Tharuvananthapuram - Member of Parliament Dr.Shahsi Tharoor has ample reason to be enthusiastic. College of Engineering, Trivandrum (CET), a government-run institution not widely recognized beyond the state, is brimming with excitement since the successful soft landing of Chandrayaan-3 on the Lunar South Pole.

Among the group that elevated India into the esteemed league of nations that have achieved lunar landings — including the US, China, and the former Soviet Union — were seven alumni of CET. Interestingly, these seven stellar individuals from CET's "Magnificent 7" hail from the 1986 batch.

S Mohana Kumar (Mission Director, Mechanical), K Athula Devi (Deputy Director, Electronics), N Satheesh Kumar (Deputy Director, Mechanical), MA Suresh (Associate Director, Mechanical), G Narayanan (Associate Mission Director, Mechanical), M Mohan (Hunan Space Flight Director, Mechanical), and K Shooja (Associate Director, Electronics) collectively constitute the esteemed group of CETians.

"Their images went viral on social media, and ever since, we've been on cloud nine. Although they were in a junior batch, I was acquainted with all of them. Their accomplishments took me back in time, reminding me of how our institution played a pivotal role in molding them into the nation's finest space experts," shared environmental activist Thomas Lawrence.

Lawrence, a member of the 1985 Electrical Engineering Department batch, returned to Thiruvananthapuram after an extended tenure as an IT entrepreneur in the United States.