India set to launch its first Moon probe

[Harbhajan]

http://space.newscientist.com/article/dn15...moon-probe.html

India set to launch its first Moon probe

21 October 2008

NewScientist.com news service

Padma Tata, Chennai

A week ahead of the festival Diwali, which is celebrated with fireworks and lights, the Indian Space Research Organisation is planning its own rocket show.

On Wednesday, ISRO is set to launch an uncrewed spacecraft to map the Moon in more detail than ever before – a far cry from ISRO's beginnings in the 1960s, with a church in Kerala as their first office.

India's maiden Moon mission Chandrayaan may have cost less than other countries' lunar missions – $80 million as opposed to $140 million for the European Space Agency's SMART-1 – but its aims are no less ambitious.

"For the first time, we hope to have a comprehensive mapping of the entire Moon," says ISRO scientist Parameswaran Sreekumar.

The spacecraft, designed and built in India, will carry various instruments from around the world: for example, a radar made in the US will image the permanently shadowed regions of the poles to locate ice.

And upgraded versions of two spectrometers used in SMART-I will gather clues on the origin and evolution of the lunar crust. The maps will be invaluable for the crewed Moon mission that India is planning for 2014 or 2015.

Some Indian development policy analysts question whether the money might be better spent on tackling India's myriad social needs.

"They asked the same question when we built our first satellite, Aryabhatta, in the '70s," notes Mylswamy Annadurai, Chandrayaan project director.

"ISRO has done fairly good work in using space for societal needs. Today we have satellites for education, crop, health and communications," Annadurai says. "Chandrayaan is today's equivalent of Aryabhatta."

[chatanga1]

i rememer having a debate wiv an indian about india's space prog. he was like, yeah man we gona do this and that and tin, and when i asked him weva the money would be better spent on the millions of people who live below tha poverty line, he was like ermmmm.

no point in going into space when your own people dont live properly.

[Mithar]

I agree iwht Chatanga. The amount of money they are going to spend for the space program which they don't really need, wouldn't it be better to spend that money on India's poor or to improve India's infastructure as China has done.

[amardeep]

When hankaar is your leader, you are doomed to fail

[Ragmaala]

Just a question:

Can we change Karma of poor people ?

[amardeep]

Raagmala ji, using that kind of logic you are no better than the high caste men who spit on low caste people saying its their destiny to be treated so

[Ragmaala]

Raagmala ji, using that kind of logic you are no better than the high caste men who spit on low caste people saying its their destiny to be treated so

dear veer,

i am not a believer in this logic. If I was then stories of Sikhs helping the needy would hold no value for me.

But its just a question / doubt in my mind. When people say that money should be used to help poor people how far do you think can we go ?

Similarly, people produce arguments that gold used in the gurdwara should be instead used for the poor people ?

In this world , how do we differentiate between a person who is really poor and who is just lazy like a begger ?

I am not trying to debate anything , I myself believe strongly that needy people should be helped. But I am just putting some points forward to think about.

[amardeep]

interesting question. I've always wondered the samt thing actually, also in relation to "tera kia mithai lagai"(accepting the Will of God) and then the later Gurus fighting against the opressors

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[Mithar]

Regardless if a poor person can change his Karma or not, but as Sikhs we should do good karma by helping the poor and unfortunate in anyway we can. We need to have compassion, this will destroy ALOT of bad karma we have.

We should also have compassion on them and introduce people to Gurmat i think, that would be the ultimate compassion.

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[Guest]

Poor people need a roof over thier heads, food for eating and introducing them to Gurmat and making them understand the will of God will not help their poverty. Thats a very Christian missionary type approach, which I am not in favour of.

Help them regardless of what faith they are, regardless of beliefs they hold, regardless of anything.

Selfless seva is the way forward, Love for everybody.

The rest God will handle.

i agree with you on this 100%. ..good post.

[SURYADEV]

Back to the Indian Space Programme....

On a website (tribute to hinduism.com, I think!) the author writes about VIMANA - or ancient indian air/space craft (as well as other indian achievements and technologies).

Does anyone here know anything about this stuff?? Apparently , there are old sanskrit treatise written about it many centuries ago. Though he does not mention names.

[Mithar]

Poor people need a roof over thier heads, food for eating and introducing them to Gurmat and making them understand the will of God will not help their poverty. Thats a very Christian missionary type approach, which I am not in favour of.

Help them regardless of what faith they are, regardless of beliefs they hold, regardless of anything.

Selfless seva is the way forward, Love for everybody.

How is that a Christian approach? A Christian approach is that they will ONLY help if they have a chance of converting you to Christianity. But a Sikh would help anyone regardless of faith, caste or race, and I don't see anything wrong in also introducing them to Gurmat.

We are not like the Jews who think that they cannot and should not introduce anyone to their faith. When the Buddha got enlightened he could have lived the rest of his life under the Boddhi tree and meditated until the time of his death, but he didn't because he had compassion in his heart for the world and seeing the suffering of the world he decided to introduce people to the way of the Buddha.

This form of compassion is a very Indian tradition and the saints of the Bhagti movement also understood this when they began introducing people to Bhagti because a true Bhagat realises that a world without Bhagti/Bandagee is a world full of suffering. Even a rich man with all the money in the world in suffering if he is not doing Bhajjan Bandagee of Vaheguru. Guru Nanak Dev Jee said "Nanak Dukhiya Sab Sansaar". It SOULD NOT be confused with the western Christian missionary preaching.

