FARFETCHED!
   Date :19-Apr-2019

 
 
THE muted and guarded response by the world community to India’s historic feat of shooting down its own low-orbit satellite with an Anti-Satellite (A-SAT) missile last month was a huge acknowledgement of the Indian space programme’s efficiency. That India managed to become only the fourth country to have A-SAT capabilities, on its own, was also set to become a point of consternation to a few with similar capacities. Two responses emanating from the United States sum up the chagrin India’s feat has caused to a few groups. NASA was the first to raise alarm over the debris caused by the A-SAT test, which turned out to be a non-issue. Now, a US expert is warning of an Indo-China rivalry over the test. It is another farfetched concern given the fact that both India and China have been concentrating on their own space capabilities. Space war is still a distant but probable event. Every country with space capabilities is entitled to have a security measure in place. India did just that and well within the contours of safety in space which China has also acknowledged.
 
WARMING EARTH
 
IF PROOF was needed at all, it is there in the latest report of US space agency NASA. The study by NASA has reported that the earth’s surface has been warming over the last 15 years, with three years, particularly, 2015, 16 and 17 being the hottest. While environmental scientists have been conducting these studies on a continuous basis and have been coming out with warnings about global heating, the common people all over the world have been experiencing the phenomenon of global warming by way of droughts, famines, severe heat conditions, floods and loss of agricultural production. Storms and climatic changes are becoming very routine in recent years. Scientists have been insisting on taking mitigating measures to lower impact of global warming and technologies are being sought to be developed. Besides, it is important that Governments all over the world join the efforts to control air pollution, which is a major cause of global warming. Unfortunately, however, countries like the United States of America refuse to play their part in this effort.