Feel miserable, don't get sleep at night: ISRO scientist

Space scientist A. Bhaskaranarayana, one of the four former ISRO scientists blacklisted from government jobs on the controversial Antrix-Devas deal, on Wednesday said the action has left him feeling miserable and worried over his standing in society.

"We feel miserable. We have worked for 37 years..average nine to ten hours a day including Sundays, and one day we have been given such a notice (barring them from government jobs)", an anguished Bhaskaranarayana, a former Scientific Secretary at ISRO, told agencies here.

"Such an urgency and emergency only for four of us? We are not the only ones in the country," he said.

"I am not doing any government work right now but in society what's our value?", he asked. "We feel miserable, don't get sleep in the night".

Asked why he thought the four had been "singled out" for the action, Bhaskaranarayana said: "Four of us were occupying some positions important at that time which are relating to this area (Antrix-Devas deal).

On whether he saw a conspiracy against the four or somebody behind the move, he said he does not want to guess at all. "It's very difficult to say. People like us who are scientists, we don't know politics. We do our work and get out", he said.

Bhaskaranarayana had quit his visiting professorship (after retirement from ISRO), six months before the two-year tenure was to come to an end, following the change of guard at the space agency with K. Radhakrishnan taking over from G. Madhavan Nair as chairman.

"I had my own personal reasons (to quit before completion). When chairman changes, some important positions have to change", he said, seeking to blame Radhakrishnan indirectly.

Former ISRO chief Nair, who has also been barred from occupying government posts, had accused Radhakrishnan of being responsible for the punitive action against him and the three others because of a 'personal agenda'.

Post new comment

<form action="/comment/reply/123422" accept-charset="UTF-8" method="post" id="comment-form"> <div><div class="form-item" id="edit-name-wrapper"> <label for="edit-name">Your name: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="60" name="name" id="edit-name" size="30" value="Reader" class="form-text required" /> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-mail-wrapper"> <label for="edit-mail">E-Mail Address: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="64" name="mail" id="edit-mail" size="30" value="" class="form-text required" /> <div class="description">The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.</div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-comment-wrapper"> <label for="edit-comment">Comment: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <textarea cols="60" rows="15" name="comment" id="edit-comment" class="form-textarea resizable required"></textarea> </div> <fieldset class=" collapsible collapsed"><legend>Input format</legend><div class="form-item" id="edit-format-1-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-1"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-1" name="format" value="1" class="form-radio" /> Filtered HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Allowed HTML tags: &lt;a&gt; &lt;em&gt; &lt;strong&gt; &lt;cite&gt; &lt;code&gt; &lt;ul&gt; &lt;ol&gt; &lt;li&gt; &lt;dl&gt; &lt;dt&gt; &lt;dd&gt;</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-format-2-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-2"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-2" name="format" value="2" checked="checked" class="form-radio" /> Full HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> </fieldset> <input type="hidden" name="form_build_id" id="form-b080cb43bc14b75c198821b0af746fa2" value="form-b080cb43bc14b75c198821b0af746fa2" /> <input type="hidden" name="form_id" id="edit-comment-form" value="comment_form" /> <fieldset class="captcha"><legend>CAPTCHA</legend><div class="description">This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.</div><input type="hidden" name="captcha_sid" id="edit-captcha-sid" value="80490542" /> <input type="hidden" name="captcha_response" id="edit-captcha-response" value="NLPCaptcha" /> <div class="form-item"> <div id="nlpcaptcha_ajax_api_container"><script type="text/javascript"> var NLPOptions = {key:'c4823cf77a2526b0fba265e2af75c1b5'};</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://call.nlpcaptcha.in/js/captcha.js" ></script></div> </div> </fieldset> <span class="btn-left"><span class="btn-right"><input type="submit" name="op" id="edit-submit" value="Save" class="form-submit" /></span></span> </div></form>

No Articles Found

No Articles Found

No Articles Found

I want to begin with a little story that was told to me by a leading executive at Aptech. He was exercising in a gym with a lot of younger people.

Shekhar Kapur’s Bandit Queen didn’t make the cut. Neither did Shaji Karun’s Piravi, which bagged 31 international awards.