This monumental leap for India’s space exploration prowess was the result of many minds and many scientists of which women formed an essential part. In addition to historic feat symbolising India’s space prowess, the growing role of women in space exploration has also inspired future generations of India, showcasing the extraordinary role that Indian women have been playing since time immemorial.

As provided by a senior official of ISRO to Economic Times, “There are about 54 female engineers/scientists who worked directly in the Chandrayaan-3 mission. They are associate and deputy project directors and project managers of various systems working at different centres.” 

Ritu Karidhal Srivastava, also known as the ‘Rocket Woman of India’, also played a crucial part of the team behind India’s ambitious moon mission is. Dr Karidhal is a senior scientist at the ISRO who was the Mission Director of Chandrayaan-2 and the Deputy Operations Director of Mangalyaan, India’s Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM). As a senior scientist at ISRO, her contributions have been instrumental in India’s space exploration endeavours.

Karidhal joined ISRO in November 1997 and has since worked on a number of noteworthy missions and served as operations director for a number of different programs. APJ Abdul Kalam, a former president of India, had presented her with the “ISRO Young Scientist Award.” She had also been awarded with the “ISRO Team Award for MOM in 2015,” and the “ASI Team Award.” Additionally, she was recognized as a “Women Achiever in Aerospace” in 2017 by the Society of Indian Aerospace Technologies & Industries (SIATI).

Kalpana K., who served as the Chandrayaan-3 mission’s deputy project director, is another notable and prominent participant in this historic endeavour. She also invested her time and energy into inventing and improving lander systems. Since 2003, Kalpana has been working for ISRO as a scientist. In her early years at ISRO, she contributed to a number of satellite projects that resulted in the launch of communication and remote sensing satellites. In addition, Kalpana worked closely on the Chandrayaan-2 project and was a key member of the team that developed the Mars Orbiter project (Mangalyan). 

According to an article of SheThePeople, Kalpana’s talent shined brightest during the Chandrayaan-3 project, where her proficiency in designing and optimizing lunar lander systems played a crucial part in resolving difficult engineering issues. In a speech addressed to the ISRO and the nation as a whole following the successful landing of the Rover on the surface of the Moon, Kalpana beamingly proclaimed, “We have landed the Rover on the Moon!”

She had further said, “This will remain the most memorable and the happiest moment for all of us and for our team at Chandrayaan-3. We have achieved our goal flawlessly from the day we started rebuilding our spacecraft after the Chandrayaan-2 experience; it has been breathe in and breathe out Chandrayaan-3 for our team. Starting from the reconfiguration and all the assemblations we have conducted meticulously; this has only been possible because of the team’s immense effort.”

Chandrayaan-3’s tremendous achievement highlights the expanding role of Indian women in the realm of space exploration. Ritu Karidhal Srivastava and Kalpana K.’s outstanding accomplishments, as well as those of many others who participated in the moon mission, are evidence that gender boundaries are being broken down, allowing for the flourishing of various viewpoints inside ISRO and the larger scientific community. 

The achievements of women featured above serve as an inspiration to numerous young minds desiring to contribute to the cosmos, as well as those who wish to reach the sky in other sectors, as India continues to demonstrate its dominance in space exploration. Future generations of scientists and explorers in India and abroad will be inspired by and paved the way by the vital contributions made by women to the area of space exploration and their unshakable dedication to scientific excellence.

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Two warnings ignored? Who is culpable? No less than a forum of scientific advisers set up by the government in early March 2021 itself and a special task force as early January 2021 warned Indian officials of a new and more contagious variant of the coronavirus taking hold in the country. Five scientists who are part of the forum have told this to Reuters and a researcher to the Telegraph last week. Besides sero-surveys in various states had also warned of the second tsunami that is upon us (Indian Express).

What does this central government do? Ignoring the specific warning, four of the scientists said the Modi-led central government did not seek to impose major restrictions to stop the spread of the virus. Hundreds of thousands (millions actually) of largely unmasked people attended religious festivals like the Maha-Kumbh and political rallies addressed by the prime minister, Narendra  Modi, minister for home affairs, Amit Shah amd other leaders of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and opposition politicians. Also, thousands of farmers, meanwhile, continued to camp on the edge of New Delhi protesting Modi’s agricultural policy changes.

India, the world’s second-most densely populated country is now not just struggling to contain a second wave of infections much more severe than its first last year, which, according to  some scientists, is being accelerated by the new variant and another variant first detected in Britain. Governed by a party and a leader who has chosen to ignore scientific and professional advice, leave alone coordinating with state governments, matters have become so much worse. India has now reported 386,452 new cases on Friday, a global record.

