As India came extremely close to becoming the first country to soft-land on the lunar south pole, the Pakistan government heaved a collective sigh of relief as India missed its destiny by just 2.1 kilometres. While the majority of the Chandrayaan-2 mission continues to be successful it was heartbreaking to see Dr K Sivan in tears. At a time when the nation was hurting, there was a need for comic relief and it came from our all-weather enemy, Pakistan. Pakistan Science and Technology Minister Chaudhry Fawad Hussain decided to mock India for its ‘failure’ and ended up making a fool of himself. What’s more shocking is the fact that Pakistan of all the countries has a Science and Technology Minister. Let’s take a look at the glorious achievements of Pakistan’s space agency Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission (SUPARCO).
While SUPARCO was founded 8 years before ISRO in 1961, it took just took 50 years to launch its first communication satellite into the orbit by using Chinese-made launch vehicle. Fawad Hussain decided it was time for the world to know his exceptional knowledge about space and technology and went to describe Chandrayaan-2 as a “toy”. The funny part is that Pakistan will comfortably take a couple of decades if not centuries, to build this exact “toy”. Fawad Hussain has time and again, shower the world with his brilliant intellect about Moon and NASA, ISRO and the ilk must take a leaf out of his book and his radical idea to reach Moon through one’s mobile.
Pakistan’s atrocities against its minorities are well documented but only Pakistan could have managed to discriminate against its minorities even in its National Space Programme. Pakistan shunned Abdus Salam for being an Ahmadiyya and the subsequent assistance that the Noble Laureate could have offered for the growth of the space agency. Pakistan has been blinded by its anti-India agenda so much that military generals have now replaced scientists at the highest levels of SUPARCO and unsurprisingly, the current chairman of the space agency, Qaiser Anees Khurrum, is the former top general.
Fawad Chaudhry felt that the Lok Sabha should question PM Modi on why did he waste Rs 900 crore of a ‘poor’ nation. Yes, a Pakistan Minister is calling India a poor nation at a time when his country is forced to sell buffaloes to pay off its external debt of $1,05,841 million recorded in the first quarter of 2019. Notwithstanding the fact that Pakistan’s currency has lost 50% of its value in the last year, Chaudhry announced that Pakistan would launch its first manned mission in 2022. Perhaps he is unaware of the amount of capital investment such a project would require from the purchase of space shuttles to mission control activities, something which Pakistan can simply not afford at this stage as Pakistan’s debt has already ballooned over Rs 33 trillion and an ambitious space programme will likely pop this balloon.
Just when you thought Chaudhry couldn’t get any funnier, he claimed that the Hubble telescope, which happens to be the world’s largest telescope was sent into space by SUPARCO and not NASA. If his claims are indeed true, NASA must seriously consider Chaudhry for the post of its Chief Scientist since a man of Chaudhry’s talent can work wonders for the space agency.
ISRO is now a major attraction for countries like Germany, South Korea, Japan, and France seeking to launch and deploy their satellites into space. Even Google uses ISRO rockets to launch its satellites. In 2017, ISRO launched 104 satellites on a single rocket thereby, setting a world record. Earlier this year, India became the fourth country after the USA, China and Russia to have ASAT capabilities which means that India can successfully take down satellites in space while Pakistan struggles to send satellites in space. A look at SUPARCO’s website is enough to know the condition of Pakistan’s space agency. The website contains little or no information about Pakistan’s space policy or vision. While some might argue that SUPARCO is on the decline due to lack of funds, the truth is that Pakistan’s space programme never really took off and continues to exist just on paper.
Talking about satellites, Chaudhry while attempting to take a jibe at ISRO, misspelt the word ‘satellite’ in one his many tweets which are often laid with absurd claims. At this rate, Chaudhry can give the likes of Kunal Kamra and Atul Khatri a serious run for their money, if he decides to try his hand at the Indian stand-up comedy scene after successfully managing to become Pakistan’s biggest comedian after Imran Khan. Pakistan has time and again provided some comic relief to India even in the toughest of times. One must commend Pakistan’s ability to make fun of themselves regularly. The day is not far when Chaudhry claims that SUPARCO has successfully established that the shape of Earth is flat and not round as while he was walking around on the streets of Pakistan, the surface looked flat.
