It is a fact universally acknowledged that the first person to travel to space was Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin on April 12, 1961. However, former Union Minister Anurag Thakur appears to suggest to a group of young students that it was Lord Hanuman.
Mr Thakur was speaking to students on the occasion of National Space Day at a PM Shri School - which aims to nurture students in a way that they become engaged, productive, and contributing citizens for building an equitable, inclusive, and plural society as envisaged by the National Education Policy 2020 - at Una in Himachal Pradesh on Saturday.
Here's how the interaction between the BJP MP and the students went:
Anurag Thakur: Antriksh main yatra karne wala pehla kaun tha? (Who was the first space traveller?)
Students (speaking in chorus): Neil Armstrong
Anurag Thakur: Mujhe toh lagta hai Hanuman ji the (I think it was Hanumanji).
Both answers fall far short of the reality.
American astronaut Neil Armstrong was the first person to walk on the Moon, while Yuri Gagarin was the first person to travel to space.
However, the five-time parliamentarian did not correct the children and launched into an explanation, backing his "Hanuman" theory.
"Because we still see ourselves as we are now. As long as we do not know our thousands of years' old tradition, knowledge, culture, we will remain the same as the British have shown us. So, I would like to request the Principal and all of you to think out of the textbooks and take a look at our nation, our traditions, our knowledge. If you look at it from that direction, you will find a lot of things to see," said the 50-year-old MP from Himachal's Hamirpur.
The first Indian to travel to space was Rakesh Sharma some forty years ago. Earlier this year, Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla became the second Indian astronaut to travel to space.
The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on Saturday unveiled the model of the Bharatiya Antariksh Station (BAS) in Delhi.
The ISRO aims to launch the first module of the project by 2028, and the full station is expected to become operational by 2035. The BAS is set to be a significant platform for indigenous research, including microgravity studies and testing technologies for long-duration human space missions.
India's journey to establish its own orbital laboratory marks a major leap in its space program and reinforces its position as a global leader in space exploration.
