As India celebrates a historic achievement following the successful landing of the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft of the Moon, former Pakistan Information and Broadcasting Minister Fawad Chaudhry extended his congratulations to India and the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) for the feat.
"What a great moment for #ISRO as #Chandrayaan3 lands on the Moon, I can see lots of young scientists celebrating this moment with Mr Somnat Chairman ISRO, only Younger generation with dreams can change the world … good luck," said Chaudhry in a post on X (formerly Twitter).
Yesterday, hours ahead of the landing, Chaudhry made a similar comment on X, calling for Pakistani media to broadcast the landing programme for Chandrayaan-3 and calling the space mission as a 'historic moment for humankind'.
On a post on X (formerly Twitter), Chaudhry said, "Pak media should show #Chandrayan moon landing live tomorrow at 6:15 PM… historic moment for Human kind specially for the people, scientists and Space community of India…. Many Congratulations."
It is worth mentioning that Fawad's recent stance is a dramatic U-turn from last month, when a video of him mocking ISRO's Chandrayaan-3 mission went viral.
In the video, Chaudhry said, "Itne papad belne ki zarurat nahi hai (There is no need to make such efforts)." He also said that "we can see the moon, we know its precise location, we know when it rises and its altitude in different locations. The video provoked outrage and hilarious reactions at the same time.
Chaudhry's stance on Chandrayaan-2
During the failure of the Chandrayaan-2 mission in 2019, Chaudhry made a series of insulting comments to mock India, going so far as to say that the only way that the country would reach the Moon is through Bollywood.
"Endia is adding into space debris, ealrier“Mission Shakti”failed and now “Chandrayaan”, irresponsible attitude of #ModiSarkar from region to space is disastrous for the world,Galaxyies and the planet is a delicate business politicians must not be allowed to play foolish gimmicky," he said on one post.
Chandrayaan-3's success
India created a history on Wednesday as its Chandrayaan-3 mission successfully landed on the far side of the Moon's surface. By landing the Vikram Lander module on the Moon's south pole, India has become the first country to achieve this feat.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi congratulated the ISRO team, its chief saying, "India's successful Moon mission is not just India's alone... this success belongs to all of humanity."
India is the first country to land on lunar south pole with Chandrayaan-3 mission and the fourth country in the world after the US, China and the erstwhile Soviet Union to reach the moon.
India’s Chandrayaan-3's Vikram lander successfully set its four legs softly and safely on the lunar soil as planned, and became the fourth nation in the world to achieve the feat, but first to land on Moon's south pole. The lander landed near the South Pole of the moon after travelling about 3.84 lakh km for over 40 days.
Chandrayaan-3 is a follow-on mission to Chandrayaan-2 and its objectives are to demonstrate safe and soft-landing on the lunar surface, roving on the Moon, and to conduct in-situ scientific experiments.
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