India

In a recent South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) videoconference to develop a joint strategy to combat Covid-19, Afghan president Ashraf Ghani asked India to make a satellite available to Afghan residents to assist with online education and help ensure social distancing to prevent spread of the virus, according to a report published on HindustanTimes.com on 15 March 2020.

The Centre national d'études spatiales (CNES) Board of Directors convened for its 362nd session on 12 March 2020. During this meeting, they gave the go-ahead to engage France in the development of the French-Indian Trishna programme and to pursue activities for the new Space Inspire series of flexible satellites, as well as development of equipment for the spacecraft bus and shared payload.

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) will carry out a series of tests to validate the design and engineering of the rocket and orbital module system for India's first planned human space flight mission, named Gaganyaan.

The Economic Survey -2020, which preceded the Budget 2020-21 released by Nirmala Sitharaman’ first full budget as finance minister rather bizarrely focused almost exclusively on the number of launches undertaken by major space faring states including India as a good indicator of the strength and the health of the space programme

The Gagarin Research and Test Cosmonaut Training Center (GCTC) has started the planned training programme of Indian astronaut candidates under the contract between Glavkosmos, JSC (part of the State Space Corporation Roscosmos) and the Human Spaceflight Centre of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).

Aerospace firm Ananth Technologies has signed deals to build six foreign-owned satellites in India, a first for a private firm, leveraging the country's low cost base to attract global customers.

Centre national d'études spatiales (CNES) President Jean-Yves Le Gall was the guest of honour at the international Human Spaceflight Symposium organized in Bangalore, India, on 24 January 2020 by the International Academy of Astronautics (IAA)

India’s latest communication satellite GSAT-30 was successfully launched from the Spaceport in French Guiana during the early hours of 17 January 2020.

Arianespace opened its 2020 launch activity with a dual-satellite Ariane 5 mission from French Guiana that successfully placed EUTELSAT KONNECT and GSAT-30 into geostationary transfer orbit on 16 January 2020.

We are pleased to present "India’s Self-Inflicted Foreign Policy Challenges in 2020”, originally published on 4 January 2020 in The Diplomat.