Distinguished Space Commission member Prof R Narasimha resigns

Prof Roddam Narasimha, the first and the longest-serving member of the Space Commission, said the country's scientific community had been left demoralised by the action taken against top ISRO scientists, while announcing his resignation yesterday.

Yesterday's developments point to the fact that the Antrix-Devas deal was being viewed in strongly differing colours by the government and the country's scientific community.

He added no wrong had been committed in connection with spectrum allocation in the Antrix-Devas agreement, apart from procedural lapses.

Nair and the other scientists have been barred from holding government posts for their alleged role in the deal after a former CVC-led probe found that bandwidth required for Devas had been cheaply sold by Antrix (See: Ban on ISRO ex-scientists won't be revoked, says PMO).

According to officials, prime minister Manmohan Singh had received Narasimha's resignation, but had turned down his request to be relieved from membership of the commission.

Narasimha, who has put in over two decades with the Space Commission - the oversight and policy-making body for all space programmes and deals, said he had taken the decision to give up membership as the remarkable achievements of the space agency had been ignored even as action was being taken against former ISRO chief G Madhavan Nair and three other scientists.

According to Nair, Narasimha's departure would be a huge loss. He said there were very few people in the country who grasped aerospace like he did. He had been instrumental in development of India's aerospace development capabilities right from the beginning of IRO's first launch vehicle to heading NAL (National Aerospace Laboratories) to working on the Light Combat Aircraft and the regional jet.