India - Reaching The Moon

[acharya]

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Congratulations, India, on Chandrayaan–1 


Wednesday’s successful launching of India’s Chandrayaan-1, which means “Moon craft 1” in Sanskrit, raises even more the prestige of Mahatma Gandhi and Jahawarlal Nehru’s country.

This is only India’s first moon mission, unmanned, and even if observers say it is only “following China’s footsteps,” it should make the world recognize that this, the world’s most populous electoral democracy and the repository of one of the world’s most ancient civilizations, now shares with China and Japan the role of being the Asian equals of the West in scientific prowess.

Chandrayaan-1 makes Indians even prouder of their country. It has been registering the world’s second highest rate of economic growth (the first is China.).  Perhaps, more than China, India has uplifted more millions of its people from poverty in the past decade.

We hope and pray India will have more successes in space, especially with its growing closeness with the United States, and in socio-economic development.  <i>We pray even more fervently that this triumph will drive the Indian central government to move more decisively in putting an end to the communal violence perpetrated by Hindu nationalists against Indian Christians and missionaries</i>. <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

http://www.manilatimes.net/national/2008/o...081023opi3.html


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