Antrix stuck with $1-billion payout, but India's busy building a Newspace

Antrix, the commercial arm of ISRO, could be buried in penalties any day now due to its scrapped deal with Devas Multimedia. But even before the time of death can be called, the Indian government has created a possible replacement. Newspace India Ltd

On 6 March, the Department of Space (DOS) set up a new public sector space company. The Cabinet, chaired by PM Narendra Modi, gave the approval on Feb 19

DOS already has a public sector company, Antrix Corp, with similar ownership. Why create a parallel company?

Is this new company, Newspace India Ltd, a safety net as Antrix and GoI face at least $1.5 billion in liability payout in the Devas case?

Of the three lost arbitration cases, the second damage award could be announced any day now. Is there a chance that Antrix may get liquidated?

Elections rouse emotions. Especially one where 900 million people will vote to elect their leaders this month. That, to an extent, explains the timing and the ensuing chest-thumping after India demonstrated its ability to destroy targets in space by shooting down one of its own satellites late last month. It, however, doesn’t explain this under-the-radar activity: creating a new public sector company under the Department of Space (DOS), which already owns another public sector company, Antrix Corporation Ltd. Created 26 years ago, Antrix has since been the commercial arm of ISRO, selling its technologies and services.

On 19 February, a 9:30PM Press Information Bureau release said that the Union Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi had approved setting up of a new company, “to commercially exploit the research and development work carried out by Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) Centers and constituent units of DOS.”

Conspicuously, the news went unreported.

AUTHOR

Seema Singh

Seema has over two decades of experience in journalism. Before starting The Ken, Seema wrote “Myth Breaker: Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw and the Story of Indian Biotech”, published by HarperCollins in May 2016. Prior to that, she was a senior editor and bureau chief for Bangalore with Forbes India, and before that she wrote for Mint. Seema has written for numerous international publications like IEEE-Spectrum, New Scientist, Cell and Newsweek. Seema is a Knight Science Journalism Fellow from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a MacArthur Foundation Research Grantee.

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