'...For Modi, the achievements of ISRO’s scientists are of the same order as the miracles worked by India’s mythical ancients and they serve the same purpose: the greater glory of Bharat. This is the opposite of the scientific temper: it’s science as a kind of aarti where the goddess honoured is Bharat Mata. Prime ministers are influential people, their example matters, their actions and words are cues for others. A year after Modi became prime minister the Indian Science Congress had sessions where ‘scientists’ read papers documenting interplanetary travel in ancient India. In a more recent edition of the meet, a university vice-chancellor cited the hundred sons of Dhritarashtra as proof of stem-cell research. V. Ramakrishnan, who won the chemistry Nobel in 2009, called the Indian Science Congress a ‘circus’ that he would never attend again...'