Shruti Suman
Amid India’s celebration of the successful Chandrayaan-3 moon mission landing at the lunar south pole, an embarrassing mistake made by Mamata Banerjee, the Chief Minister of West Bengal, has become a source of mockery. During an event in Kolkata just before the Chandrayaan-3 lander’s moon landing, Chief Minister Banerjee mistakenly confused astronaut Rakesh Sharma with Bollywood actor-filmmaker Rakesh Roshan.
She stated, “On behalf of the people of West Bengal, I send my advance congratulations to ISRO. Scientists must get credit. Credit must go to the country. When Rakesh Roshan [sic] landed on the moon, former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi asked him how India looked from there.”
Rakesh Sharma, an Indian Air Force pilot, became the first Indian to journey to space in 1984 as part of the Soviet Union’s Soyuz T-11 mission. He conversed with then-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi from space during a live televised news conference. When asked by Indira Gandhi, “How does India appear to you from up there?” Sharma responded with a quote from the poet Iqbal, saying, “Saare jahaan se achcha” (Better than the entire world).
The blunder made by the West Bengal Chief Minister quickly spread on social media, leading to numerous memes at her expense. Interestingly, Banerjee wasn’t the only politician to make a mistake related to Chandrayaan-3. In another part of the country, a Rajasthan minister congratulated the “passengers” of the Chandrayaan-3 mission, despite it being an unmanned mission.
India achieved a historic milestone by being the first nation to successfully land a spacecraft near the moon’s south pole, an area believed to contain water ice. The landing occurred at 6:04 pm on Wednesday and was met with joy and festivities at the ISRO headquarters in Bengaluru.
Over the next 14 days, the rover Pragyan will explore the lunar surface for one lunar day, sending back images and data to scientists on Earth.
