Title: Touching Lives – The Little Known Triumphs of the Indian Space ProgrammeAuthor: S K Das
Publisher: Penguin Books 2007 (First)
ISBN: 978-0-14310-216-8
Pages: 251
The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is entrusted with the task of overseeing the Indian space programme in everyway imaginable. They manufacture satellites, launching rockets, transponders, sensors, cameras and other hardware at one end, while at the other, they collect data from these satellites, collate them, interpret and interpolate them and disseminate the data for the benefit of the end-user, who happens to be the common man. From the first sounding rocket in 1963 to GSLV rockets which can carry satellites to geo-synchronous orbits 36000 km high in 2001, the ISRO has travelled far from where they began. India India
The book opens with a chapter on Alirajpur in the Jhabua district of Madhya Pradesh. In this tribal village, ISRO had installed a specially TV set to receive custom-made programs on rural development through ISRO’s satellites. The author visits the area and talks to several villagers, all of them competes among themselves to praise the program and thank ISRO which had helped them change their lives for the better. The next chapter is on how ISRO helped the people of Koraput district in Orissa, again a tribal one, to help find the areas where ground water is available and gave recommendations to dig wells. Such precise information helped the people to fetch water from nearby places, eliminating the need of women to go great distances to bring water to the family. The examples continue with the tele-education program in Chamarajanagar district of Karnataka, satellite based fish locating services in Lakshadweep, tele-medicine program in Udaipur, Tripura state where the little known town is connected by video conferencing to super-speciality hospitals in the major cities in India, locating flood affected and vulnerable areas in Orissa, satellite-based training programs for panchayat members in Karnataka, watershed development projects in Jhabua district of M.P, giving early warning about location of floods in the Garhwal area of Uttaranchal, giving valuable inputs to the people for protecting the mangroves and the fragile ecosystem in Sundarbans, W.Bengal, commissioning information centres for reclaiming the sodic lands in Uttar Pradesh, installation of automatic weather stations in Wayanad, Kerala and installation of village resource centres at Thiruvaiyaru in Tamil Nadu. At every location, the author talks with the beneficiaries who are the local people and presents the thankful praise of the villagers.
Even with all the representations of the benefit common man derives from the space programme, the book is thoroughly disappointing. Nowhere does it rise above the level of propaganda literature handed out to people visiting the stalls of institutions at trade fairs and exhibitions. The dramatization is poorly done and follows the same script everywhere. The conversations doesn’t at all seem to be realistic. In one case, an illiterate fisherman cracks a joke of finding a needle in the haystack! Such wholesale fabrication of speech makes one wonder whether the characters are also fictional. A serious book which intends to describe the benefits of the space programme shouldn’t have assumed this structure. If it indeed does, the flow of conversation should have been free-flowing and much more structured. Several mannerisms like ‘clucking the tongue’, ‘making a face’ and ‘beaming a smile’ are repeated several times to stress the author’s point, which in fact made it stand out like a sore thumb. We may even suspect whether the book is the tour diary of the author, as in the chapter on watershed development project in Jhabua. He visits three villages, Bori, Makankvi and Badi Dhami – at each of the locations, the script is the same – of how the program helped identify the causes of soil erosion by overgrazing, building of check dams, forming self-help groups, elimination of money lenders who charge exorbitant interest rates and how the villagers were empowered by the knowledge and financial advantages they possessed. The same story is repeated at all three locations, practically verbatim, but with different protagonists.
There is a good piece of information on how the soil become ‘sodic’, or become excessive with sodium salts which prevents plant growth. Such tracts become arid causing great loss for the farmers. The high build-up of salt in these lands prevent the water and air to penetrate the soil. This is rectified by replacing the exchangeable sodium with calcium by addition of soluble calcium through external amendments. Gypsum and pyrite are most commonly used because they are easily available. Gypsum is the more popular amendment, because its reclaiming efficiency is higher than that of pyrite. (p. 191). That’s very informative and another use for Gypsum!
Even with all the shortcomings noted, it is readable and every Indian should read it to get a glimpse of the innumerable ways in which the little known aspects of the space programme benefits the illiterate villagers and empowers them against exploitation by the mighty and wealthy. Every nook and cranny of the country is covered and the selection of topics is commendable. An introduction of the author was necessary and we may hope that Penguin will correct this anomaly in future editions.
Rating: 2 Star
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