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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.

What Does Trump 2.0 Cabinet Look Like?

  • AP
  • Nov 29, 2024
  • 3 min read
Trump

Donald Trump's personnel choices for his new Cabinet and White House reflect his signature positions on immigration and trade but also a range of viewpoints and backgrounds that raise questions about what ideological anchors might guide his Oval Office encore.


With a rapid assembly of his second administration — faster than his effort eight years ago — the former and incoming president has combined television personalities, former Democrats, a wrestling executive and traditional elected Republicans into a mix that makes clear his intentions to impose tariffs on imported goods and crack down on illegal immigration but leaves open a range of possibilities on other policy pursuits.


“The president has his two big priorities and doesn't feel as strongly about anything else — so it's going to be a real jump ball and zigzag,” predicted Marc Short, chief of staff to Vice President Mike Pence during Trump's 2017-21 term. “In the first administration, he surrounded himself with more conservative thinkers, and the results showed we were mostly rowing in the same direction. This is more eclectic.”


Indeed, Secretary of State-designee Marco Rubio, the Florida senator who has pilloried authoritarian regimes around the world, is in line to serve as top diplomat to a president who praises autocratic leaders like Russia's Vladimir Putin and Hungary's Viktor Orban.


Republican Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer of Oregon has been tapped to sit at the Cabinet table as a pro-union labor secretary alongside multiple billionaires, former governors and others who oppose making it easier for workers to organise themselves.


The prospective treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, wants to cut deficits for a president who promised more tax cuts, better veterans services and no rollbacks of the largest federal outlays: Social Security, Medicare and national defense.


Abortion-rights supporter Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is Trump's choice to lead the Health and Human Services Department, which Trump's conservative Christian base has long targeted as an agency where the anti-abortion movement must wield more influence.


Former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich allowed that members of Trump's slate will not always agree with the president and certainly not with one another. But he minimized the potential for irreconcilable differences: “A strong Cabinet, by definition, means you're going to have people with different opinions and different skills.”


That kind of unpredictability is at the core of Trump's political identity. He is the erstwhile reality TV star who already upended Washington once and is returning to power with sweeping, sometimes contradictory promises that convinced voters, especially those in the working class, that he will do it all again.


“What Donald Trump has done is reorient political leadership and activism to a more entrepreneurial spirit,” Gingrich said.


There's also plenty of room for conflict, given the breadth of Trump's 2024 campaign promises and his pattern of cycling through Cabinet members and national security personnel during his first term.


This time, Trump has pledged to impose tariffs on foreign goods, end illegal immigration and launch a mass deportation force, goose U.S. energy production and exact retribution on people who opposed — and prosecuted — him. He's added promises to cut taxes, raise wages, end wars in Israel and Ukraine, streamline government, protect Social Security and Medicare, help veterans and squelch cultural progressivism.


Trump alluded to some of those promises in recent weeks as he completed his proposed roster of federal department heads and named top White House staff members. But his announcements skimmed over any policy paradoxes or potential complications.


Bessent has crusaded as a deficit hawk, warning that the ballooning national debt, paired with higher interest rates, drives consumer inflation. But he also supports extending Trump's 2017 tax cuts that added to the overall debt and annual debt service payments to investors who buy Treasury notes.


A hedge-fund billionaire, Bessent built his wealth in world markets. Yet, generally speaking, he's endorsed Trump's tariffs. He rejects the idea that they feed inflation and instead frames tariffs as one-time price adjustments and leverage to achieve U.S. foreign policy and domestic economic aims.


Trump, for his part, declared that Bessent would “help me usher in a new Golden Age for the United States.”


Chavez-DeRemer, Trump promised, “will achieve historic cooperation between Business and Labor that will restore the American Dream for Working Families.”


Trump did not address the Oregon congresswoman's staunch support for the PRO-Act, a Democratic-backed measure that would make it easier for workers to unionize, among other provisions. That proposal passed the House when Democrats held a majority. But it's never had measurable Republican support in either chamber on Capitol Hill, and Trump has never made it part of his agenda.


When Trump named Kennedy as his pick for health secretary, he did not mention the former Democrat's support for abortion rights. Instead, Trump put the focus on Kennedy's intention to take on the U.S. agriculture, food processing and drug manufacturing sectors.

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