Did you know that the CIA had sabotaged ISRO’s top secret operation to transfer cryogenic rocket technology from Russia to India? Ever wondered what is the real reason why S. Nambi Narayanan does not want the whole truth behind the ISRO spy story to surface? Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) was rocked by a spy case in 1994, taking down in its wake six officials who were a part of the organisation, including S. Nambi Narayanan. They were blamed with passing critical rocket technology to a neighbouring nation and booked for the same. CLASSIFIED exposes the hidden truths behind the spy story and how it highlighted the fractures of our premier institutions. It shows us how the spy case stripped them bare, down to their bones. Read this intriguing account of how state agencies are surreptitiously trying to bury the wreckage of a failed operation.

A top scientist is falsely accused of selling space technology secrets. A police inspector's misadventure with a Maldivian woman results in a fabricated espionage case. A faction within a political party capitalises on the case to bring down a government. An intelligence agency obligingly plays into the hands of vested interests to slow down India's space programme. And a complex investigation finally proves the allegations untrue. In this riveting book, Isro scientist S Nambi Narayanan - who was falsely accused of espionage in ISRO spy case of the 1990s - and senior journalist Arun Ram meticulously unpick the ISRO spy case, revisit old material and discover new details to expose the international plot that delayed India's development of a cryogenic engine by at least a decade. It took four years for the CBI to exonerate Nambi, but his fight for justice to ensure action against the officers who faked the case and tortured him in custody continues. This book is as much a history of the early days of India's ambitious space programme as it is a record of one of the most sensational cases that enthralled the nation long before the era of online updates and 24-hour news cycles.