The BRICS Summit hosted by South Africa was the first in-person meet since 2019.
New Delhi:
Chandrayaan-3. The answer to the question – ‘Why did South Africa President Cyril Ramaphosa want to sit next to Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the BRICS Summit in that country last week?”
The $75 million Chandrayaan-3 Moon mission has been acclaimed by space agencies and governments across the world and, as External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar told NDTV Tuesday, it also prompted several positive reactions from BRICS leaders during events in Johannesburg.
The South African President – who hailed the landing as his country’s own – declared after the landing he wanted to be seated next to Prime Minister Modi so Chandrayaan’s ‘good vibes’ “rubs off” on him.
“By the time we reached the retreat, there was some talk about Chandrayaan. The next day (August 23, the day of the landing) we did a morning session and then the PM left to join ISRO (via a video link)… by the second day, even within BRICS talk had shifted to Chandrayaan…” Mr Jaishankar said.
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“I was in a room (attending a BRICS event as Vikram was landing)… with a big screen in the corner. It was difficult to talk without getting distracted,” the minister said, “At some stage President Ramaphosa said, Foreign Minister, you are looking like Chandrayaan is up there (pointing to the screen).”
“I think, by then, it had seeped into peoples’ imagination and, that evening, I must tell you, we were at a BRICS Plus event – so you had about 50 other countries’ prime ministers and presidents – and the speech which President Ramaphosa gave on Chandrayaan was like a collective feeling…”
“In fact, he said, ‘I’m going to sit next to PM Modi and I hope some of it rubs off on me…”
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The Prime Minister had earlier given a briefing to other BRICS leaders after Vikram’s landing, in which he had thanked Mr Ramaphosa for his congratulatory messages, and said, “… my friend Ramaphosa has given a lot of praise for India’s Moon mission. I have been feeling this since yesterday.”
After thanking Mr Ramaphosa, PM Modi had said, “It is a matter of pride for us that this success is being accepted not as a limited success of one country but as a significant success of mankind.”
Mr Jaishankar stressed on the “collective feeling” of joy that Chandrayaan-3 had evoked and said, “That sentiment was very strong and. at one stage, I remember there was a long U-shaped table with 100-150 people seated. People spontaneously got up so the PM had to walk down the length of table to individually accept congratulations. You had a sense this was not just India’s achievement.”
Chandrayaan-3’s successful landing on the Moon meant India joins a select group of nations – the others are Russia (then the Soviet Republic), the United States and China – to have completed a soft landing on the lunar surface; landing site was also closer to the Moon’s South Pole than any other.
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Vikram has since successfully also deployed the six-wheel Pragyan rover, which is deploying scientific payloads and instruments to gather crucial data from the Moon’s surface and atmosphere before the lunar night – which lasts for 14 Earth days – kicks in and forces India’s Moon mission to conclude.
