Daily Briefing: India’s moon mission inches closer to completion; latest on personal data law; and more

We are officially just a couple hours away from touchdown! The Lander Module of Chandrayaan-3 will attempt to make a “safe and soft landing” on the surface of the Moon this evening at 1804 hours IST.

Right at the end of the mission it will all come down to the final ’15 minutes of terror’ when the lander will perform a critical technical manoeuvre, where it will transfer its high-speed horizontal position to a vertical one — in order to facilitate a gentle descent on to the surface. Here’s what will happen.

With the Chandrayaan-3 mission generating a fair bit of discussion around India’s space programme, and Moon missions in general, here are a few things you may not be aware of.

Meanwhile in Chennai, software developer Shanmuga Subramanian, who made international headlines in 2019 by locating the debris of the Chandrayaan-2 mission’s Vikram lander, will be keeping a close eye on the Chandrayaan-3 landing.

⚡Only in the Express

The Centre will introduce “detailed safeguards” for protection of personal data in rules issued subsequent to the data protection Act while operationalizing exemptions for the government and its agencies, Ashwini Vaishnav, Union Minister for Electronics and IT, has told The Indian Express.

Days after India and China held the 19th round of military talks on resolving existing issues on the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh, Indian military commanders on the ground are discussing possible modalities for limited disengagement at certain mutually-accepted points along the boundary.

📰From the Front Page

As he began his three-day official visit to South Africa for the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) summit, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said he looked forward to holding bilateral meetings with some of the leaders present there. All eyes continue to be on a possible meeting between PM Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping.

The Manipur Assembly will convene on August 29 for its first session since the beginning of the violence that has convulsed the state for the past four months, even as doubts persist over the attendance of the 10 Kuki-Zomi members of the House. “As of now, it is beyond our belief that there will be any means for us to attend,” one of the legislators said.

After its decision to impose a duty of 40% on export of onions led to protests by farmers in Maharashtra, the Modi government has moved for quick damage control. Two days after the duty was imposed, Union Food Minister Piyush Goyal announced that 2 lakh additional tonnes of onions will be procured at a “historic” rate of Rs 2,410 per quintal, and that they could procure more if needed.

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In his latest column Raja Mandala, C Raja Mohan writes on the BRICS summit: “Beijing and Moscow want to squeeze the BRICS, which began as a forum to limit the dangers of the “unipolar moment” and promote a “multipolar world”, into a bipolar confrontation with the West.”

⏱️ And Finally…

When their first game in Baku ended in a draw in just 35 moves on Tuesday, five-time world champion Magnus Carlsen and India’s young trailblazer, 18-year-old R Praggnanandhaa, chatted for a good couple of minutes, exchanging notes. Now, Praggnanandhaa’s best chance of winning the World Cup would be if he manages to take Carlsen to tiebreakers.

🤫 Delhi Confidential: The Ministry of Science and Technology will organise a special screening of Chandrayan-3’s landing on Wednesday. Science and Technology Minister Jitendra Singh, who is also MoS, Space, has decided to host the event at CSIR’s headquarters in Anusandhan Bhavan in the national capital.

🎧 In the latest episode of our 3 Things podcast, we discuss what an investigation by the Ministry of Minority Affairs revealed about scholarship scams in India, he reasons behind an increasing price of onions, and how water-related issues are creating diverse challenges in Punjab.

Until tomorrow,
Ayesha Jain and Rahel Philipose