Letters: One big step for India...

Today is a great day for science. Space research in India was started by Jawaharlal Nehru in 1962 when he appointed Vikram Sarabhai as the head. Nehru was influenced by both the US and Soviet Union's space programmes, and that is the secret of India's space research. Sarabhai was also the founding director of the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A), and it is not a coincidence that one of the campuses of the Indian Space Research Organisation is right in front of the IIM-A campus in Vastrapur, Ahmedabad.

This year is Nehru's 125th birth anniversary and the successful mission to Mars is a great tribute the current space scientists have given to him, and scientists such as Sarabhai, Homi Bhabha and P C Mahalanobis, who had worked shoulder to shoulder with Nehru to make India a modern nation.

Chandrashekhar G Ranade Washington D C

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