Who issued the warning that was ignored? Scientists say that the warning about the new variant in early March was issued by the Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genetics Consortium, or INSACOG. It was conveyed to a top official who reports directly to the prime minister, according to one of the scientists, the director of a research centre in northern India who spoke on condition of anonymity. Reuters could not determine whether the INSACOG findings were passed on to Modi himself.

Modi’s office did not respond to a request for comment from Reuters.

January 2021 warnings ignored

Even before this, the Centre failed to anticipate the second Covid-19 wave despite warning signals and omitted to take steps that could have mitigated the devastation, a top government researcher has told the Telegraph, agreeing with other experts that India is paying the price for complacency. The health researcher, a member of the Centre’s national task force on Covid-19, said the surge and the nationwide bed and oxygen shortages had resulted from a complacency that ignored data from India and elsewhere suggesting “a big wave” was possible. The researcher spoke anonymously to the Kolkata-based paper.  “There were indications a big wave could hit us, but that knowledge was not translated into more preparedness or strong public warnings.”

The researcher said an ICMR survey in January had found that only 25 per cent people had already been infected, implying that 75 per cent of the population was still susceptible to a future wave. “We also knew from Europe and the US that second waves could be bigger than the first.”

These warnings were given as early as January 2021. And it was on January 28, 2021 that prime minister, Narendra Modi gloated at the Davos Economic Summit of “India’s victory against Covid-19.

Let’s recall Modi’s words at Davos:

 “Friends, I have brought the message of confidence, positivity and hope from 1.3 billion Indians amid these times of apprehension … It was predicted that India would be the most affected country from corona all over the world. It was said that there would be a tsunami of corona infections in India, somebody said 700-800 million Indians would get infected while others said 2 million Indians would die.”

“Friends, it would not be advisable to judge India’s success with that of another country. In a country which is home to 18% of the world population, that country has saved humanity from a big disaster by containing corona effectively.”

This triumphalism and false complacency has cost hundreds of thousands of Indians their lives.

“We can now ask among ourselves: who’s responsible? Is it the health ministry, is it the Indian Council of Medical Research,  is it the government? All I’d say is: collectively we have failed,” said the researcher to the Telegraph, accepting the blame that some health experts have hurled. In contrast, the health ministry has been reluctant to discuss the subject.

Contradicting the stance of several senior health officials who have attributed the second wave to people’s laxity in wearing masks and maintaining physical distance, the health researcher said it would be unfair to point fingers at the public. “You cannot blame people. People will do what they like to do and what they are encouraged to do. People need appropriate guidance, appropriate messaging,” the researcher said.

“We were not able to translate the available data into strong enough cautionary messages for the public.” The researcher said an ICMR survey in January had found that only 25 per cent people had already been infected, implying that 75 per cent of the population was still susceptible to a future wave.

“We also knew from Europe and the US that second waves could be bigger than the first.” The researcher, echoing concerns aired by other health experts, said that after the epidemic shrank between October and December and the daily counts of new cases fell steadily, the government did little to curb the crowding that occurred at election rallies and at the Kumbh Mela. As tens of thousands gathered at the Kumbh and at election rallies every day, health officials remained largely silent except for issuing cursory advisories about mask-wearing and maintaining physical distance.

Amid the bed and oxygen shortages, at least two hospitals in Delhi on Thursday appeared so close to running out of oxygen that their administrators were considering asking critically ill patients to leave and look for beds in other hospitals.

“What we’re seeing happen was not inevitable or unavoidable,” said Ramanan Laxminarayanan, an economist and epidemiologist and founder director of the Centre for Disease Dynamics Economics and Policy, a research think tank in the US and India. “Organising more oxygen should have been part of the preparedness process, and preparing with thousands of beds in stadiums was also possible.”

 “This is not a government that tolerates dissent. If the experts don’t tolerate (the official) line, they’d be out. The buck stops with whoever is elected,” a health expert said, also requesting anonymity.

Scientists’ warnings ignored

INSACOG was set up as a forum of scientific advisers by the government in late December 2020 specifically to detect genomic variants of the coronavirus that might threaten public health. INSACOG brings together 10 national laboratories capable of studying virus variants.

The researchers within INSACOG first detected B.1.617, which is now known as the Indian variant of the virus, as early as February, Ajay Parida, director of the state-run Institute of Life Sciences and a member of INSACOG, told Reuters. These findings were shared with the ministry run by Harsh Vardhan, the central health ministry. When? Before March 10, 2021. What did the INSACOG warnings say? INSACOG warned that infections could quickly increase in parts of the country, the director of the northern India research centre told Reuters. The health ministry has not responded to requests by Reuters for comment.

