Joshimath is a stark and timely reminder of sensitive ecosystems endangered by breakneck development, unrestrained human intervention in pristine geographies, and accelarating climate crisis
INSIDE
Key Geospatial Trends & Drivers Pg 12
Waiting for Joshimath? Pg 16
Bridging Urban-Rural Divide in India Pg 28
Circulation only
WAITING FOR JOSHIMATH?
FOCUS INTERVIEWS
28 / Bridging UrbanRural Divide in India
12 / Key Geospatial Trends & Drivers
Abhijeet Sinha Technocrat and Policy Entrepreneur
40 / Geospatial Empowering Rural Women in India
41 / GIS for Tsunami and Storm Surge Warning System
42 / Securing Land Rights for Tribals via Spatial
43 / Urban Rejuvenation and Transformation through GIS
BOOK
Disclaimer
Managing Editors
Prof. Arup Dasgupta
Sanjay Singh
Associate Editor Aditya Chaturvedi Chief Sub Editor Nibedita Mohanta
Sub Editors
Sachin Awana
Jeffy Jacob Chief Designer
Visualizer
Saurabh
Srivastava
Owner, Publisher & Printer: Sanjay Kumar
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GEOSPATIAL ARTHA Volume 01 » ISSUE 05
Politicians and senior administrators often wax eloquent on the power and utility of data –particularly geospatial data.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, at the G20 Leader’s Summit in Bali in November 2022, pledged that the principle of “Data for Development” is integral to India’s G20 presidency.
The recently-announced Geospatial Policy purports to open the doors to geospatial data for Indians, and with some limitations to foreign entities as well.
Jitendra Singh, the Union Minister for Science and Technology says that the Indian government urgently needs accurate geospatial information for efficient project management and operations and policy development in order to meet the Sustainable Development Goals.
Alok Prem Nagar, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Panchayati Raj avers that spatial planning is something that becomes eminently capable of catching the popular imagination through the creation of Digital Twins. The ministry aims to engage with Panchayats towards a participatory, non-top-down approach.
But in the wake of Joshimath, scientists and researchers associated with various government departments were gagged from disseminating thoroughly researched spatial insights that shed light on the magnitude of land subsidence, and its possible causes. Due to this sweeping injunction, Joshimath, quite literally, sinks out of public gaze.
The fact that studies by government agencies were gagged in the name
of “creating confusion” in itself sows uncertainty in the minds of the scientific community and the public. Citizens have the right to access data, no matter how scary it is.
The New Geospatial Data Policy is clear that any Indian citizen has the right to access, analyze, and publish geospatial data. There are no restrictions for data up to one meter map resolution, barring a restricted list of attributes only and not areas, as was the norm earlier. Notwithstanding such a broad and widely acclaimed policy, a gag order was issued on the publication of the data analysis of Joshimath area by government laboratories.
It is high time to think about the true utility of data, particularly geospatial data. In the usage of data, the administrative angle cannot be ignored.
There is a need to take a holistic view of geospatial applications. It is not just resolution or attributes or for that matter policy guidelines. There is a need for the administrators, scientists, engineers, and politicians to take such a view and not cherry pick individual items. Geospatial data is indeed helpful, and gagging it is counterproductive.
A data-driven approach to development is excellent. India does need accurate geospatial information for efficient project management and operations, program creation, and policy developments in order to meet the Sustainable Development Goals. Engaging with Panchayats to tell them that Digital Twins can’t be top-driven is an excellent move.
Are the same approaches being used in the revised planning for Joshimath? Just thinking out loud!
Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the G20 Leader’s Summit in Bali in November 2022 pledged that the principle of “data for development” will be integral to India’s G20 presidency.
The first side event of the G20 Development Working Group under the Indian presidency, held
in Mumbai addressed the theme “Data for development: The role of the G20 in advancing the 2030 Agenda”.
Amitabh Kant, India’s G20 Sherpa, emphasised that the country’s strategic use of data for governance and public service delivery in its aspirational districts
has, in three years, wrought a transformation that would otherwise have taken six decades. Data has also powered India’s pandemic response, innovations in education, health care, and food security, and enabled digital financial inclusion at a near-population scale.
Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and Social Alpha signed a Memorandum of Understanding to launch SpaceTech Innovation Network (SpIN), India’s first dedicated platform for innovation curation and venture development for the burgeoning space entrepreneurial ecosystem.
