Kalpana Chawla used to say someday she’d be ‘kidnapped’ in outer space: Father

Agencies
October 25, 2019

New Delhi, Oct 25: Eighty-six-year-old Banarasi Lal Chawla vividly recalls the day when he was strewing the ashes of his daughter Kalpana Chawla in the hills of Zion National Park in the US. Unexpectedly, he encountered an American woman sobbing uncontrollably as she also grieved the death of the Indian-American astronaut who was on board space shuttle Columbia when it exploded while returning to the Earth.

 “Such was the love people had for her, from Karnal to California, and only after her death I got to know the numerous lives she had touched and inspired. Kalpana was not just my daughter, she was India’s daughter and America’s daughter,” he said.

Using cinematic recreations, along with interviews with her parents and close friends, the life of Kalpana Chawla has come alive in a 45-minute bilingual (English and Hindi) documentary produced by National Geographic as part of its Mega Icons TV series, which was screened at a film festival in Mumbai on Thursday, Nat Geo officials said.

 “I want the entire world to benefit from the work done by Kalpana. She inspired people during her lifetime, from schoolchildren in her alma mater Tagore Baal Niketan School in Karnal to college students in her universities or the places where she delivered lectures. The film will inspire future generations to dream big,” Chawla told PTI in an interview.

Kalpana Chawla was the first woman of Indian-origin to fly to space, and in her will she had said that after her demise her ashes be either scattered over the Himalayas or the Zion National Park in Utah.

Born in Karnal in 1962, she was one of the seven crew members who died in the disaster in 2003 when Columbia disintegrated during its re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere.

 “I was in Houston back then at her home awaiting her return from her space expedition. But instead I learned that I had lost my dear daughter. She was fascinated by planes and aircraft since her childhood... She always dreamt of the stars and somehow I feel she dissolved into the stars that day,” Chawla said.

The proud father said Kalpana’s fascination for flying objects began when she was just three and saw a plane from the terrace of their home.

 “She insisted on seeing a plane from close distance. That time we had the Karnal Flying Club a few kilometres away, so I contacted a senior officer there whom I had met a few months ago and he invited us to visit the Club.

 “I rode a bicycle from my home and Kalpana sat in the front of it and my son at the back and I took them to the club. And even before I had parked my cycle, she had run to the aircraft that she saw and kept circling it and later asked all curious questions to the officer about it -- ‘How does it fly?’ ‘How does it work?’,” he recalled.

The captain later offered her, my son and me a spin in the plane to see Karnal from above. “I still haven’t forgotten the joy on Kalpana’s face,” Chawla said.

 “That day I knew she was born to fly and be among the stars. Stars were her companions. In fact she was so fascinated with space that after being selected to NASA, she used to say in a lighter vein that one day she would be kidnapped in outer space,” the emotionally overwhelmed father said.

Chawla recently met with an accident and suffered injuries in his spine and arms, but says talking about his daughter keeps him fit.

 “I am very weak and feeble now, with age and with accident-related injuries, but whenever I speak about her I feel there is some invisible force that gives me strength. My daughter never made me feel weak; she made me proud before and I am still a proud father,” he said.

Chawla also recalled the time after the Columbia disaster when the then US President George W Bush invited him to the White House.

 “I went through the corridors and rooms without any security around me and when I reached the Oval Office and stood at the door, President Bush himself opened the door and welcomed me in. He held me by arms and said, ‘Dad, please come in’. Tears rolled down my eyes and he (Bush) also started weeping. The US missed Kalpana as much as India did,” he reminisced.

For her achievements, the US Congress posthumously awarded her the Congressional Space Medal of Honour. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) posthumously awarded her the NASA Space Flight Medal and the NASA Distinguished Service Medal.

Chawla said Kalpana’s life was such that “everywhere I went, girls came to me and called me their ‘father’. I became father to all these girls, all thanks to their love for Kalpana”.

 “Once I was travelling in a train a few years ago and three young men were my co-passengers. They learned that I was from Karnal and then asked if I knew Kalpana’s family and I said ‘yes’. Ultimately, I revealed I was her father and two men from the berth above jumped to the floor of the train and sat beside my feet.

