Senior ISRO Scientist Criticises Sivan's Approach After Moon Mission Setback
Tapan Misra, the former chief of the Space Applications Centre of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) who was sidelined last year by incumbent chairman K Sivan, has penned a Facebook post tacitly criticising the organisation’s leadership and work culture after the Chandrayaan 2 surface mission failed earlier this month. The post is available to read in full below.
One of Sivan’s first decisions as the new chairman of ISRO, in mid-2018, had been to demote Misra from directorship of the SAC to being the chairman’s advisor, a role that carries no executive authority. Speculation was rife at the time that the decision had been motivated by reasons other than professional conduct – because Misra was opposed to privatisation of the Indian spaceflight programme, because the controversial GSAT-11 mission had become stalled or because of internal politics.
After Misra’s transfer, many scientists from around India penned a letter to the President of India asking him to intervene, although such intervention never came to be.
In his somewhat rambling Facebook post, Misra called attention to ISRO’s top-down working culture and inadequate leadership, particularly in the face of Chandrayaan 2 having failed to execute its surface mission because the lander crashed on the Moon’s surface instead of touching down.
Around the same time Misra’s post was published, Sivan announced that Chandrayaan 2 had in fact completed 98% of its mission – a surprising claim considering one half of the mission hadn’t been executed and the scientific mission of the other half – the lunar orbiter – has only just begun its minimum lifetime of one year. Sivan had announced shortly after the lander failure on September 7 that the mission was a 95% success, itself a strongly contested number.
Although Misra doesn’t directly name ISRO or Sivan, one potshot he takes in his post is clearly directed at the two (lightly edited for clarity):
Leadership determines the backbone of an institution. All successful institutions have one thing in common: they choose a leader who built some thing new, chose an untrodden path, building a new one. You become a complete leader when you pass through the stages of being ignored and ridiculed for your new ideas, grudgingly accepted when you prove your point by adding value to your institution and society at large, and finally admired for what you built and what you are. Leaders inspire, they do not manage. When you see a sudden spurt in emphasis on adhering to rules, sudden increase in paperwork, frequent meetings, winding discussions, you surely know leadership is becoming a rare material in your institution. Institutions do not evolve with time as they stop innovating. Ultimately, they become living fossils, footnotes in history.
He also writes about an ‘organisational value system’ that may have kept ISRO employees from being able to criticise the work of their superiors, “bossy behaviour” and a greater focus on postmortem analysis than pre-mission testing. In fact, Misra concludes his post saying, “No point in crying when things go wrong” – clearly referring to a crying Sivan being consoled by Prime Minister Narendra Modi around dawn on September 7, after it became clear that Chandrayaan 2’s surface mission had been imperilled.
While ISRO’s public outreach team advertised the Chandrayaan 2 mission on social media platforms with great fanfare until the Mk III rocket carrying it lifted off on July 22, there has been nearly nothing after the events of September 7.
Observers have raised concerns that the failure analysis process could be unduly biased in favour of the organisation considering Sivan’s repeated attempts to paint the mission as a major success. These sentiments are further exacerbated by there being no communiqués other than Sivan’s occasional words to the press.
ISRO has said it will publish the analysis report but hasn’t specified a deadline. The Indian Express quoted an unnamed source on September 18 as saying that the document is almost ready, is currently winding its way through the “proper channels” and will be made available soon.
Read Misra’s post in full:
Courtesy: thewire.in
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Andhra to be developed as knowledge, creator economy hub: CM Naidu
New Delhi/Amaravati (PTI): Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu on Friday said the state is taking steps to transform itself into a knowledge and creator economy hub with a strong focus on artificial intelligence and quantum technology.
He noted that Andhra Pradesh has abundant tech-driven youth and the government is formulating plans to train them in futuristic technologies with support from global technology firms.
"Our goal is to transform Andhra Pradesh into a knowledge hub by focusing on AI, quantum computing, data centres, drone cities and space cities. The youth will remain our biggest asset over the next 25 years, and we seek global partnerships to scale up the creator economy," said Naidu during his interactions at the India AI Impact Summit 2026 in Delhi.
Naidu, who participated in the summit in the national capital, also held meetings with several global technology leaders and industrialists to explore collaborations in artificial intelligence, clean energy and innovation ecosystems.
He met Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen, Autodesk AI Head Mike Haley, Aramco India Director Abdul Rehman AiThukair, LEGO Education Vice President Tom Hall, Aadhaar Founder and CTO Srikanth Nadhamuni, Khosla Ventures Managing Partner Vinod Khosla and others at the AP Pavilion.
The chief minister also held discussions with Saudi Aramco representatives on clean energy projects, including solar initiatives, and invited the company to expand operations in Andhra Pradesh, stating that the state is highly suitable for green energy production.
He sought support from NVIDIA Vice President Callista Redmond for establishing AI Living Labs and proposed partnerships through the Ratan Tata Innovation Hub to promote youth innovation, including collaborations with IIT Tirupati and Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) Tirupati under the Andhra Pradesh Future Innovation and Research for Science and Technology (AP FIRST) initiative.
Naidu urged Autodesk leadership to support the development of Global Capability Centres in design engineering and requested the establishment of an Innovation Academy in Amaravati aligned with quantum technology, besides proposing AI and robotics learning labs in partnership with LEGO Education.
He also discussed AI-driven smart governance solutions with Quantela Inc Chairman Sridhar Gadhi, while World Bank Group Digital AI Regional Director Mahesh Uttamchandani met Naidu on the sidelines of the summit.
Following the meetings, Naidu visited various exhibition stalls at the summit, including those of NVIDIA, Tata, Intel and Microsoft, and reviewed AI applications across agriculture, healthcare and industry.