This novel partnership is a significant step forward in providing further stimulus to India’s recent space reform policies and will work towards identifying and unleashing the market potential of the most
promising space tech innovators and entrepreneurs in India.
SpIN will primarily focus on facilitating space tech entrepreneurs in three distinct innovation categories: Geospatial Technologies and Downstream Applications; Enabling Technologies for Space& Mobility; and Aerospace Materials, Sensors, and Avionics. The selected start-ups and innovators will be able to access both Social Alpha’s and ISRO’s infrastructure and resources as per the prevailing guidelines. They will be provided active
handholding in critical areas including access to product design, testing and validation infrastructure, intellectual property management, go-to-market strategy, and access to long-term patient capital.
The Drone Policy 2022 which was launched by the Goa government suggested that its departments consider the use of unmanned aerial vehicles for efficient and effective governance.
Chief Minister Pramod Sawant on Monday launched the Drone Policy 2022, as per which the government will engage with technical institutes and academia to design drone-related courses for use in sectors like agriculture, horticulture, forestry, healthcare, mining and others.
The policy also stated that the government will help in establishing drone schools that offer various courses in drone operations and pilot certification and will encourage the setting up of centres of excellence within higher academic institutions to promote research and development.
The policy also mentions that drones offer tremendous benefits to almost every sector of the economy, including but not limited to agriculture, infrastructure, emergency response, transportation, geospatial mapping, media, entertainment, law enforcement and others.
Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and Microsoft signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to fuel the growth of space-tech startups in India.
The MoU seeks to empower space tech startups across the country with technology tools and platforms, go-to-market support and mentoring to help them scale and become enterprise ready.
The collaboration seeks to strengthen ISRO’s vision of harnessing the market potential of the most promising space tech innovators and entrepreneurs in India. Through this tie-up, the space-tech startups identified by ISRO will be on boarded onto the Microsoft for Startups
Founders Hub platform which supports startups at every stage of their journey from idea to unicorn.
Microsoft will also provide mentoring support to space tech entrepreneurs in areas ranging from space engineering to cloud technologies, product and design, fundraising and sales and marketing. In addition, founders will have access to Microsoft Learn for tailored start up centric training content and programs to help them build connections with the industry and potential customers.
Garuda Aerospace, India’s leading drone manufacturing company signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Rallis India Limited, a subsidiary of Tata Chemicals and, a leading player in the agriculture industry.
Rallis will supply pesticides and crop nutrients to Garuda Aerospace for a pilot demonstration and spraying of pesticides on fields through drones mainly in the state of Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh.
This partnership will help leverage the key strengths of both parties. While Garuda Aerospace is known to provide the best drone solution in the Agriculture sector, Rallis India is known for its penetrative distribution network.
The drone pilots will conduct demonstrations on approximately 1000 acres of land on crops such as Paddy, Onion, Bengal Gram, Wheat and Vegetables.
This drone-based solution will also enable businesses to
achieve their sustainability goals by helping drive the efficient use of resources.
Union Minister Jitendra Singh launched Geospatial Hackathon to encourage interaction between public and private stakeholders as well as promote start-ups in the Geospatial sector of India.
The Hackathon includes two sets of challenges – the Research Challenge and Start-Up Challenge – that will determine four winners for ‘best solutions’ to the geospatial sector. He invited
the nation’s youth to participate and contribute towards the building of the nation’s geospatial economy.
The union minister said that the Indian government urgently needs accurate geospatial information for efficient project management and operations, programme creation, and policy development in order to meet the Sustainable Development Goals.
Mr Singh further said the Hackathon platform will serve as a formal Launchpad for India’s geospatial strategy and policy. He also appreciated all the partnering agencies, academia, research institutions, industries, and think tanks who have joined the noble mission on the auspicious occasion of Makar Sankranti, celebrated across India with different names and rituals.
Esri India, country’s leading Geographic Information System (GIS) Software & Solutions provider unveiled Policy Maps to facilitate data-driven policymaking in India. The announcement was made during Esri India’s annual flagship event, the User Conference.