 “They were engineers returning from some assignment. One of them told me that his daughter had stopped eating after learning of her (Kalpana’s) death. She inspired girls to dream and she will continue to inspire them to reach for the stars,” he said. Chawla attended the special screening of the documentary titled ‘Mega Icons: Kalpana Chawla’ at the Jio MAMI 21st Mumbai Film Festival with Star.

Pawan Soni, head of marketing and programming, National Geographic India, said, “We are sure that the episode on Kalpana Chawla will be able to give viewers an incredible perspective into this icon’s life.” As part of the series, documentaries based on few more icons will be announced soon by the network.

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News Network
February 29,2020

New Delhi, Feb 29: The father of Intelligence Bureau staffer Ankit Sharma, whose body was pulled out of a drain in northeast Delhi's riot-hit Chand Bagh, complained to police that goons had assembled at the residence of former AAP counselor Tahir Hussain and were throwing petrol bombs from the rooftop.

According to the FIR which was registered on Thursday on the basis of the complaint lodged by Ankit's father Ravinder, the goons were also firing from the rooftop.

On Tuesday, Ankit returned from his office at 5 pm and then went outside to buy groceries. When he did not return, the family started looking for him and later filed a missing report, the FIR stated.

They got to know from their neighbours that a body has been recovered from a drain… later it was found to be that of Anikt, it said, adding the body had multiple stab injuries on the face, head, back, and chest.

The family has alleged in the FIR that it was Hussain and the goons at his residence who killed Ankit. In the FIR, Hussain has been accused of murder, destruction of evidence and abduction.

Soon after the FIR was registered on Thursday, the AAP suspended Tahir Hussain from the primary membership of the party till the police completed its probe.

The death toll in Delhi's communal violence rose to 42 on Friday as the situation showed some signs of returning to normalcy and clouds of smoke cleared to reveal the extent of the damage from the worst riots in the city in over three decades.

A total of 148 FIRs have been registered and 630 people have been either arrested or detained so far in connection with the communal violence, a Delhi Police spokesperson said.

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Agencies
May 19,2020

New Delhi, May 19: Former Union Minister P Chidambaram said that as the fourth phase of the nationwide lockdown amid the coronavirus scare began from Monday, his thoughts were with the people of Kashmir who were in a "terrible lockdown within a lockdown."

The senior Congress leader said that at least now, the people in the rest of India will understand that he dubbed the "enormity of the injustice" done to those who were detained in Kashmir and those still under detention" immediately before and after the abrogation of Article 370 of the Indian Constitution on August 5, 2019.

Chidambaram said that former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti was the "worst sufferer" of preventive detention and even courts had shirked their constitutional duty with respect to detainees.

"The worst sufferers are Mehbooba Mufti and her senior party colleagues who are still in custody in a locked-down state in a locked-down country. They are deprived of every human right," he said in a statement.

"I cannot believe that for nearly 10 months, the courts will shirk their constitutional duty to protect the human rights of citizens," he added.

The detention on Mehbooba Mufti under the Public Safety Act (PSA) had been extended for three more months on May 5. Booked under the stringent PSA, she was initially kept at the Hari Niwas guesthouse in Srinagar but later shifted to a Tourism Department hut in the Chashma Shahi area.

She was shifted to her Gupkar Road official residence on April 7.

Besides Mehbooba Mufti, two other former Chief Ministers -- Omar Abdullah and his father Farooq Abdullah -- were also detained under the PSA but later released.

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News Network
February 27,2020

New Delhi, Feb 27: Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Thursday attacked the government over the transfer of Delhi High Court Judge S Muralidhar, saying the Centre's attempts to "muzzle" justice and "break people's faith in an upright judiciary are deplorable".

Delhi HC Judge S Muralidhar was transferred to the Punjab and Haryana High Court, days after the Supreme Court collegium made the recommendation.

"The midnight transfer of Justice Muralidhar isn't shocking given the current dispensation, but it is certainly sad & shameful," Priyanka Gandhi tweeted. "Millions of Indians have faith in a resilient & upright judiciary, the government’s attempts to muzzle justice & break their faith are deplorable," she said.

The judge was hearing the Delhi violence case and the late evening notification came on the day when a bench headed by him expressed "anguish" over the Delhi Police's failure to register FIRs against alleged hate speeches by three BJP leaders.

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