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By:

Akhilesh Sinha

25 June 2025 at 2:53:54 pm

India’s Rocket Woman

Chandrayaan-3 Mission Director Dr Ritu Karidhal Srivastava helped script a historic chapter in India’s space story. On August 23, 2023, as the clock struck 6:04 PM Indian time, waves of joy swept across India and the world when Chandrayaan-3's robotic lander Vikram touched down on the Moon's south pole. This triumph made India the first nation to land a spacecraft there and the fourth overall to reach the lunar surface. Behind this moment stood the dedication of scientists like Dr Ritu...

India’s Rocket Woman

Chandrayaan-3 Mission Director Dr Ritu Karidhal Srivastava helped script a historic chapter in India’s space story. On August 23, 2023, as the clock struck 6:04 PM Indian time, waves of joy swept across India and the world when Chandrayaan-3's robotic lander Vikram touched down on the Moon's south pole. This triumph made India the first nation to land a spacecraft there and the fourth overall to reach the lunar surface. Behind this moment stood the dedication of scientists like Dr Ritu Karidhal Srivastava, Chandrayaan-3’s mission director, affectionately known as India’s “Rocket Woman.” For millions watching, it was a moment of national pride; for the scientists behind the mission, the culmination of years of painstaking work and belief in India’s space ambitions. Dr Srivastava often placed professional commitments ahead of personal comforts, pouring her energy into India’s stellar legacy. Whether spearheading Chandrayaan-3, leading key aspects of Chandrayaan-2, or contributing to the Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM), she devoted herself to advancing India’s space programme. “From Mangalyaan to Chandrayaan, women have matched men stride for stride,” she has said, reflecting the growing presence of women scientists in India’s space missions. Over the years, women have moved from supporting roles to positions of leadership within ISRO, bringing expertise and determination to some of the nation’s most ambitious projects. Journey to the Stars Born in 1975 into a middle-class family in Lucknow, young Ritu was fascinated by the moon, stars and vast skies above. Her curiosity deepened during her school years, when she spent hours reading about space and imagining the mysteries beyond Earth. After earning her degree from Navayug Kanya Mahavidyalaya, she completed her MSc in physics in Lucknow before moving to the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) in Bengaluru to specialise in aerospace engineering. This path led her to the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), which she joined in 1997. At ISRO, she steadily rose through the ranks, earning recognition for meticulous planning and technical expertise. She served as Deputy Operations Director for the Mars Orbiter Mission, popularly known as Mangalyaan — India’s first mission to Mars, which succeeded on its first attempt and placed the country firmly on the global space map. Personal Sacrifices Her work’s success roared loudly. The ISRO Young Scientist Award from President Dr APJ Abdul Kalam in 2007 and the Woman Aerospace Achievement Award from the Society of Indian Aerospace Technologies and Industries recognised her contributions to the nation’s space programme. Yet for years she worked largely away from the public spotlight, focused on the demands of complex missions. In a candid moment, Dr Srivastava spoke about balancing professional duty and family life. There were times when mission preparation meant missing important family moments. Once, when her daughter was running a fever, she could not leave work; her husband stepped in while she checked repeatedly by phone. School events and parent-teacher meetings often passed without her presence. Yet with strong support from her husband and family, she remained committed to the demanding world of space exploration. That collective resolve — from Dr Srivastava and her team — ultimately propelled India to new cosmic heights. Vikram’s flawless landing at the Moon’s south pole marked a technological triumph and firmly placed India among the world’s leading spacefaring nations.

IRCTC blew up Rs 2600-cr for website upkeep

Mumbai: The Railway Ministry’s listed ‘Navratna’ company, Indian Railway Catering & Tourism Corporation Ltd. (IRCTC) has admitted under RTI that it spent a whopping Rs.2,619 crore for the maintenance and upkeep of its website, www.irctc.com.

 

The amount – data available for the past three years - is collected as the innocuous-sounding ‘Convenience Fees’ from crores of passengers annually booking online tickets on the IRCTC website.

 

The Convenience Fees (CF) collected were: Rs 802-crore (2022-2023), Rs 863-crore (2023-2024) and last year’s Rs. 954-crore (2024-2025) – totaling to a staggering Rs. 2,619 crore.

 

The IRCTC stated that it collects only CFs for online bookings of tickets and does not charge a separate Transaction Fee (TF) from the prospective travelers.

 

The revelation was made in response to a RTI query posed by Pune businessman Prafful Sarda, seeking details of the IRCTC’s CF revenues starting from 2004.

 

“However, it was declined on grounds that it was a huge data which was not readily available and doled out the hair-raising figures of the last 3 years. There are different categories of the CF charges, as per the RTI reply,” Sarda told ‘The Perfect Voice’.

 

The 27-year-old company said the CF collected for online bookings is ploughed back for “the upkeep, maintenance and running of the website”.

 

For booking through IRCTC Sleeper Class tickets, the CF is Rs. 15+GST and for all air-conditioned class bookings, the CF is Rs 30+GST.

 

However, for online ticket bookings through BHIM or any other UPI, the IRCTC levies Rs 10+GST for all non-AC tickets and Rs 20+GST for AC classes.

 

On an average, 12,38,000 tickets were booked daily (2023-2024), or more than 45-crore tickets annually from the IRCTC website, and the CF amounts are non-refundable.

 

“When a single government service portal collects such astronomical amounts from customers as CF, what about other similar public-private portals and their massive incomes by this route,” asked Sarda.

 

Criminal loot

Council for Protection of Rights President, Barrister Vinod Tiwari said this amounts to a ‘criminal loot’ which IRCTC is disguising as expense for maintenance of its website.

 

“This simply reeks of a scam. No website needs such an amount only for the upkeep-maintenance, as IRCTC claims. The CBI must probe this fraud and bring out the details before the public,” demanded Barr. Tiwari.

 

Terming it as ‘blatant fleecing’ of passengers, Mumbai stock market consultant Rajesh Shah said CF’s are levied by practically all service websites of banks, utilities and other providers, many take a percentage of the transaction amount, so the consumer is in the dark about what amount is actually deducted.

 

“The government should stop this, and must intervene to announce a flat CF of One Rupee for any online transaction/s, irrespective of the amount. Already extra charges are levied for a certain number of ATM withdrawals/transactions, besides the GST,” Shah told ‘The Perfect Voice’.

 

Though IRCTC said the option of booking tickets offline is also available, it controls a stupendous 83 per cent of the online ticketing on the Indian Railways (IR), and the remaining paltry 17 per cent is divided among multitudes of private players and tour operators.

 

A high-ranking IR source suspects something amiss as such a huge amount is not required to be diverted for merely upkeep and maintenance of a website.

 

IRCTC: Jewel in the railways’ crown

Set up in Sep. 1999, the New Delhi-based IRCTC is the professional hospitality and travel arm of IR for upgradation of catering services over IR and boost rail-bound domestic and in-bound tourism in the country.

 

It is intended to upgrade, professionalize and manage the catering and hospitality services at railway stations, on trains, etc, to promote domestic and international tourism through development of budget hotels, special tour packages, information, commercial publicity and global reservation systems.

 

IRCTC’s core activities are: Catering & Hospitality, Internet Ticketing, Travel & Tourism, Packaged Drinking Water (‘Rail Neer’) through 19 plants across India, and its operations are sprawled across 5 Zonal Offices, 10 Regional Offices, and one Internet Ticketing and Tourism Office each in New Delhi.

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