The objective of developing Esri India Policy Maps is to foster data-driven decision-making in policymaking. The Policy Maps have been designed to provide meaningful insights for various government functions with a special focus on Sustainable
They also signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with TEXMiN Foundation to set up a Geospatial Excellence Centre at the Indian Institute of Technology (Indian School of Mines), Dhanbad. The focus will be on research and innovation in spatial analytics & remote sensing for mining and exploration.
As a result of this collaboration, Esri India will enable Technology Innovation in Exploration & Mining Foundation (TEXMiN) with GIS technology for establishing the Geospatial Excellence Centre.
Bharti Airtel and Tech Mahindra announced a partnership for developing India’s first 5G-enabled auto manufacturing facility. Both companies will work together to deploy 5G for Enterprise solutions at Mahindra’s Chakan manufacturing unit.
Earlier, Tech Mahindra had deployed ‘5G for Business’ solution at the Chakan manufacturing facility that reportedly enhanced network connectivity resulting
in enhanced speed for software flashing, a crucial component in vehicle dispatches.
According to Airtel, it is testing the use cases and spectrum delivery of its 5G for business solution at multiple locations and services. Airtel Business Director and CEO Ajay Chitkara said that 5G solutions will enhance and transform manufacturing operations and business in the country.
As the industry shifts to 4.0, reliable data networks will prove to be a key differentiator in factory and manufacturing outcomes, according to Chitkara. The partnership between both companies is in line with Tech Mahindra’s NXT.NOWTM framework, which aims to enhance Human Centric Experience by investing in emerging technologies to streamline solutions and enable digital transformation.
The Quad Cyber Security Group met in Delhi to discuss the enhancing cybersecurity capacity for Quad members which include Australia, Japan, India, and the United States.
Delegates of all the countries considered sharing threat information, identifying and evaluating potential risks in supply for digitally-enabled products and services. The participants also talked about supporting standard software requirements to advance the software development ecosystem in the Indo-Pacific region.
The Quad leaders have identified Cybersecurity as one of the key areas in advancing a free and open Indo-Pacific region. The group also deliberated about preventing unwanted cyber incidents and preparing capabilities to contain cyber-attacks at the national and international level.
The Indian side was led by Lt General Rajesh Pant who was joined by Michael Pezzullo, secretary of Australia's Department of Home Affairs, Masataka Okano, deputy national security adviser of Japan and Anne Neuberger, deputy national security advisor of the US.
The Indian government recently notified the much-awaited National Geospatial Policy 2022, which envisions transforming the Indian geospatial industry through a mix of resilience, dynamism, and cuttingedge innovation.
As a part of an ambitious plan, the government aims to develop a standard framework that will enhance the efficiency of implementing the data in everyday lives of people around the country. This comes at the most opportune time when India’s geospatial economy is expected to grow at 12.8% and cross Rs 63,000 crore by 2025.
The focus on India’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Integrated Geospatial Information Framework (IGIF), and Information & Communications Technology (ICT) can be vividly seen throughout the policy. Noting that geospatial technologies and their applications are used in almost every domain of the economy, the policy delves into the intricacies and complexities while offering a forwardlooking approach.
For geospatial operations across the country, the government of India (GoI) will constitute a Geospatial Data Promotion and
Development Committee (GDPDC) at the national level which will become the apex body for formulating and implementing appropriate guidelines, strategies and programs.
Through the National Geospatial Policy, the government looks to ‘make India a World Leader in Global Geospatial space with the best in the class ecosystem for innovation.’
By 2025, the GoI plans to enable policy and legal framework that supports the liberalization of the Geospatial sector while democratizing data. It also looks to improve the availability of and access to better location data across organizations and sectors while developing and strengthening national and sub-national arrangements in Geospatial information management.
It will enable and fund innovation and incubation of ideas, especially in the start-up initiatives that will help leapfrog the industry from outdated policies, practices, and laws. The current digital divide across the geospatial sector in India will be reduced to nothing given the continuous evolution of technologies.
Considering the lack of standardization in the technologies of geospatial, the government will also encourage open standards, open data and platforms for enabling data and technology interoperability to deliver integrated Geospatial information and location-based knowledge creation.
The private sector is looking forward to the benefits that location intelligence and geospatial technology can provide. Geospatial datasets have not been easily accessible in the past. The National
Geospatial Policy 2022 aims to change this by making spatial data more readily available to private companies.
