Space for innovation

A journalist's accounts of India's early scientists are vital for the republic to remind itself of what inclusive nation-building can look like

If you pick up this book, and you should, do resist the temptation, if any, to skip ahead to the part that deals with India’s space programme. Putting satellites in space is a splendid achievement, and should be celebrated, but skipping forward would hamper the book’s significant point: Science can be important without being non-glamorous, yet can make for engrossing reading. So, the birth of India’s space programme, the construction of its first few satellites, the coming together of its institutions, and its rapid growth to the present time, are all covered beautifully, yet Isro’s story is only a part