(Indian citizen fwiw) As much as I like India and its space program, it is also true that these kind of grand pronouncements happen from time to time and are n

(Indian citizen fwiw) As much as I like India and its space program, it is also true that these kind of grand pronouncements happen from time to time and are not taken very seriously here. And when the announced missions/projects do happen they are inevitably over budget and delayed. E.g: cost of an unmanned lunar probe in 2008 - US $ 90 million (source http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandrayaan-1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandrayaan-1) costs for a lunar lander/rover, proposed for 2016 (delayed from the original plan for 2014) - projected cost - US $ 80 million. Note this is the projected cost (source http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandrayaan-2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandrayaan-2) Thus, I'd be very very skeptical of a mars probe actually being launched in 2013 at the same amount of money as was spent on a lunar probe 4 years ago. See how that $80 million keeps repeating? Must be the maximum budget you can sell to a technically illiterate politician. ;-) That said, I am all for India trying to explore space, with whatever constraints. Eventually there will be a Mars probe and that is great.