one way of directly addressing poverty. You can argue the methods (I would prefer single payer) but the intent is at least pointing in the right direction.

[lemma]

I read those as rhetorical questions and think you two may actually be in agreement.

[bobosha]

Exactly! Sorry I missed the sarcasm tag. :-)

[harichinnan]

There are two India's now. The 100 million upwardly mobile middle and richer class living in walled inner cities and the 900 million+ poor and desperate people who need all kinds of poverty alleviation that the government can provide. The 100 million class wants better infrastructure, more tech jobs, open and corruption free democracy, space programs and more and they'll(we'll) get some of it. The rest cannot be helped easily. Even pouring money in rural tech cannot help most. Bulk of the poor now live in urban slums/poor suburbs around big cities. Money that goes to space programs would be a pittance for alleviating the poor masses. For the most part, the poor uneducated people cannot be helped from their own voting decisions that bring corrupt and inefficient politicians and crowd pleasing policies.

[monsterix]

Absolutely! Is there a research or report on what percentage of poor have quit villages and moved to sub-urban areas lately?

Last when I was working near a village in central India near Uttar Pradesh/Madhya Pradesh border the estimate was a little under 4% (which is huge given the absolute numbers). I kind of believe that over 90% bulk might still be within the rural consideration, but I could be wrong. The electorate interest and its outcome seems to indicate that bulk of rural India is still where it was.

About 15 years ago, rural migration from the state of Orissa and Uttar Pradesh was pegged at less than 1%. So it is not out of context to consider here that the average speed of travel within the country and connectivity by rail and road has improved by factor of 4 in the last 15 years.

This is the rural progress and implementation of ordinary technology, that we easily miss out on, that has brought about rural migration that we're talking about here. It has sparked ambition in the poor which now aspires for a better life in the suburban cachement of Indian cities.

Leads to concluding that it is the gap between the rich and poor that leads to criticism and praise of space programs like Mangalyan. The '100 million India' who have the gift of being in the elite 100 million should take a note of this gap. And not be perturbed by criticism of technical feats like the Mangalyan.

The benefit of ISRO space program (though it has strategic pitfalls too) would surely reach the balance 900 million poor eventually, but that is in future. Immediate priority should be (and thankfully is) rural tech because that keeps the gap between rich and poor in control, and prevents volatility and conflict by keeping the sense of belongingness among the desperate poor.

That's what I think, but I may be removed from reality given that I am off coast now.

[moocowduckquack]

I hear you, however it is worth remembering that space wizardry is just basic engineering done to the nth degree and it keeps engineers in the country who might otherwise have left. If you want your engineers to help find solutions to the problems of poverty in India, the first thing to do is to make sure they stick around and having a space industry helps with that.

[salient]

Technology is much faster at getting people out of poverty than giving them free money or free food. Heck, as someone from outside, the only thing about Indian industries is that "Indians are good at tech". If I were you, I'd try to focus even more on that, not less.

[cscurmudgeon]

What people like you don't understand is that this is one of the ways of combating poverty. You can't ask people to just eat, reproduce and die, living just above the poverty line. That is worse than poverty.

[monsterix]

What jingoistic people like you don't understand is that the ability to tolerate criticism is equally important.

> You can't ask people to just eat, reproduce and die, living just above the poverty line. That is worse than poverty.

[cscurmudgeon]

> What jingoistic people like you don't understand is that the ability to tolerate criticism is equally important.

Don't you realize the same thing can be said about you :)

I criticized your criticism and you went all "jingoistic nut" on me. Sigh.

The problem is for any good action X that any government does as long as it has any side effect other than getting people out of poverty, it would get criticized as unnecessary. That leaves out only giving money to people directly.

[monsterix]

No, I just pointed out the jingoism evident from this line:

> You can't ask people to just eat, reproduce and die, living just above the poverty line. That is worse than poverty.

What do those line mean? Who asked people to just eat, reproduce and die? How is something worse or better than poverty I do not know.

> it would get criticized as unnecessary. That leaves out only giving money to people directly.

No where in the parent comment or on this complete conversation it has been said that expenditure on Mangalyaan is unnecessary or wasteful. In fact it is the opposite that I said on the parent comment. Where did you read this?

[cscurmudgeon]

> What do those line mean? Who asked people to just eat, reproduce and die? How is something worse or better than poverty I do not know.

If you can't understand that, I don't know what to say. Ask yourself this: why should poverty be reduced? The same rationale can be applied to why we need "space wizardry."

> No where in the parent comment or on this complete conversation it has been said that expenditure on Mangalyaan is unnecessary or wasteful.

How about this:

> No space wizardry, just basic engineering.