Chandrayaan 2 a learning experience: NASA engineer
Kolkata: A spacecraft systems engineer at NASA has said that the recent Chandrayaan 2 mission has been a "learning experience" for Indian scientists as it has helped ISRO to gather a lot of information about the Moon.
Anne Devereaux, working at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) of NASA, is the lead flight system engineer for the US space agency's Mars 2020 mission.
Speaking at the American Center here on Wednesday, Devereaux said, "The Indian scientists did very well. Lot of information (was) gathered. The orbiter has been successful".
Chandrayaan 2, the second Indian lunar mission, had suffered a snag while attempting a historic landing on the uncharted South Pole of the Moon.
The lander 'Vikram' lost communication with ground stations during its final 2.1-km descent on September 7.
When asked what could have happened to the lander, the NASA engineer said, "It is upto ISRO scientists to figure out what went wrong.
"It is a learning experience for Indian scientists. We do learn from failures.
She said, even her husband was tracking the mission from JPL on that day, but after some time he had sent a message to her - "I don't see it anymore."
The Chadrayaan 1 mission had been "spectacularly successful" which confirmed about the significant presence of water in the Moon, Devereaux said.
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Congress using hijab issue to pacify minority anger, alleges Karnataka LoP R Ashoka
Bengaluru: Leader of Opposition in the Assembly R. Ashoka has accused the Congress government of using the hijab issue to placate what he described as discontent among minority voters after the Davanagere by-election.
In a post on X on Wednesday, Ashoka alleged that the state government, instead of addressing issues such as price rise, corruption, farmers’ distress and law and order, was attempting to retain its minority vote base by reviving the hijab issue.
Referring to the 2022 dress code introduced by the BJP government, which prohibited hijab in schools and colleges, Ashoka said the Karnataka High Court had upheld the policy and emphasised the importance of discipline in educational institutions.
He questioned the Congress government’s move to revisit the issue and asked whether setting aside the court-backed policy to benefit one community could be described as secularism.
Ashoka further alleged that while the government was willing to permit hijab, it continued to prohibit saffron shawls.
He accused the government of dividing students on religious lines rather than treating schools and colleges as spaces of equality.
Drawing a comparison with Mamata Banerjee’s government in West Bengal, Ashoka claimed that excessive appeasement politics had harmed the state and warned that the Congress in Karnataka could face a similar political response.
He said voters in Karnataka would teach the Congress a lesson for what he termed “vote-bank politics” and for compromising constitutional and judicial principles.