[chatanga1]

talking about gold inthe gurdwara or to help the needy, we only have to look at the example set us by Guru Nanak Dev Ji, in Sacha Sauda. I personally dont beleive in buildsing fancy gurdwearas when people are starving, and i made this point to the singhs who wre collecting funds for re-building of damdama sahib from the nanak nishkam seveak jatha uk. that soho rd wale if you dont know.

i asked them what use is a building when there are many poor sikligars in india not to mention other nonsikhs who live in india, in abject poverty, which unless by a stroke of extremely good fortune they will pass onto their children?

what would Guru Nanak do in this situation? They were only innerested in collecting money to do sewa at damdama sahib and et all the credit and recognition for doin the sewa.

The guy even said to me that the sgpc do not have the funds to cover this sewa. i told them to piss off, and i wasnt gona give anything. they really made me angry.

[Mithar]

Was Maharaja Ranjit Singh Jee and other Sikh Sardars of the time wrong for puting Gold on Darbar Sahib? I'm sure there were poor people in Punjab back than as well.

if we are going with the approach that we should ONLY spend money on Gurdwaras if poverty is eradicated, then sorry to say we might have to literally wait thousands of years for this to happen.

[chatanga1]

its said tha in Maha. Ranjit Singhs raaj, no-one starved.

[Mithar]

But surely there was a class of people that was below the poverty line. All nations have this class, even the richest nation like the US which is probably the richest in history has people below the poverty line.

During the Raj of Mahraja Ranjit Singh Jee we all know that the Akali Nihangs were a state within a state. They were the purest and most puratanical of the Khalsa. They also controlled the Darbar Sahib, their Jathadar, Akali Phula Singh was also the Jathadar of the Akal Takht and Maharaja Ranjit Singh respected that. If anyone could actually tell off Maharaja Ranjit Singh it was the Akalis. The Akalis were not materialistic, and were known to give to the poor what ever money they recieved and even they did not dispute Gold being put on Darbar Sahib.

[Morghe Sahar]

Mithar wrote:

"How is that a Christian approach? A Christian approach is that they will ONLY help if they have a chance of converting you to Christianity.But a Sikh would help anyone regardless of faith, caste or race, and I don't see anything wrong in also introducing them to Gurmat."

That is a pathetic lie. There are many Catholic and Orthodox institutions that have provided and still provide education and social care to people who are not themselves Christians. The same counts for many Jewish Tsedkia organisations and Islamic charities.

[Matheen]

Mithar wrote:

........ There are many Catholic and Orthodox institutions that have provided and still provide education and social care to people who are not themselves Christians......

Bahadur has a point - I went to a Catholic run school for a while when I was younger. On the days they had Mass, they would organise a Sikhi or Punjabi teacher for us. That wasn't the norm though, but still shows that they aren't all bad. However, there are several Evangelical organisations who try to bribe people into converting in exchange for school admissions etc.

Technological progress is necessary for the long run. It is, however, sad that the poor seem to have been forgotten in today's world.

[Mekhane'ch Jannat]

I would like to say that the aim to eradicate poverty is a naieve one. A clever individual will understand that for some people to have others must not have. For all to have is not possible. On a small scale if you give to a needy person, you lose out and he gains. Like wise on a larger world scale for a large group to be taken out of poverty a large group must be put into poverty. Also the level of material possession that is the standard these days is not possible for the whole world, resources are finite. Instead of wasting energy on 'helping the poor' this wealth of resources should serve as a means for an individuals self perfection, by acting in this way, towards his goal of self knowledge, an individual provides benefits for his fellows, without identifying with 'helping people' actually trying to help people in a material way, is actually helping the material world, and reducing the closeness to the spirit. Rather poor people should be taught to live with poverty rather than have desires created in them of higher material benefits, which actually creates a 'hell' in them. I am sure all agree that the man with the 'wealth' of simran is a real rich man and the poor man is the one whose heart is empty. This view is open to abuse, but each person must pay for what he eats, so even if a lazy man justifies his actions by the above argument, he must still pay for what he takes. To give materially is the lowest form of sacrifice, as sacrifice become more psychological its reward is greater, each person must therefore sacrifice at his own level of understanding.

[Mithar]

That is a pathetic lie. There are many Catholic and Orthodox institutions that have provided and still provide education and social care to people who are not themselves Christians. The same counts for many Jewish Tsedkia organisations and Islamic charities.

Bahadur, all over India, Christian missionaries ONLY help people because they expect that the people they are helping will be "saved". They always have an ulterior motive behind their helping, which I'm not criticising. At least they are helping even if it is at the cost of their souls belonging to Christ.

When the Tsunami happaned in Thailand, the government of Thailand invited organisations from all over the world to help the Thai people. Many Christian missionary groups also went there and do you know the result of what happened? for the first time in history of Thailand there are now many Churches where there were no churches in Thailand. They will only help if they see a chance of converting people. Do you think they will help people on the condition of not preaching and converting people? I highly doubt it!

I remember during the last earth quake that happened in Gujarat. Many Sikh organisations sent food, tents, free medical care, clothing, set up langars for the survivors and expected NOTHING in return. Not one Gujarati during that time is known to have converted to Sikhi because Sikhs help people, they see the presence of Vaheguru in them, they are helping because THAT is the Sikh thing to do NOT because they are trying to save their souls from "eternal" damnation.

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