In July 2009, shortly after Dr. Tessy Thomas was appointed as Director of Agni V Project, I had written about it under the title Tessy Thomas: A star of space science. That had a fairly good readership. With the recent successful trial of Agni V missile, the interest in this piece has revived. I am getting quite a few visitors.
Two days back, on April 22, I got two comments – one through the blog and the other by email. One is from a visitor who has given his name in his comment which I have included in my post. The other is from an internationally known Europe based economist and author. Both are quoted below.
The first is: “I think enough is enough. We are all indians. Do not discriminate any community or the person as our ancestors from all community contributed in building united India and fought for our Independence. A success in any field of India is our success and in the field of Science & Technology or any other field as the case may be, collective contribution is led to the ultimate results and success. But the only difference is here that those who are led from the front is got more applauds than the people worked behind the screen. But their contributions also very well appreciated by the entire scientific community of india. This very fact well known to the scientific community of india but not necessary to the general public.”
The second one reads: “I have been closely following the news about Agni V and about the (deliberately?) low-profile scientists associated with it, particularly Dr. Tessy Thomas. The world laughed about India messing up the organization of the Commonwealth games, but have shown awe and admiration for the research, engineering, organization, and the capability shown in the Agni-launch. Knowledgeable people abroad of course know that there are 'two Indias'. And it should be also said that most countries, especially the Western Democracies have shown a lot of goodwill towards India's defence developments. Probably no other country could have got away without questions and criticism if a missile launch of this kind was carried out.
Thanks very much for the piece on Dr. Tessy Thomas.”
Can you guess which visitor wrote what comment? And what do you think of the points that these two have brought up?