New Delhi: The success of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s surgical strike of unearthing black money rides on the fame of the ‘Mangalyaan’! His government has literally decided to give a Mangalyaan in every person’s hand by engraving a motif of the famous satellite on the new currency note.
Sources in the finance ministry have confirmed that from among several choices, Mr Modi, a known space buff, hand- picked the placement of Mangalyaan on the new currency note.
It is no secret that Mr Modi is a great fan of the ISRO. Mangalyaan truly represents the ‘Make in India’ spirit. Though the first Indian satellite to be featured on a currency note was ‘Aryabhata’, India’s first satellite launched in 1975 and it got a proud place on a Rs 2 denomination note.
Today, India’s historic maiden mission to Mars, the Mangalyaan has been immortalised in its life time as it finds place on the new Rs 2,000 currency note.
The currency note carries a motif of what ISRO officially calls the Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) but interestingly the government has inscribed the word ‘Mangalyaan’ on the currency note. Here lies a hidden tale on the naming of the spacecraft.
The first official announ-cement that India was heading to Mars came in 2012 when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in his Independence Day speech delivered in Hindi from the ramparts of the Red Fort. While also christening it, he said “Mangalyaan will be a big step in science technology”.
Interestingly, the official English translation of the speech released by the government did not have the word ‘Mangalyaan’ anywhere in it and in its wisdom ISRO continued to argue that the spacecraft was never christened ‘Mangalyaan’ but anyone who heard that speech or still cares to listen to the recorded speech available on YouTube can again confirm it.
Many in the media made a joke for referring the mission by the ‘nickname Mangalyaan’ and not its official name MOM. This was a needless controversy then and it has been finally laid to rest by the Indian government officially making the name ‘Mangalyaan’ unforgettable on the new currency note.
