From correspondents in Chhattisgarh, India, 09:31 PM IST

Encouraged by Chandrayaan-I's success in October, India has planned a 'manned moon mission' by 2015, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) chairman G. Madhavan Nair said Monday.

'India is now a major force in world in the space sector with the launch of Chandrayaan-I,' he said at the 15th convocation ceremony of the Pandit Ravishankar Shukla University here. 'Now ISRO has planned a manned moon mission by 2015.'

The noted scientist was on a day's visit to Raipur.

While speaking at a function organised by the Chhattisgarh Info-tech and Bio-tech Promotion Society (CHIPS) here, Nair said: 'ISRO projects are not only aimed at getting details of moon or space but to assist governments to design programmes of rural development through ISRO's space technologies mainly in field of agriculture and land development.'

(Staff Writer, © IANS)