Jaishankar Jaishankar

For the first time, the Foreign Secretary has been made a member of the Space Commission, which was reconstituted last week following the appointment of a new chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).

The Space Commission is the highest policy-making body for matters related to space exploration in INdia and is headed by the chairman of ISRO.

Reconstituted on February 9 after A S Kiran Kumar took over as the new ISRO chairman following the retirement of K Radhakrishnan, the commission made just one change in its composition. Radhakrishnan has gone out while Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar has been inducted.

Kiran Kumar, who was director of the Space Application Centre, Ahmedabad before becoming ISRO chairman, was a member of the earlier Space Commission as well.

This is the first time that the Foreign Secretary has been inducted into the Space Commission.

The Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister, Cabinet Secretary, National Security Advisor and the Expenditure Secretary have been regular members of this 10-member Commission.

The other slots are generally taken up by independent space scientists and experts.

In the current Space Commission, Ajit Keshav Kembhavi of the Pune-based Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics, chemical scientist Goverdhan Mehta, and T K Alex, former director of the ISRO Satellite Centre (ISAC) Bangalore are the scientific members.

The induction of Jaishankar, who was named Foreign Secretary in the last week of January, just days before he was to retire, comes at a time when there is increasing international involvement in the Indian space sector, both in commercial and strategic manner.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has also called for developing a SAARC satellite for use by all countries in the South Asian region.

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