Two different states in India announce space policies
Capitalism in space: In another indication that India’s governments are going full bore for private enterprise in space, two different Indian states this week announced new space policies designed to attract private investment and space startups.
Those two states, Tamil Nadu and Gujarat, are shown on the map to the right. Tamil Nadu announced its new space industrial policy hopes to attract more than a billion dollars in space companies to the state. Gujaret in turn announced its own space policy aimed at attracting $5 billion in investment and 25,000 jobs over the next five years.
It is not surprising that Tamil Nadu has issued this policy, considering that it is the state where India’s new second spaceport, Kulasekarapattinam, is located, and is being built as a launch site for commerical operations. Gujaret is at first glance less obvious, but it houses a major facility of India’s space agency ISRO. It is also one of India’s most industrialized states.
Both however illustrate the impact of the Modi government because of its policy to encourage private enterprise and de-emphasize government control. Not only is the federal government pushing capitalism, the country’s individual states are joining in.
Readers!
My annual February birthday fund-raising drive for Behind the Black is now over. Thank you to everyone who donated or subscribed. While not a record-setter, the donations were more than sufficient and slightly above average.
As I have said many times before, I can’t express what it means to me to get such support, especially as no one is required to pay anything to read my work. Thank you all again!
For those readers who like my work here at Behind the Black and haven't contributed so far, please consider donating or subscribing. My analysis of space, politics, and culture, taken from the perspective of an historian, is almost always on the money and ahead of the game. For example, in 2020 I correctly predicted that the COVID panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Every one of those 2020 conclusions has turned out right.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
Capitalism in space: In another indication that India’s governments are going full bore for private enterprise in space, two different Indian states this week announced new space policies designed to attract private investment and space startups.
Those two states, Tamil Nadu and Gujarat, are shown on the map to the right. Tamil Nadu announced its new space industrial policy hopes to attract more than a billion dollars in space companies to the state. Gujaret in turn announced its own space policy aimed at attracting $5 billion in investment and 25,000 jobs over the next five years.
It is not surprising that Tamil Nadu has issued this policy, considering that it is the state where India’s new second spaceport, Kulasekarapattinam, is located, and is being built as a launch site for commerical operations. Gujaret is at first glance less obvious, but it houses a major facility of India’s space agency ISRO. It is also one of India’s most industrialized states.
Both however illustrate the impact of the Modi government because of its policy to encourage private enterprise and de-emphasize government control. Not only is the federal government pushing capitalism, the country’s individual states are joining in.
Readers!
My annual February birthday fund-raising drive for Behind the Black is now over. Thank you to everyone who donated or subscribed. While not a record-setter, the donations were more than sufficient and slightly above average.
As I have said many times before, I can’t express what it means to me to get such support, especially as no one is required to pay anything to read my work. Thank you all again!
For those readers who like my work here at Behind the Black and haven't contributed so far, please consider donating or subscribing. My analysis of space, politics, and culture, taken from the perspective of an historian, is almost always on the money and ahead of the game. For example, in 2020 I correctly predicted that the COVID panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Every one of those 2020 conclusions has turned out right.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
It will be interesting to see where Gujarat choses to site one or more launch facilities. Its geography is favorable for Vandenberg-like launch sites that favor southern azimuths for polar, sun synchronous and other high-inclination orbits. But, also like Vandy, Gujarat could support launches at shallower azimuths for such purposes as missile testing given the large ocean to its west and south.
Dick Eagleson: I don’t think Gujarat is focused at all on creating a spaceport, though of course that might happen, for the reasons you cite. Its government instead wants to encourage the wider space industry, from satellites to rocket engines etc, to settle there. Transport to the other coastal spaceports would be relatively easy, by sea.
In so many ways, the BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) is worse than the Congress Party — they’re basically Hindu fanatics, for whom “religious liberty” is a profane word.
But when it comes to regulation, they’re a step up over Congress, which never met a stultifying bureaucracy it didn’t like.
Robert Zimmerman,
You’re likely correct, at least for the near term. As one of the more industrialized Indian states, Gujarat might prove a logical place for future construction of New Glenn-class or Starship-class rockets of Indian design when the Indian space sector advances to a point where this is possible. As with such rockets in the US, there is advantage in launching such things from a site very near to where they are produced.
Richard M,
The Brits did a good job of rounding off Hinduism’s least appetizing practices during the Raj. “Fanatic” or not, I don’t think the BJP are looking to resurrect thugee or suttee. That places them in marked contrast to the genuine fanatics of Islamic stripe who have cheerfully reconstituted every ancient Muslim vice at every opportunity.
Perhaps it is even “Hindu fanaticism” which lies behind the BJP’s less statist ways when compared to the Congress Party. Both are Hindu parties, but the BJP is low caste and the Congress is high caste. The latter were allowed to maintain their local satrapies and sultanates under the Raj and bought into a lot of imported British ideas including socialism. Socialism is always worst for people at the bottom of the economic and social scale. Thus, perhaps, a less-developed taste for statism is simply part of a rejection of those who did better under the Raj and the “Permit Wallah” that replaced it after independence.
Gujarat is, in any case, an interesting place. It was ruled by Muslims for a long time before the Brits showed up, but 7/8ths of the population are still Hindu. Only about 10% are Muslim.
Despite being mostly Hindu, though, very few Gujaratis speak Hindi. Gujarati is, by far, the dominant language. Hindi is only spoken by a few percent of the Gujarati population. What effect this linguistic divide will have on Gujarat’s space ambitions is a question it will be interesting to look at over time.