“The Private Sector will play a key role in creation and maintenance of Geospatial and mapping Infrastructures, innovations and process improvements and monetization of Geospatial data,” the policy stated.
Rakesh Verma, CMD & Co-founder MapmyIndia’s said, “The Policy recognizes and promotes strategic and economic value and usefulness of Geospatial maps and technologies for all sections of society and the economy. The policy also gives vision for the types of geospatial capabilities and capacities the country need.”
Digital Twins demand high-quality data, which is secure to use for better-informed decisions. Secure information also generates confidence in citizens, businesses, and government stakeholders to work on data-driven processes and enhance their services. It also provides awareness in society and businesses to use best practices in terms of environment-friendly steps, waste management, reusable technology etc. for a better future.
Building a national Digital Twin will bring transparency in stakeholder engagement, enabling continuous progress monitoring, and identifying challenges.
The national geospatial Digital Twin strategy will be devised on the following parameters:
Reliable, accessible, usable, interoperable, continuously
BY 2030High-resolution topographical survey & mapping (5-10 cm for urban & rural areas and 50 cm-100 cm for forests & wastelands)
High-accuracy Digital Elevation Model (DEM) for the entire country (25 cm for plain, 1-3 metres for hilly and mountainous areas)
Geospatial Knowledge Infrastructure (GKI) underpinned by Integrated Data and Information Framework
Enhance capabilities, skills and awareness to meet the future needs of the country
updated datasets for both ‘above the surface’ and ‘subsurface’ environments as per the required attributes.
Precise positioning data from Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) systems, or resilient Positioning, Navigation and Timing (PNT) systems and Internet of Things (IoT) sensors.
“In addition to the multiple focus areas, the policy recommends democratization of data and innovation. It looks forward to collaboration among stakeholders. While identifying various sectors, the policy gives special emphasis on the National Digital Twin strategy,” commented Prof. P K Joshi, Chairperson SCDR and Professor SES, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.
To foster geospatial domain awareness, and to address the lack of a standardized geospatial curriculum, the policy throws light on introducing geospatial education at multiple levels –
from schools to universities, and vocational to specialized training institutes.
This will help in creating job opportunities, integrating innovation, and identifying new areas of application and solutions, which will fill the human resource gap. The policy aims to establish new tie-ups with allied industries to increase the student placement spectrum directly through education streams.
“The launch of the National Geospatial Policy 2022 shows that the Indian government sees value in the long-term benefits of geospatial technology. We are committed to working with universities, educational institutions, and the local communities to help realize the true value of geospatial technology,” said Harpreet Singh, Director and Head of Partner Business, India at HERE Technologies.
Sachin Awana Sub Editor, GeospatialWorld
Sachin@geospatialmedia.net
Over the last three years, India’s geospatial market has registered a significant growth – hitting 28 thousand crores INR in 2022, from 23 thousand crores INR in 2019.
The sector has the potential to contribute substantially in generating employment, creating knowledge, and escalating socio-economic progress of the nation.
Furthermore, the prospect of integrating geospatial technologies with emerging technologies such as AI, ML, and IoT gives an
outlook for the industry that is promising, to say the least.
With the Government of India utilizing several applications of geospatial technologies in its various missions ranging from departmental to national projects, the confidence in the Indian geospatial market soars high.
As per the Indian Geospatial Outlook Report 2022, produced by Geospatial World, here are the key trends and market drivers that are likely to be witnessed in India:
Digital Infrastructure is forecasted to be the most impactful technology trend in the next five years. The government’s ventures into digital infrastructure such as Smart City, Smart Agriculture, and Smart Health provide a testimony to the sweeping reach of this technology.
However, deploying digital technologies across multiple government sectors brings forth challenges. To curb that, several national mission mode programs and projects are being initiated by the government. One of which, the PM Gati Shakti program, looks to bring 16 ministries together via a digital platform.
This project aims at ensuring seamless last-mile connectivity for public, goods and services, and reducing travel time for people.
“While India has been at the forefront of geospatial applica-
With a mix of connectivity, rapid innovation, proper regulatory frameworks, and increasing collaborations, Indian geospatial sector is set to clock high growth.
tions and services globally, the geospatial industry is finally bullish about the possibilities that exist today with respect to geospatial technology and its adoption across national programs and initiatives,” the report states.
