What a delightful telecast to watch soft landing of the lander module on the Moon! Congratulations to the Indian ISRO scientists and to the entire nation! It is such a pride to be the first nation to land on the South Pole of the Moon. It wouldn't have been possible without dedicated team of scientists coming up with such a precise scope for landing eliminating all the risks. Keep it up!
Yes, watched with baited breath the live telecast as I'm sure the whole nation would have. The greatest lesson here is that of learning from the past errors and going all out to eliminate any risks involved. Big Salute to all involved in the venture.
When I was watching the moon landing yesterday what touched my heart was not the awesome landing of Vikram, but the anxiety and ecstasy in the faces of men and women who worked day and night for it's success. I asked myself if they were motivated by the salaries they were getting but when I actually went through their salary levels, I was appalled. I realised that their motivation came from the work they were doing and not the salary they were drawing. Same is the case with the staff of BSF who face death at every minute. The average BSF salary for a month is between Rs. 21,700/- to Rs. 69,100/-.! They ought to be the role models for people who keep grudging about the salary levels for the work they do.
Dear Cheeniya Sir, When one loves the job he or she is doing, motivation from the salary becomes secondary in nature. You are right about that. When they talk about day in and day out about placing a lander in the surface of the moon and what they could contribute towards that goal, even the number of hours they work also increases automatically and they end up working more than their normal working hours. I have seen a similar motivation from young engineers when I worked for C-DAC. They were just a group of young talented fresh engineers straight out of the college. When they learned the mission is to build a high-performance computer that would compete with American companies, they all bought into the mission. At that time in 1980s, the US government refused to authorize sale of Cray XMP parallel machine ordered by the Government of India for weather forecasting. The Government of India was at the cusp of developing nuclear weapons as well and the US intelligence told the US government that India could misuse Cray XMP for that purpose. Then both KPP Nambiar, Sam Pitroda, 2 brightest entrepreneurs put together a team that would indigenously develop a multiple instruction multiple date parallel processing system that would meet all the scientific and engineering applications of India. Within 3 years, the mission was completed. PARAM, a high performance computer was developed from the scratch. I personally watched this computer developed step by step along with system software and multiple applications that can be tested including weather forecasting, molecular modelling, siesmic data processing, and many more. India has amazing talents and nurturing that requires highly motivated individuals who are focused on taking India to new heights.
Shri Cheeniya has raised a very pertinent question. We all know that BSF, CRPF, and Army personnel are poorly paid at the lower level. It was the same with teachers and police, considered the most important professions in our society. There is no wonder that our science and IT graduates leave for Western countries for better opportunities. Nothing much can be achieved by a person who has worries about the family finances at the workplace. Sometimes I wonder, about the long queues for the recruitment of police and army jawans. Are they there out of love for the country or simply for a Government job?
Dear Thyagarajan Sir, In the US, when a family has many military personnel, the children prefer to follow the foot steps of their parents and grandparents, uncles, and aunts. Many years back deployment was mandatory at a certain age and only those who have health condition or do not meet the criteria for entering the military were eliminated. Nowadays, there is motivation to join the military because they can continue education after a few deployments in military colleges. Another motivation is handling advance weapons and gadgets in the military and deployment into Germany, Japan, and many other European nations. The salary is the last motivation here in the US as well as the military personnel are not well paid. Military personnel are so much respected in the US which is another big reason. Patriotism exists always whether it is with a military engagement or with local needs. But I feel the veteran benefits and benefits for those who are injured in the military are not that great. The families who lost their loved ones are not paid much either. But deployment in the warfront has come down drastically since the Americans are not friendly for their children to be deployed to fight wars in strange places. The government will now think twice before engaging in any war as the people will fight against any war after the prolonged engagement in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. In future any war will be approved only if it is a predetermined short period of engagement with clear objectives.
