The recent historic link-up of ISRO’s two uncrewed spacecraft in low earth orbit is an essential technology for its forthcoming Chandrayaan-4 and Gaganyaan space station projects. In my view; its significance is more widespread for some good reasons.

    First, the link-up has come when India’s private sector is closely associated with the government’s space policy and implementation. In the last five years, the country’s startup ecosystem has become quite robust. A startup is a company with a business model that supports innovation.

    The development of the startups has been phenomenal. From 450 startups in 2016, their officially recognised number has gone up to 1, 59,000 in recent time, which is the world’s third largest hub. From 44 unicorns (companies with a valuation of over $ one billion) only a few years ago, today one can list more than 110 of them. Moreover, nearly half of them are....