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By:

Bhalchandra Chorghade

11 August 2025 at 1:54:18 pm

Applause for Cricket, Silence for Badminton

Mumbai: When Lakshya Sen walked off the court after the final of the All England Badminton Championships, he carried with him the disappointment of another near miss. The Indian shuttler went down in straight games to Lin Chun-Yi, who created history by becoming the first player from Chinese Taipei to lift the prestigious title. But the story of Lakshya Sen’s defeat is not merely about badminton final. It is also about the contrasting way India celebrates its sporting heroes. Had the same...

Applause for Cricket, Silence for Badminton

Mumbai: When Lakshya Sen walked off the court after the final of the All England Badminton Championships, he carried with him the disappointment of another near miss. The Indian shuttler went down in straight games to Lin Chun-Yi, who created history by becoming the first player from Chinese Taipei to lift the prestigious title. But the story of Lakshya Sen’s defeat is not merely about badminton final. It is also about the contrasting way India celebrates its sporting heroes. Had the same narrative unfolded on a cricket field, the reaction would have been dramatically different. In cricket, even defeat often becomes a story of heroism. A hard-fought loss by the Indian team can dominate television debates, fill newspaper columns and trend across social media for days. A player who narrowly misses a milestone is still hailed for his fighting spirit. The nation rallies around its cricketers not only in victory but also in defeat. The narrative quickly shifts from the result to the effort -- the resilience shown, the fight put up, the promise of future triumph. This emotional investment is one of the reasons cricket enjoys unparalleled popularity in India. It has built a culture where players become household names and their performances, good or bad, become part of the national conversation. Badminton Fights Contrast that with what happens in sports like badminton. Reaching the final of the All England Championships is a monumental achievement. The tournament is widely considered badminton’s equivalent of Wimbledon in prestige and tradition. Only the very best players manage to reach its final stages, and doing it twice speaks volumes about Lakshya Sen’s ability and consistency. Yet the reaction in India remained largely subdued. There were congratulatory posts, some headlines acknowledging the effort and brief discussions among badminton enthusiasts. But the level of national engagement never quite matched the magnitude of the achievement. In a cricketing context, reaching such a stage would have triggered days of celebration and analysis. In badminton, it often becomes just another sports update. Long Wait India’s wait for an All England champion continues. The last Indian to win the title was Pullela Gopichand in 2001. Before him, Prakash Padukone had scripted history in 1980. These victories remain among the most significant milestones in Indian badminton. And yet, unlike cricketing triumphs that are frequently revisited and celebrated, such achievements rarely stay in the mainstream sporting conversation for long. Lakshya Sen’s journey to the final should ideally have been viewed as a continuation of that legacy, a reminder that India still possesses the talent to challenge the world’s best in badminton. Instead, it risks fading quickly from public memory. Visibility Gap The difference ultimately comes down to visibility and cultural investment. Cricket in India is not merely a sport; it is an ecosystem built over decades through media attention, sponsorship, and mass emotional attachment. Individual sports, on the other hand, often rely on momentary bursts of recognition, usually during Olympic years or when a medal is won. But consistent performers like Lakshya Sen rarely receive the sustained spotlight that their achievements deserve. This disparity can also influence the next generation. Young athletes are naturally drawn to sports where success brings recognition, financial stability and national fame. When one sport monopolises the spotlight, others struggle to build similar appeal. Beyond Result Lakshya Sen may have finished runner-up again, but his performance at the All England Championship is a reminder that India continues to produce world-class athletes in disciplines beyond cricket. The real issue is not that cricket receives immense attention -- it deserves the admiration it gets. The concern is that athletes from other sports often do not receive comparable appreciation for achievements that are equally significant in their own arenas. If India aspires to become a truly global sporting nation, its applause must grow broader. Sporting pride cannot remain confined to one field. Because somewhere on a badminton court, an athlete like Lakshya Sen is fighting just as hard for the country’s colours as any cricketer on a packed stadium pitch. The only difference is how loudly the nation chooses to cheer.

