On July 18, 2026, a rocket built by a private Indian company reached orbit. Skyroot Aerospace’s Vikram-1, developed by a young Indian startup, hit headlines.
India became the third country to achieve orbital launch capability through private enterprise.
Why we are discussing this in September ? It's because ... someone had written in her latest piece:
"For most of our history, the answer to a big dream in India was “you cannot”. Not because you weren’t good enough, but because the door simply did not exist.
The quietest and largest achievement of Narendra Modi’s leadership is that the answer became “why not.” --
Do you know the author - it's P V Sindhu.
You got it right.
Pusarla Venkata Sindhu (born July 5, 1995) is the ace badminton player.
As she was before 1980 and after 1965 -- she is Gen Z ... as we keep talking abut these days.
She is certainly one of India's most successful athletes. Sindhu has won medals at tournaments such as the Olympic Games, the World Championships, and on the World Tour.
She is the first and only Indian to become the badminton world champion and only the second individual from India to win two consecutive medals at the Olympic Games.
Ms Sindhu wrote in her piece to 'The New Indian Express' --
"To do almost anything that mattered, you needed a licence, a clearance, a contact or the right family name.
"The country was never short of dreamers. It was short of doors. And when doors are few, they open first for people who already have keys.
The young, the poor, the ones without a surname that opened rooms, waited outside."
She articulated her feelings of 'changing Bharat/India' in following paras:
"Picture a young Indian, 10 years ago, saying she wanted to build a rocket. Not join ISRO. Build one. Her own. The room would have gone quiet, and someone kind would have explained that this was not something a person like her could do. Space belonged to the government. Dreams that size were for other countries.
On July 18, a rocket built by a private Indian company reached orbit. Skyroot Aerospace’s Vikram-1, developed by a young Indian startup, became the first privately developed Indian orbital rocket to successfully reach space. India became the third country to achieve orbital launch capability through private enterprise."
The girl who was told no can now say she wants to be Elon Musk and mean it as a plan, not a punchline. She can simply begin, wrote Sindhu.
"Nothing about the talent had changed in those 10 years. India always had the talent. What changed was the answer" - she notes.
The iconic sports further states:
"PM Modi’s real insight was to look at that wall and see it for what it was. He put the shift in a simple line: government moving from “prohibited unless permitted” to “permitted unless prohibited”.
That is the steady idea behind much of his decade’s work: take down the wall of permissions and build in its place a country of open doors.
"A country where it does not matter whose child you are, only what you are willing to build. Look at what has been opened.
Space went first, in 2020, after decades of government dominance, when reforms opened the sector to private participation across space activities.
IN-SPACe was created to enable and regulate private companies, giving Indian entrepreneurs a route into an industry that had long been the preserve of the state."
"Then came more. The liberalised Drone Rules of 2021 replaced a system that had been criticised for excessive paperwork and permissions, opening the way for wider use of drones in agriculture, mapping, infrastructure and other fields.
Some changes were quieter, but mattered just as much. In 2021, maps were freed for private innovation."
Engineers work on one of the multiple stages of Skyroot Aerospace’s Vikram-I launch vehicle, assembling and inspecting critical propulsion components
Sindhu notes:
"When Startup India began in 2016, India had only a few hundred recognised startups. Today, it has crossed two lakh, spreading beyond Bangalore and Delhi into smaller cities and towns.
More than a hundred thousand have women founders, putting ambition into the hands of a new generation."
"But opening doors is only half of it. An open door means little if you have no way to reach it.
This is where the fairness in the idea shows itself.
Financial inclusion, digital payments and targeted credit have brought millions of Indians who were once outside the formal economy into it.
"A vegetable seller and a startup founder can now move money through the same digital infrastructure. A young entrepreneur in a small town can access tools that once belonged almost exclusively to people born into the right networks."
ends
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