India has grown accustomed to celebrating ISRO’s triumphs. Every successful launch, every lunar mission and every satellite deployment is rightly hailed as another milestone in the country’s scientific journey. The headlines speak of technological excellence, strategic capability and India’s emergence as a serious space power. Far less attention is paid to the people who make those achievements possible.

That is why reports of more than a hundred scientists and engineers leaving ISRO through resignations or voluntary retirements should worry us far more than they do. The government’s decision to tighten the approval process for resignations is itself an admission that the trend has become difficult to ignore. Institutions do not make it harder for people to leave unless they fear losing them.

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But restricting exits is not the same as solving the problem. Talking to News18, former ISRO Chairman G. Madhavan Nair recently offered a candid assessment of the situation. His observations deserve careful consideration, not merely because he once headed the organisation, but because he belongs to the generation that transformed ISRO into one of the world’s most respected space agencies.

The first reason is also the most obvious. India’s private space sector has finally come of age. Opening the sector to private participation was the right decision. It has encouraged innovation, attracted investment and created opportunities that simply did not exist a decade ago. Several private companies today are designing satellites, developing launch vehicles and undertaking sophisticated space projects. They also need experienced scientists and engineers, and there is no better place to........

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