India's Journey to Mars. Was it necessary?

MARS ORBITER MISSION

Shame on India! Yes, I said it! Shame, Shame on India! A probe to Mars, Shame on India! 450 Crores, Shame on India! Mars is not relevant to India. Whatever scientific discoveries the Indian probe makes will be quite irrelevant to the people of India — or any other people, for that matter. There can be no conceivable benefit to knowing its geology or atmospheric composition or whatever. Poor countries should leave it to rich countries to do things like sending missions to Mars. They have a comparative advantage there and it is pointless competing with them. The resources they spend will be dictated by their priorities but the benefits — the knowledge about other planets — anyway will be part of the shared scientific knowledge of humanity. India is the fourth country to send a probe to Mars, or some such thing. Is that a matter of pride? NO. It is solely a publicity stunt, pulled off by ISRO and the Indian government. Shame on India, it ranks 135 out of 147 countries on the human development index. Shame. India’s literacy problem needs to be solved urgently. A literate population is an absolute minimum if India is to grow economically and socially. The old methods of government schools have failed and are anyway outdated in a world of highly advanced information and communications technologies. Just spending a few crores of Rupees on that problem will yield enormous benefits. How about doing a bit of research to figure out how best to design public toilets? It may not be the most exciting thing to read about in the newspapers — certainly not as interesting as sending probes to Mars — but it will have enormous public health benefits. All those and many other important topics need urgent attention in terms of public spending ahead of our tryst to mars. The government must take the lead in funding research in these areas, instead of sending a probe to mars. India has limited public resources and allocating them sensibly is necessary. For that India needs a well thought-out priority list. Choices have to be made because India cannot afford the opportunity cost of making bad choices. One day, if and when India becomes a middle-income country, maybe then India could indulge in the luxury of spending on irrelevant data gathering. But sending probes to the Moon or Mars is way down on the list right now and this kind of silliness should be called out strenuously and loudly.