Page 47 - Science India August 2022

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global arenas. However, the possibilities should not create a sense of complacency, nor should the challenges deter us from our goals. Those who remember India’s 50th Independence celebration would know that back then, India was attempt- ing to achieve a lot by the year 2020. The year 2020 has become a milestone for our numerous undertakings. However, the domestic political chaos led us astray, and we lost interest in achieving our tar- gets. That does not mean that India did not progress, but we went at a pace slow- er than had we set our eyes on. We must
put our eyes on 2047 as Arjuna would set on the fish’s eye. By doing so, our na- tion would develop a great convention of thinking and acting strategically. Once we reach 2047, we will becoe habitual
The renaming of the Planning Commission to Niti Aayog in 2014 demonstrated the willingness to break the low-ceiling created by short- duration five-year planning and widen it
cal and physical processes. India would have evolved into the largest operator of clean fuel vehicles, primarily hydro- gen and hydrogen-blended compressed natural gas. It would have substantially decarbonised its domestic rail and air travel. The cultural renaissance that has already begun in India would emphasise using ecologically friendly construction materials, packaging materials, dyes, paints, and other chemicals. India will also likely monetise the waste recycling industry, perhaps leading to a nation- wide plastic hunt that would accumulate littered plastics and convert them into valuable and cleaner materials.
On the energy front, India, dur- ing the Amrit Kaal, would have made tremendous strides with its partners in the International Solar Alliance towards the Green Grid Initiative. This initiative, operating towards the goal of ‘One Sun, One World, One Grid,’ aims to generate a whopping 2600 gigawatts of solar and wind power by 2050. The Green Grid Initiative would stimulate tremendous innovation in making solar and wind power generation more efficient than today’s standards.
In outer space, by 2047, India would operate commercial and civilian space
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Prof Deep Ocean Mission is one of the ambitious projects that India hopes to run the successfully in the years leading up to the first century of our Independence
Stu stations in the Earth’s orbits, would have
rein sent probes to nearly all planets of our
in setting and achieving targets for 2072
basi Solar System, and the first Indians would
and 2097.
have set their foot on the Moon during the Amrit Kaal. India, by then, would have launched several space-based as- tronomy observatories that would-be successors of the James Webb Space Tele- scope and India’s very own ASTROSAT.
The Amrit Kaal will bring tremen- dous opportunities and challenges for India. The promising prospects are as laid in these priority projects mentioned above. The challenge is getting them ex- ecuted effectively in both domestic and
*The author is a Space Policy & Diplomacy Consultant at the Ministry of External Affairs’ autonomous think
tank, Research and Information System for Developing Countries (RIS), New Delhi. He has an award- winning PhD in Astrochemistry and spent his doctoral and postdoctoral years in Germany, France, Japan and the United States. He was a crew member of the European Space Agency’s Rosetta Mission
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