Sky is not the limit

The Indian Space Research Organisation’s GSLV-FO2 may have gone up in flames but there’s little reason to get disheartened. The story of Indian space ventures and ISRO’s experience show that despite the recent loss, the ambitious programmes are very much on course. Sridhar K Chari reports.

SRIHARIKOTA is a small island off the Andhra Pradesh coast, some 80 km north of Chennai. A 20-minute drive from Sullurupeta on the Chennai–Kolkata national highway, over the shallow backwaters of the Pulicat Lake which bounds the island to the west, will take one to the hallowed ground of the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, formerly known by its acronym SHAR – Sriharikota High Altitude Range.

Gandhi gets a make-over
WHILE Mahatma Gandhi continues to be an icon for millions of Indians, for the younger generation he is more of a fading symbol of the Independence movement that was brought alive in some ways through Richard Attenborough’s Gandhi.

Einstein de-socked
THE last remaining trove of celebrated physicist Albert Einstein’s personal family letters opened to the public last week has revealed that he never liked wearing socks and that he managed to hide the habit by wearing high boots.

Shirts that hide your paunch
Saeed Khan
A designer here has introduced a special collection of shirts that can help divert attention away from the problem areas in a person’s body, especially tummy. Somesh Singh, a 30-year-old, men’s wear designer at the city-based National Institute of Design, conducted an extensive study on men’s clothing behaviour in 10 Indian cities before coming up with his collection called Vintage Soul.