Modi's Chandrayaan 2 praise: Science as a kind of aarti, Bharat Mata is the goddess

'...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...'