‘To see ISRO tarnished,just because of the word ‘spectrum’,makes me feel terrible’

SG: But given the mood right now,it looks like we need something like this in every street of not just Delhi but this country. As if this is a country of thieves,you know,sab chor hain.
This is what concerns me greatly. Somehow,the way the things are being made out,it is as if every person,every deal,every activity is somehow ridden with some problem…

SG: Kiran,you are a rare bird. You were a scientist who also learnt management at IIM-Ahmedabad. You worked at ISRO,you headed NASSCOM and then you write this very anguished letter to the Prime Minister on the ISRO-Devas case. You were on the board of Devas and now you are appointed,as we talk,as a member of the UGC. You have one foot in the establishment,one out of it,and yet,you can challenge the establishment. And yet,when the chips are down,when Satyam happens,the establishment reaches out to you. So where do you see yourself post Devas-ISRO?
This has been a point of great anguish for me. I spent many years in ISRO and I can’t think of one organisation which is more upright,which has more integrity and which has such highly motivated people doing things because they have the passion to do things,not just in technology but for the country. I loved the time there and so,to see this organisation being tarnished on the basis of no facts,no evidence,nothing concrete,just because the word spectrum appears to happen and just because they do a deal with private parties…I feel terrible,I feel sad.

SG: You were at ISRO.
I was there for 20 years. It is not a pure technology organisation; it is something distinctive. It is in fact the only organisation in the world in space area which has a huge component of social science people and the concept from the beginning,from Vikram Sarabhai’s days,was that this has to be technology that is geared to solving the real problems of this country. So you need sociologists,anthropologists,psychologists to get these problems out and then pose a challenge to technology: this is what the country needs,can you create it for us?

SG: Could this have been handled better?
Personally,I think it could have been. I don’t know what compulsions there were. But I think just in terms of handling,it could have been done much better.

SG: By ISRO or the government?
I would say both. I think ISRO could have handled it better,so could the government. I would have liked them to stand up and say,‘Look,we have no evidence,not even an inkling of anything wrong having been done. However,we are reviewing the agreement for other reasons,I mean strategic and societal reasons were mentioned. If those were the reasons we could have said that is why we are looking at it and we might cancel it; not because there is something wrong.

SG: So you don’t believe there was a scandal?
I don’t believe so at all.

SG: And you know business and you know science?
I have been out of it,I must say. I am not in ISRO.

SG: But you were on the board of Devas.
I was on the Devas board and I can tell you that even before I joined the board,in the year-and-half to two years that I was there,I went through to see if we were doing things properly,have we done things in the systematic way,have we got approval and clearances? I have seen documents which clearly showed that the clearances that were required from Devas’s side were there. I can’t speak for ISRO. But as far as I know,as far as I could pick up,even they went through all the due processes.

SG: But why did you leave the Devas board on February 9,because that is what confused people. People said if Kiran Karnik is deserting this ship,this deserves to sink.
I know it might have sent out a wrong signal but very frankly,I was at the stage where I didn’t want to spend endless hours answering queries and trying to explain to everybody the difference between satellite bandwidth and terrestrial bandwidth,an agreement that is signed versus all kinds of allusions,spectrum equal to scam. Maybe I should have. Number two,I felt more comfortable being out of it to be able to speak more openly because now I don’t have an interest,I never had one because I was an independent director. But now,I am completely out of it so I am much freer to speak up and say things.

SG: What about the market impression that independent directors in Devas may have been paid humungous amounts of money?
I can tell you they were not. I might wish they were but the fact is that they were not.

SG: So explain to our viewers now the difference between the two bands of spectrum,terrestrial and S-band.
It is very simple. If you take terrestrial spectrum,take the cellphone thing…If I call you on my phone,we are using a part of the spectrum bandwith and if your friend in Bombay is calling somebody else in Bombay,they can use the same part of the spectrum,so the spectrum gets reused. It can be reused very frequently because the cellphone towers cover a limited area. When you broadcast from the satellite,it is like sunshine raining down on the whole country,so that spectrum can’t be reused again. Therefore,the value of something that can be reused many many times is obviously far more. It is,in a sense,a trade-off between capacity and coverage. The ground spectrum gives you far more capacity,the space spectrum gives you coverage and obviously,when you use something that is commercially valuable many,many times,the value of that is far more. So these fictitious figures like Rs 200,000 crore—I use the word fictitiously very advisedly—I don’t know who calculated it and where. It just doesn’t make sense. Anybody who knows the least bit of technology will tell you that this is nothing but taking two big figures,both of which have no validity,and multiplying them with each other.

SG: So what is this spectrum used for?
Look at spectrum as a pipe that carries something. So you know it carries your communications across and how much you can carry in it is determined by a number of factors. But in simple terms,given everything else being the same,on a given spectrum,you can carry a certain amount of capacity,so more the spectrum,the wider you can carry. This particular part of spectrum has been allocated for space services which is from the satellite. ISRO had,without getting into details,some part of it. They gave away some part to ground telecom,the rest has been retained for space use. What Devas would have used is only a small part of that,not a big part of it.

SG: What part?
Well,70 out of 150,roughly. And then there was a large remaining part for which,incidentally,as far as I know,there are yet no active takers. So all this business about auction… How do you auction something that has one person interested who comes up with an idea and one giver.

SG: Did it all happen so suddenly or did you get an opportunity to reason with somebody,‘Look,don’t panic yourself into doing stupid things’.
I think it is a big setback because you had a great satellite with phenomenal technology which is almost ready to go. You had application which would have taken the country to a different level and now,all that has been put on hold. It will require some time obviously and the one thing we don’t have is time.

