Avoid water pollution during immersion of Ganesh idols: PM Modi
Mumbai, Sep 7: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday urged people to work for preventing water pollution during immersion of Ganesh idols by ensuring that plastic and other waste does not go into sea.
The PM is on the one-day tour of Maharashtra which he began by taking darshan of Lord Ganesh in suburban Vile Parle in Mumbai.
"Just like Lokmanya Tilak had said that 'Swarajya' is my birth right. As we are approaching 75 years of our independence, we should say 'surajya' is our duty," the prime minister said.
The PM was addressing a gathering at Jio World Centre in the Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC) after inaugurating three metro lines for Mumbai. He also inaugurated a state-of-the-art metro coach, the first metro coach under 'Make in India'.
"I would like to give a suggestion for 'One Indian-One Pledge'. We need to protect environment and do away with single-use plastic. We have to avoid water pollution. During Ganesh visarjan, heaps of plastic and other waste go into sea.
We have to stop that," the prime minister said.
The PM said the NDA government has taken several "historic and unprecedented decisions" during the first 100 days of his second tenure.
He also said the time has come to implement the "One Indian-One Pledge" initiative.
The annual Ganesh festival, the trademark of Maharashtra, is held in the Hindu calendar month of 'Bhadrapada' for 10/11 days.
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ISRO successfully conducts second integrated air drop test for Gaganyaan mission
New Delhi (PTI): Space agency ISRO has successfully conducted the second integrated air drop test (IADT-02) for the upcoming Gaganyaan mission at the space station in Andhra Pradesh's Sriharikota.
The system is essential to ensure a safe recovery of the crew module -- the capsule in which astronauts sit during a human flight -- during re-entry and landing.
Union minister Jitendra Singh congratulated the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) for successfully conducting the test.
"Congratulations #ISRO for the successful accomplishment of Second Integrated Air Drop Test (IADT-02) for #Gaganyaan, India's first Human Space flight scheduled next year. The second Integrated Air Drop Test (IADT-02) was successfully conducted at Satish Dhawan Space Station Sriharikota," Singh said in a post on X.
The IADT-02 follows the successful completion of the first IADT, which took place on August 24, 2025, at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota.
Air drop tests recreate the last leg of a spacecraft's return to Earth. An aircraft or helicopter drops the spacecraft from a height to test various systems under different scenarios.
These are the deployment of the parachute system in case the mission is aborted mid-flight, system performance when one parachute fails to open and the spacecraft's orientation and safety during splashdown etc.
In the IADT-02 test, a simulated crew module, weighing about 5.7 tonnes, was lifted by an Indian Air Force Chinook helicopter to an altitude of about three kilometres and released over a designated drop zone in the sea, near the Sriharikota coast.
In a statement, the ISRO said, "Ten parachutes of four types were deployed in a precise sequence during the descent of the crew module, gradually reducing the velocity for safe touchdown. Subsequently, the simulated crew module was successfully recovered in coordination with the Indian Navy."
