ISRO Chairman Narayanan asks IISc graduates to give back to society, build developed India

Bengaluru, Jul 10 (PTI) ISRO Chairman V Narayanan on Friday urged graduating students of the IISc to give back to society, pursue lifelong learning, and said they had a “great role to play” in contributing towards making India a developed nation by 2047. Addressing the 2026 convocation ceremony of the Indian Institute of Science here, he described the opportunity to study at the premier institute as a “God’s gift” and said every degree awarded reflected the collective efforts of parents, teachers, faculty members, institute staff and taxpayers. “Please give back to society, contribute to society, and work towards making our country a developed nation,” he said. He said today’s graduates have greater opportunities, unlike earlier generations who struggled to find jobs. “Today, you have a lot of opportunities to contribute to the country, and the Prime Minister of India (Narendra Modi) has a clear vision of Viksit Bharat 2047. I do not doubt that the country will become a developed nation before we celebrate 100 years of Independence,” he said. Highlighting India’s progress since Independence, he said the country had grown from widespread poverty to become the world’s fourth-largest economy, while making major advances in healthcare, agriculture, electrification and science. Stressing the importance of continuous learning, he urged students to keep reading, as science and engineering continue to evolve. The ISRO chairman urged students to work hard and uphold integrity, teamwork and self-confidence, saying these qualities were as important as academic excellence. Citing the example of ISRO, he said the organisation’s achievements were the result of teamwork. Recalling ISRO’s achievements, he said India had come a long way. “We have accomplished 105 launch vehicle missions and 135 satellite missions,” he said, adding that India has the best camera in lunar orbit and that the best photographs of the Moon belong to the country. Narayanan said India remains the only country to have successfully landed near the Moon’s south pole through Chandrayaan-3. “A country that started its space programme 15 years after Independence, in 1962, became the first to accomplish a Mars orbital mission on its maiden attempt. No other country has achieved that,” he said. Speaking about future missions, Narayanan said India was working towards establishing its own space station by 2035 and landing an Indian on the Moon by 2040, in line with the vision laid out by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. “We are going ahead with the Gaganyaan programme,” he said. He also referred to the recent human spaceflight mission carrying astronaut Shubhanshu Shukla, saying Indian scientists had insisted on halting the launch after detecting a leak during the countdown, thereby averting a potentially catastrophic situation before the mission was completed. In a video message, Soumya Swaminathan, chairperson of the MS Swaminathan Research Foundation, said India’s greatest scientific opportunity lay in developing affordable, inclusive and sustainable solutions for over a billion people and sharing those innovations with the world. She said ethical considerations must keep pace with technological advances, particularly in artificial intelligence, and urged graduates to remain intellectually humble, open-minded and committed to ensuring that science serves society with integrity, transparency and compassion. PTI AMP SSK