Tag: Devas

  • ISRO-Devas deal: Ex-ISRO chief banned from future government office

    The Indian Express carried an exclusive report today morning stating that former ISRO Chairman, Madhavan Nair; former Scientific Secretary, A Bhaskarnarayana; former Managing Director, Antrix Corporation, K R Sridharmurthi and former ISRO Satellite Center chief, K N Shankara have been penalised in connection to their role in the ISRO-Devas deal. The order signed by the Director, Department of Space states that the accused would not be able to hold any future office in the Governments of India, her states or Union territories. Further, the order also asks the accused to remit any office that they may currently hold.

    The media seems to be more taken in by the implications to Madhavan Nair than the other three accused. It seems rather too early to make a comment on this story. A reaction (NDTV) is coming in from Madhavan Nair as I write this out and I am trying to follow the news given the lack of a television set, the best I can.  He also raises many points in this news story (Real Time News).

    The ISRO-Devas matter is sub-judice and comment is not allowed on that matter. However, the way in which the Government has acted is rather on shaky ground. Given the stature of people it has acted against, I would have thought the Government would have taken more care to present a solid case. We’re still waiting for a clear statement from the Government on this issue.

    Update – 11:55 AM A glance through the archives on Google News led me to this news item from the Deccan Chronicle. This seems to have been before an “order” came out and seems like Madhavan Nair protested well before the order was made in the way the enquiry was conducted. In light of this article, the Indian Express article is not breaking news or an exclusive, just an update on the situation.

    Update – 12:20 AM The former ISRO Chairman has now hit out at the present ISRO Chairman.

  • Madhavan Nair’s comments in the Media

    Note: I wrote this on my earlier blog hosted as http://parallelspirals.blogspot.com. I recovered the text from the WayBack Machine. This post appeared on February 22, 2011 as per the time stamp. I’m trying to collect here again all my old writings spread on various blogs.

    Madhavan Nair has recently been on a commenting and interviewing spree. The bulk of his effort seems to be deflect blame from ISRO on two recent events – the failure of the GSLV and the ISRO/DEVAS deal. His comments on the failure of the GSLV seem a little out of line. His comments on the ISRO/DEVAS deal could be considered as an effort to deflect blame from himself. Whatever the case, his media interactions since the GSLV failure has been interesting to follow.

    I have never seen a chair of any failure analysis committee commenting on the progress of the committee as the analysis was on-going. Madhavan Nair seems to be repeating the same statement since the first meeting held in January. He’d begun pointing to the Russian cryogenic engine for the failure of the GSLV in December. This changed from the “German connectors” blamed initially for the failure. The interesting point about this repeated statement is that while Russia is willing to “studying the data provided to them”, Madhavan Nair seems to be stressing on this point. Also, ISRO seems to be conducting experiments and we’re running dangerously close to the last date for the submission of the report of the GSLV Failure Analysis Committee under the chairmanship of Madhavan Nair. I would think a meeting would be needed to get the results, analyse them and create a cohesive report. Madhavan Nair’s various comments [see here and here] to the media vis-a-vis the GSLV seems to be beyond the control of ISRO.

    His other interesting comment comes on ISRO/DEVAS issue. I have refrained from commenting on the issue here since my understanding of the same has been very poor. Madhavan Nair did an interview with the Times of India on the issue. His version of the story matches more closely with the version put out by DEVAS than by ISRO. This has now pushed the Opposition to demand that the Prime Minister (who’s in-charge of the Department of Space) to make a statement in Parliament on the issue. Madhavan Nair’s comments carry weight because he was the man in-charge in ISRO when the deal was operationalised. It seems like Nair is trying to protect himself. It even seems to have worked partially since the Opposition has turned its attention again from him.

    While on the topic of ISRO/DEVAS, I’d also like to point out the different approaches that ISRO and DEVAS have taken to put out their statements. ISRO has put out a 5 page PDF (now removed!!) that is a bit confusing and leaves a few questions un-answered and DEVAS has posted a video in a FAQ format that lasts about 4 minutes.

  • ISRO-Devas Deal update – my take

    Looking at various news items today it seems that former ISRO Chairman, Madhavan Nair continues to attack individuals for blaming him in relation to the ISRO-Devas deal. Here he hits out against V Narayanaswamy, a Union Minister. This is after he hit out at his colleague and current ISRO Chairman, K Radhakrishnan.

    On January 11, Deccan Chronicle carried an article stating that the former ISRO Chairman had written a letter to protest of the fact that a Committee looking into the Devas deal had not followed “due process” in submitting that report. Later, The Indian Express on January 25 reported that former ISRO Chairman Madhavan Nair, former Scientific Secretary, A Bhaskarnarayana; former Managing Director, Antrix Corporation, K R Sridharmurthi and former ISRO Satellite Center chief, K N Shankara have been barred from holding office in the ISRO-Devas deal. Jaimon Joseph has written out some of the intricacies of that case in this blog post. That post also has this article by R Ramachandran which is worth linking to and reading about.

    These are the salient points of the event so far. I don’t think that Madhavan Nair and the others named in that order should have been dealt in the way they were. They should not have heard of such an order from the press. The order came out in January 13. The Indian Express report came out on January 25. The Government seems to have sufficient time to convey this order to the people whom it was brought out against. I think the whole affair could have been handled in a different way, given the stature of the people the order sought to take action against.

    Madhavan Nair losing his composure given a newspaper report is surprising. The way he hit out at these people seems unnatural and seems to point to some frustration that he nurtures. However, being a scientist of his stature, he is also responsible for his actions in the public sphere – especially on television. In this context, I can understand the scientists reaction attacking Madhavan Nair for reacting the way he did.

    Reacting in this way, without having an official copy of the order and basing it on a newspaper report was a mistake that Madhavan Nair made. The others named in the order maintained this stance better even under pressure from the media for quotes. Today, Sridharmurthy ventured a little more but was more speculation.

    The ISRO Chairman, Dr Radhakrishnan’s silence at this point is to be criticised. Even if not to retort against Madhavan Nair’s outburst, I think it was his responsibility to clear the air on bringing out the Devas Report and providing the basis for the action taken against such reputed scientists. This is a situation somewhat akin to Dr Manmohan Singh’s silence at various junctures in the Government cases. I think Dr. Radhakrishnan could also come out on what procedures would be followed by the organisation for something as valuable as the S-band frequencies that India seems to have lost out on.

    To conclude, I think the Department of Space and Dr. Radhakrishnan must table the report. I also think Madhavan Nair must pen his thoughts rather than blurt them out on the television. I think the television media has taken some of his comments out of context and might hurt him in the long run. I think the other scientists have conducted themselves extremely well. I hope they too can pen their thoughts on this somewhere. I hope at least now the order is sent out to these scientists so that they can read them and not continue to hear about them from “media sources” or see copies of this order. I also think we need to spare a thought for the employees at ISRO who are passing through a critical phase and I really hope morale does not fail. ISRO is a great institution and I hope that like in a mission failure, it does a critical review of itself and emerges better from this whole controversial environment, it finds itself in.