It was around March 10 that INSACOG began to prepare a draft media statement for the health ministry. Reuters has seen a version of that draft that et out the forum’s findings: the new Indian variant had two significant mutations to the portion of the virus that attaches to human cells, and it had been traced in 15-20% of samples from Maharashtra, India’s worst-affected state.

This draft statement said that the mutations, called E484Q and L452R, were of “high concern.” It said “there is data of E484Q mutant viruses escaping highly neutralising antibodies in cultures, and there is data that L452R mutation was responsible for both increased transmissibility and immune escape.” What this means is that, the mutated versions of the virus could more easily enter a human cell and counter a person’s immune response to it.

For two weeks the ministry sat on these findings and made the findings public about two weeks later, on March 24, when it issued a statement to the media that concealed the words “high concern.” The statement said only that more problematic variants required following measures already underway – increased testing and quarantine. Testing has since nearly doubled to 1.9 million tests a day.

Why the Indian government not respond more decisively to these scientific findings by, for example restricting large gatherings? “Policy has to be based on evidence and not the other way around,” one of the scientists told old Reuters. “I am worried that science was not taken into account to drive policy. But I know where my jurisdiction stops. As scientists we provide the evidence, policymaking is the job of the government.”

There is more. The senior most bureaucrats in the country, Rajiv Gauba was sent this draft. Gauba reports directky to Narendra Modi. Reuters was unable to learn whether Modi or his office was informed of the findings. Gauba did not respond to a request for comment.

What we know is this: the government took no steps to prevent gatherings that might hasten the spread of the new variant, as new infections quadrupled by April 1 from a month earlier. Modi, some of his top colleagues, and dozens of other politicians, including opposition figures, held rallies across the country for local elections throughout March and and well into April.

The government also allowed the weeks-long Kumbh Mela religious festival, attended by millions of Hindus, to proceed from mid-March. Meanwhile, tens of thousands of farmers were allowed to remain camped on the outskirts of the capital New Delhi to protest against new agriculture laws.

Some scientists say the surge was much larger than expected and the setback cannot be pinned on political leadership alone. “There is no point blaming the government,” Saumitra Das, director of the National Institute of Biomedical Genomics, which is part of INSACOG, told Reuters.

Indian variant now a super spreader

The Indian variant has now reached at least 17 countries including Britain, Switzerland and Iran, leading several governments to close their borders to people travelling from India. The World Health Organisation has not yet declared the India mutant a “variant of concern,” as it has done for variants first detected in Britain, Brazil, and South Africa. But the WHO said on April 27 that its early modelling, based on genome sequencing, suggested that B.1.617 had a higher growth rate than other variants circulating in India.

The B.1.1.7 variant, which originated in the UK, was also detected in India by January, including in the northern state of Punjab, a major epicentre for the farmers’ protests. The NCDC and some INSACOG laboratories determined that a massive spike in cases in Punjab was caused by the UK variant, according to a statement issued by Punjab’s state government on March 23. Punjab imposed a lockdown from March 23. But thousands of farmers from the state remained at protest camps on the outskirts of Delhi, many moving back and forth between the two places before the restrictions began.

By April 7, more than two weeks after Punjab’s announcement on the UK variant, cases of coronavirus began rising sharply in Delhi. Within days, hospital beds, critical care facilities, and medical oxygen began running out in the city. At some hospitals, patients died gasping for air before they could be treated. The city’s crematoriums overflowed with dead bodies.

Delhi is now suffering one of the worst infection rates in the country, with more than three out of every 10 tests positive for the virus. India overall has reported more than 300,000 infections a day for the past nine days, the worst streak anywhere in the world since the pandemic began. Deaths have surged, too, with the total exceeding 200,000 this week.

Courtesy: The Telegraph, Reuters, Indian Express

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Some of India’s most respected scientists have written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi asking for access to granular data collected by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) over the past year as this can not only help them study the disease and better understand the highly virulent new Indian variant of the Coronavirus.

The News Minute reports signatories to the letter include Prof LS Shashidhara (Professor of Biology, IISER Pune and Ashoka University) and Prof Partha Majumder (National Science Chair, Government of India). The scientists say that this granular data will help them understand the geographical variations in the pattern of the infection spread. They also requested to be granted access to clinical data, with appropriate safeguards to the patients’ privacy, as this could help them in analysis and forecast and to estimate the need for essentials like oxygen, ventilators, ICU beds etc.

