(The column first appeared in Deccan Herald on March 6, 2022)
- Consider this: China made 55 space launches in 2021, overtaking the US in the number of missions it undertook last year. As the jingoistic Global Times gushed, it was a “Super 2021” for China in space. “The world saw a total of 145 space launches in 2021, of which 55 were from China, 51 from the US, and 25 from Russia.” India? Two launches — one of them a failure, passed off as ‘partial success’.