2 The Hampton Roads Messenger Our World


BY SANDIP ROY


KOLKATA, INDIA - There are indeed some things money can’t buy.


The cost of a Mangalyaan mission to Mars: Rs 450 crore. But


that photograph


ISRO scientists flashing thumbs up? Priceless.


When we think about space, whenever we think about science, we think about Vikram Sarabhai or Homi Bhabha or Satish Dhawan. Serious men in suits.


We do not think of women in brightly coloured silk saris, with a bit of gold on the borders, pottus on their forehead, and gajras in their hair whooping it up. We’ve seen pictures like that on Facebook but they are usually at pongal or Navratri or wedding celebrations.


But this was at the Research Organisation.


Indian Space


It is wonderful that for a moment the whole world could


see about gang-rape and


women on the front pages of Indian newspapers in a story that not


Indian was


domestic


violence. In fact, in a story that was not about being a woman at all but about professionals celebrating a job well-done.


The first rocket ISRO launched in 1963 was named Rohini. But since then as Quartz puts it the “face of India’s space program has always been a man”. (As is true of the face of almost everything else).


Mangalyaan however suddenly


propelled to the front pages the faces of unknown women who have given wings to India’s space program. This not wind beneath the wings. They are very much part of the wings.


Quartz says 20% of ISRO’s total workforce is women. And 10% of the total staff are women engineers. That might well be a hidden factor in why the programme has proved to be so thrifty yet efficient.


Jokes aside, the faces of those women of ISRO gives us a chance to step back and realize how many women have quietly rocketed India into space.


In 2011, India Today reported on GSAT-12, a communication satellite being launched by ISRO. The figures at its helm, the project director, the mission director and the operations director were all women.


Women in sciences make news but usually only when it’s a first. Asima Chatterjee and Janaki Ammal remain pioneers as the first women to be conferred a Doctorate


Of course there is a glass ceiling being


broken here but it’s happening without much fanfare. When Durba Banerjee tried to become a commercial


aviation minister Humayun of jubilant


Volume 9 Number 3


November 2014 Mangalyaan Mission to Mars and Isro's 'Rocket Women'


pilot


with Indian Airlines the story goes that central


of Science.


Or an Anna Mani – the only woman scientist to work with C.V. Raman.


Kabir offered her the post of a flight attendant. Banerjee stuck to her guns and became India’s first commercial woman pilot. Years later Kabir got off a plane and realized the pilot was none other than Durba Banerjee. Now Air India is among the biggest employer of female pilots in the world.


Space might or might not be the final ROCKET WOMEN PAGE 6


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