The nine distinguished space scientists from Tamil Nadu, including K Sivan and Mylswamy Annadurai, will get monetary awards totaling Rs. 25 lakh as a token of gratitude for their contributions to the country, according to Chief Minister M K Stalin’s announcement on Monday.
In his speech at a celebration honouring ISRO scientists from Tamil Nadu, Stalin noted that, along with the news of Chandrayaan-3’s accomplishment, rumours about Tamils involved in similar missions had also become widely circulated.
“Today, however, the state has so many stalwarts in the field of science,” Stalin stated, citing a number of well-known ISRO figures from the state. Those celebrated today were former ISRO chairman Sivan, Mylswamy Annadurai, head of the ISRO’s liquid propulsion systems centre, and V Narayanan, project director for the Chandrayaan-1 and -2 spacecraft. A Rajarajan, the Satish Dhawan Space Centre director, eminent ISRO scientist M Sankaran, and P Veeramuthuvel, the project director for Chandrayaan-3, were also honoured. The CM also honoured ISRO’s M Vanitha, Nigar Shaji, and J Asir Packiaraj, director of the ISRO-Propulsion Complex.
He emphasised how happy Tamil Nadu should be since Mylswamy, Vanitha, and Veeramuthuvel, the three project directors for Chandrayaan 1 through 3, are all from the state.
“I appeal to you to accept it and bring more and more laurels to India,” the chief minister averred.
In order to foster the desire to create scientific discoveries, he said that nine postgraduate engineering students will get a fellowship named after eminent scientists. He added that a 10 crore corpus would be established for the purpose. The government will cover all costs, including those for tuition and housing, he stressed.
Government school students who enrolled in undergraduate engineering programmes while taking advantage of the 7.5% reservation for state-run school students (and received government funding for the UG degree) are eligible for the PG scholarship. Senior officials and ministers attended the occasion, including K Ponmudi (Higher Education), Duraimurugan (Water Resources), E V Velu (Public Works), Chief Secretary Shiv Das Meena, and others.