Meanwhile, scientists also raised concerns about the genome study. The suggested rate of data collection for the study that is seen as playing a key role in understanding and eventually finding a cure for the disease was 5 percent of all infected patients. However, at present the Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genomic Consortia (INSACOG) is only able to sequence the virus from 1 percent of the infected population. INSACOG was set up in January this year.

In their letter, the scientists also requested the government to increase the amount of genomic sequencing. According to The Telegraph, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has asked each state to send 150 Covid positive samples for genome sequencing each week. The health ministry guidelines say 15 samples each should be sent by five labs and five hospitals in each state every two weeks. This works out to just 150 samples every two weeks, whereas a need for 5 percent sequencing would translate into studying thousands of sequences from Maharashtra alone.

Not only is the sample size inadequate, it is also proving to be a hindrance in understanding the spread of different variants. Though some information has been gleaned even from this limited pool of data. According to The Telegraph, B.1.117 which is a fast-spreading UK variant, appears to be dominating samples sequenced from Punjab, Delhi and Haryana. Meanwhile, B.1.617 accounts for 35 to 40 percent of the samples from Maharashtra, and B.1.618 makes up roughly 20 percent of the samples in Bengal.

They also complained about the bureaucratic hurdles in scientific studies brought about by the PM’s pet project of Atmanirbhar Bharat. TNM quotes an excerpt from their letter as saying, “The “Aatmanirbhar Bharat” policy has made importing of scientific equipment and reagents an extremely tedious and time-consuming process, requiring approval at the level of the Secretaries of Ministries or Departments. This has reduced our ability to scale up testing by developing new testing platforms and has impaired our ability to sequence viral genomes for surveillance rapidly and accurately. Adequate encouragement and support by the Government are required for our country to become Aatmanirbhar in the future. Such restrictions, at this time, only serve to impede our ability to deal with Covid-19. We request the withdrawal of these restrictions.”

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10 days ago, scientists from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) had used a mathematical model to predict that India’s Covid graph could peak at 33-35 lakh active cases by mid-May and decline thereafter. But the same scientists have now revised their predictions upwards.

Now, these scientists from IIT Hyderabad and Kanpur say that the peak numbers could range from 38-48 lakhs between May 14 and 18. They also say that the daily infections could go as high as 4.4 fresh cases between May 4 and 8. Given how, we are already recording over 3.5 lakh new cases every day, the number doesn’t seem that far off.

How was the model designed?

The scientists used a model called Susceptible, Undetected, Tested (positive), and Removed Approach’ (SUTRA) to arrive at the numbers. Maninder Agrawal, professor at the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, IIT-Kanpur, has been posting the findings on Twitter and predicts that while cases in West Bengal will peak between May 1 and 5, in Kerala they will peak between May 5 and 10.

Adding Kerala as it appears to be stabilizing. Peaking during May 5-10. pic.twitter.com/ffw2bUt65k

— Manindra Agrawal (@agrawalmanindra) April 26, 2021

The SUTRA model uses contact rate, reach and the ratio of detected to undetected cases as the three main parameters to predict the course of the pandemic. While, prima facie this seems sound, one cannot ignore that the quality of data available may be unreliable in the first place. This is not only because of poor contact tracing mechanisms, but also under-reportage of cases and even deaths due to Covid. SabrangIndia has been reporting on several such instances in Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh.  

Growing international condemnation and flight bans

Meanwhile, the Indian administration has been at the receiving end of scathing criticism from international publications. On Wednesday, French newspaper Le Monde squarely blamed Prime Minister Narendra Modi saying, “Such a backlash cannot be explained solely by the unpredictability of a virus and its variants. The lack of foresight, the arrogance and demagoguery of Narendra Modi are obviously among the causes of a situation which today seems out of control and requires international mobilization. The Prime Minister, after having paralyzed and traumatized his country in 2020 by decreeing brutal confinement, abandoning millions of migrant workers, completely lowered his guard at the beginning of 2021.”

Many countries including Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Honk Kong, Indonesia, Italy, New Zealand, Kuwait and UAE have instituted varying degrees of bans on people travelling from India. The US Center for Disease Control has issued an advisory to Americans not to travel to India.

Apathy and arrogance displayed by the government

Meanwhile, several public events and gatherings continue to be conducted and planned in India. Uttarakhand appears to be tempting fate announcing Char Dham Yatra, even though thousands of participants of the recently held Kumbh Mela were diagnosed with Covid-19.

The attitude of those in power ranges from insensitive to outright apathetic as they appear to be more interested in furthering their own political agendas. While Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar tried to brush aside allegations of mismatch in Covid death data with a shocking “dead won’t come back to life” remark, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Adityanath has ‘warned’ hospitals that put up notices saying they have run out of oxygen, accusing them of spreading false panic.

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