'India’s Modi out of this world': EAM posts pic of PM, Brazil President checking front-page headline on Chandrayaan-3

Union Minister of External Affairs, S Jaishankar, on Thursday posted a photo of PM Modi and Brazil President Lula on X (formerly Twitter) in which they were reading a newspaper headline about Chandrayaan-3’s success. The headline was of South Africa’s prominent newspaper, The Star and it said, “India's Modi out of this world”.

Jaishankar captioned his X post, “This morning at the BRICS Summit.”

PM Modi and Jaishankar are in Johannesburg currently for the 15th BRICS Summit. The Prime Minister watched the historic landing of Chandrayaan-3 from Johannesburg and also gave a congratulatory speech to ISRO virtually.

Chandrayaan-3's successful soft-landing on the Moon to propel India into an elite group of nations was lauded by leading foreign media outlets as a marvellous achievement and a massive moment for the country's space exploration that has raised its profile as a spacefaring nation.

From The New York Times to BBC and The Guardian to The Washington Post, the historic event in India's space programme on Wednesday made headlines across the globe.

“Somnath Ji, your name is Somnath, which is associated with the moon, and therefore your family members will also be very happy today. Many many congratulations to you and your entire team from my side,” PM said to ISRO chief S Somanath while congratulating the entire team behind India’s success in space.

Hours before the successful landing, PM Modi had pitched the idea of a BRICS space consortium during his speech in the plenary session of the three-day summit.

NASA Chief Bill Nelson also congratulated ISRO on their success, “Congratulations @isro on your successful Chandrayaan-3 lunar South Pole landing! And congratulations to #India on being the 4th country to successfully soft-land a spacecraft on the Moon. We’re glad to be your partner on this mission!”

Chandrayaan-3 landed ‘softly’ on the lunar surface at 6:04 PM on Wednesday, making India the first country to land near the south polar region of the moon. India also became the only fourth planet to successfully land on the moon after the US, Russia and China.

The Pragyan rover, kept safely inside the Vikram lander, has started to explore the lunar surface. The rover has a mission-life of one lunar day which is equivalent to fourteen days on Earth.

Notably, Russia tried to land near the south pole earlier this week but they lost control of the spacecraft during its landing approach. South pole of the moon became extremely important after the first Chandrayaan mission in 2008 found traces of ice particles near the south polar region of the lunar planet. The US and China have also planned missions to the south pole of the moon.