Modi at 25: The hug Indian science is still waiting for

In 25 years, Narendra Modi has made Indians proud of their scientists. He has not yet made India a good place to be one

Of all the images from Narendra Modi’s 25 years in power, the one I keep returning to was taken on a bad day. It was the morning of 7 September 2019. Hours earlier, Chandrayaan-2’s Vikram lander had lost contact during its final descent, 2.1 km above the Moon. At the ISRO centre in Bengaluru, the Prime Minister pulled K Sivan, the space agency’s chief, into a long embrace while Sivan wept on his shoulder.