SG: In these situations,it is very difficult to retrace your steps because you first have to say,I was stupid,I didn’t apply my mind. Those are big confessions for the establishment and media to make.
I think the media also has played a role in this which has not been exemplary. The media have put out headlines,television in particular,but some newspapers on their front pages…not based on a great deal of fact. Where there is fact,they have been turned into something that makes it seem sensational. So sensationalism has undoubtedly played a role in this.

SG: Do you think the government got spooked because there was this spectrum issue going on…ek museebat aur kyun?
That is part of the story because they thought: spectrum,another one,somebody has mentioned Rs 200,000 crore,we don’t want to dirty our hands with this.

SG: So if S-band spectrum was auctioned,what would have happened?
If you restrict it to space use,for which it is meant,you couldn’t have auctioned it because at that time when this proposal first came about and the agreement was signed,nobody else was interested. Period. So who would you auction it to?

SG: What was the story about the sweetheart deal to former ISRO scientists in Devas?
I joined the board less than two years ago,when the deal had been signed. But even those who were initially involved had left the board many years ago. The key person who chaired the Devas thing,the CEO there,has never been with ISRO at all. The chairman was an ex-ISRO person. He left many years ago,went and did other things and came back. So it is not fair to put it that way. Second,when you look for people in space technology in India,they couldn’t have come from anywhere else. Rather crudely,they couldn’t have come from the Municipal Corporation of Delhi. You had to get them from ISRO. The third point is,irrespective of this,you shouldn’t underplay the processes,the robustness of systems within ISRO. I mean,suppose there were guys from ISRO who were trying to do something,you mean it is such a weak system that they can be influenced?

SG: If they could be,they wouldn’t have achieved what they have achieved. Because ISRO has had to deal with most withering restrictions because of technology denials. And it has held its head high.
Yes. The unique thing is that while it is within the government and therefore follows government procedures and systems at a broad level,it has been able to achieve things that very few government organisations have in terms of efficiency. It has done this because they have followed the systems,yet done them well and efficiently with none of the friction points.

SG: So how do you start repairing this now—ISRO’s name,India’s name?
I think this is critical. The Devas deal whatever it is,is separate and I am no longer with Devas but I think the ISRO name,what it stands for and ISRO’s reputation,needs to be safeguarded.

SG: So how does one fix this now?
I would say that Devas apart,it is necessary for people in authority within the government to come out openly and say,after verifying whatever they want to verify,that look,this has been very clean,there has been no hanky-panky,no corruption,no cronyism in this case.

SG: Kiran,you have had both experiences with the government. You had one where,as you said,the government has ruined a fairly simple situation. But there was another one where the same establishment was able to rescue India from a much messier situation and you were part of that as well—Satyam. You were among the people who were called to fix Satyam when the scandal broke.
I think if you look for an exemplary way of achieving something,it is what the government did in Satyam. They were quick,they were prompt,they were very open,they didn’t interfere in the least way with the board.

SG: I have always said that it was a dangerous thing to join the board of Satyam then but you came on board for no financial benefit and performed a great national service and deserve the highest of national honours.
Somebody asked me,‘what were you feeling the first day’? I said I can tell you from a visual analogy. I have spent many years in the media myself and I can think of films— you know they always have a standard shot in the film where the bomb is about to go off and the guy is sitting with a cutter: red wire,green wire,red wire,green wire. You cut the wrong one,bang. It is going to blow your face.

SG: So,the same establishment can show so much nerve and so much cool and so much wisdom in one situation and then they can show so much panic and so much haste,and if I may say so,so much cowardice,in another situation.
It surprises me tremendously because,as you said,it is pretty much the same establishment and in one case they were exemplary and in the other case now there is a two-man committee. Shouldn’t you have waited for some investigation before making a decision? You don’t make decisions on the basis of reacting to something or a press article. If you wanted to investigate,which is what this two-person committee which has been set up is going to do,you could have waited. Again I repeat that what saddens me in this whole thing is not the cancellation of the deal per se but the implications of the implied innuendos that it has for the ISRO having done something wrong.

SG: I will take your mind back to something. Almost two decades back,ISRO had again been rocked by a completely fake scandal called the ISRO spy case where everybody believed that top ISRO scientists were involved in espionage. It was very difficult to take a stand against that,to again shine the cold light of reason and fact.
You were one of those who did. Probably,the only one who did.

SG: I stuck my neck out. I used to work for India Today. I had to deal with many court cases after that,but the fact is that the Supreme Court finally concluded that this was a completely fraudulent case. In fact,it even ordered cash compensation for the scientists who had been harassed,who had been kept in custody. How does an organisation like ISRO get such bad treatment? Do you think that the scientific organisations have no mai baap in Delhi when the chips are down?
I wouldn’t say that. At many times,we have seen the government showing great fortitude. I remember the first failure of SLV-3 or the first launch vehicle. It just fell into the sea. I know the government at that time,a very different government,stood up for it and said no,these things happen and we are fully behind you. This was in the mid-70s. I think there have been times when the government has been good and has stood up and done things and by and large,as far as ISRO is concerned,the government has been very supportive,they have been hands-off. Which is why,what surprises me even more now is the way it is reacting to this.

Kiran,you have shown that you are not short of moral courage,otherwise you would not have written this letter,you would have waited for someone else to do it. So,congratulations again and thank you very much.

Transcribed by Mehraj D Lone
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