Bharatiya Antariksh Station Dream Takes Flight

Updated: Oct 22, 2024

Bharatiya Antariksh

India’s human spaceflight programme has progressed steadily in the last ten years. Call it the compounding effect of ISRO’s brick-by-brick efforts over the past five decades. Also, due credit must be given to the Prime Minister’s Office which brought about an enormous evolution in the space programme and has been unabashedly bullish about taking common Indians into space. This was even when the other side was content with Indian commoners glorified to Oscars as slum-dwellers. With the cabinet clearance for the Bharatiya Antariksh Station, our very own space station to be placed in the low-Earth orbit, India is entering into a haloed league of only four countries, the other three being the US, Russia, and China. But then, we have a long way to go and lots to do.

Let me share with you a story of two “axioms”—’Axiom Research Labs’, more famously known as Team Indus, a startup that was established in 2010 in Bengaluru, and ‘Axiom Space’, now a major American space company, founded in 2016 in Houston. Both companies are connected to India-United States (US) space collaboration. The Indian Axiom was supposed to attempt India’s first landing on the Moon. However, due to the scarcity of domestic opportunities for commercial space ventures, it eventually went for the greener commercial pastures in the US in 2017. The American axiom was best placed where it was formed. It was brought to life by American and international talent drawn to the maturing commercial space landscape in the US. An examination of the narratives and destinies of these two entities is necessary, especially as India approaches a significant milestone in its human spaceflight diplomacy.

Today, American Axiom Space is the same company that will ferry the first Indian astronaut―Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla, with Group Captain Prasanth Nair as the reserve candidate - to visit the International Space Station. This ferry arrangement was made possible through an agreement between ISRO and NASA. India is not a member of the International Space Station. However, all ISRO and Indian astronauts’ learnings will help with the setting of the Bharatiya Antriksh Station. There will be a time, in the next 15 years, when the Indian national station will coexist with the Chinese space station and America’s one or at most two commercial space stations. That makes India an extremely crucial player in the world’s human spaceflight endeavours, including the efforts to take humans back to the Moon.

The US is one of many countries that assisted in our early human spaceflight steps. The French helped us with their superior space medicine knowledge, which is crucial for astronaut health. The Russians have trained our astronauts at their Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre and their experience using their experience. Partnerships with different space agencies are only going to help us. They are reason enough that India needs to boldly exercise its autonomy to decide who it wants to partner with. But this is not it. What have we learnt from the two axioms? Why do Indian companies, for the lack of domestic business opportunities and business sustenance, move overseas in the name of international markets? Is there a chance that this ‘startup drain’ akin to ‘brain drain’ will stop plaguing us?

To prevent the startup drain and ensure that no other Team Indus fades into obscurity, India must increase industry and startup participation in mission design. Yes, ISRO will lead these missions scientifically, collaborating with different academic institutions. Industry, too, will help build the space station, but that is not enough. India will only be able to accomplish the greater socio-economic benefit of raising a space station if the Bharatiya Antariksh Station becomes an enabler of new science and a provider of business opportunities for the private space sector. New science can happen if new commercially crucial R&D experiments are carried out on the space station, with the BAS seeking rentals for the duration they are hosted. The new science can happen if there is continuous commercial supply of logistics and crew to the space station and back. The new science can happen only if the space station results in a bevy of cargo and human missions to the Moon, with the majority of hardware and software contributed by corporate R&D.

The Bharatiya Antariksh Station will be the nation’s asset and will be operated by the Indian military, ISRO, scientific institutions, and private industries. These four will have to handhold each other as they build and commercially-run the station. It is their synergy that will help prepare the first Indians to land on the Moon to set up commercial R&D bases on the Moon. India must ensure that it keeps engaging its startups and private companies, which are the cornerstone of the four-way partnerships. Without them, the entire Indian space programme may not be sustained beyond a certain point; however, good ISRO is at its tasks.

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