5G will empower everything from smartphones to autonomous vehicles and smart cities with the ability to move more data quickly than previous generations of wireless tech.
For this technology to work flawlessly, well organised, extensive networks are needed and 5G brings a set of challenges that require detailed and dynamic geospatial data and information to solve.
This will help in bringing innovation to parts with resource scarcity and it allows organizations to deliver additional business value via connected products and services that rely on the
constant movement of data.
“There is a noticeable interest seen in ubiquitous connectivity (5G) by the industry leaders and is forecasted to be the second most impactful technology trend in India’s Geospatial market,” the report tells.
GIS companies are providing both unique and existing location data to telecom companies to implement 5G in a logical step. Other than physical details of the infrastructure of cities and landscape, geospatial analysis can provide insights about various other metrics such as weather and vegetation. This leads to a deeper understanding of factors that could impede signal reliability thereby leading to a much more stable 5G network.
Emerging technologies such as AI, ML and their integration with business intelligence platform and engineering workflows will
play a vital role in bringing an era of connected technology, changing the way people communicate and operate.
Worldwide adoption of AI and ML will lead to more efficiency in workflows along with accurate analysis, and improved decision-making.
Moreover, the interoperability of the new technologies will widen the net for embedding geospatial technologies and elevating its use cases.
“With the kind of data available to us, and now that the new policy is also available, I think IoT and ML are going to play a major role in creating more applications that will use these data and help in wholly transforming the geospatial sector,” says Raghu Boyapally, Founder & CEO, Marvel Geospatial Solutions.
The mechanism for mapping
the country is an urgent need and the government envisioned creating large-scale maps for the entire country with the help of the National Mapping Agencies available to the end users by way of Open Series Maps.
Drones are a cost effective method in gathering data for these series of maps. The use of drones, especially in geospatial surveys, has become predominant in the agriculture sector to monitor crop health, yield and land use patterns. Drones are also being used in mining, defence, construction, land development and planning.
One of the significant factors that will drive the market for Indian geospatial industry are the new collaboration agreements.
“After the Guidelines for Geospatial Data was released, the Indian geospatial ecosystem has seen significant partnerships and collaborations which has enhanced technology integration in the country,” the report says.
Multiple laws enacted by the government to give a freer hand to the private sector has cultivated inter-disciplinary collaborations. This has upgraded the standard of geospatial technologies in the country.
In a short span of few years, definitive collaborations such as Google, Tech Mahindra, and Genesys International, and Synspective and NeoGeo have been witnessed.
The Industry players will see a
growth in incubation networks and domain accelerator with focus on research and academia. Venture Capitalists and Private Equity players have taken a keen Interest in supporting space and geospatial startups.
“The geospatial industry is partnering with research institutions to fund innovations, provide technical assistance, and mentor emerging start-ups,” the report adds.
The commotion of start-ups in various fields, ranging from space to agriculture innovation, has been spurred thanks to the national geospatial policy.
For instance, the notable partnership between T-Hub, which leads India’s innovation ecosystem, and Hexagon, one of the global leaders in digital reality solutions, to build a Geospatial Experience Centre is aimed at country’s growing start up ecosystem.
Improving the workflow integration in sectors such as AEC, Disaster, and Energy management etc. is anticipated to be the third most important market driver. Given the ability of interoperability of geospatial technologies with emerging as well as established technologies, many different operations are carried through an amalgamation of these.
“The government mandates and pushes the integration of geospatial technology as part of workflow operations. It is forecasted to enhance and drive the geospatial market growth in the country,” the report says.
For instance the Ministry of Road, Transport and Highways has mandated the use of LiDAR,
Drones and UAV’s in national highway project.
With emerging technologies push for a change, the workflow in geospatial technologies will also undergo reformation.
With the enactment of the National Geospatial Policy in 2022, the outlook of entire geospatial industry in India has become highly confident and optimistic. "The policy seeks to strengthen the geospatial sector to support national development, economic prosperity and a thriving information economy,” according to the policy document.
The new guidelines have deregulated India’s geospatial sector by liberalizing crucial information such as data acquisition, production, and access. The policy also establishes an overarching framework of data movement for holistic development of the geospatial industry.
The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology has also launched the National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI) project for sharing geospatial information among various government agencies and other stakeholders. This project will help improve the accuracy of geospatial data and also provide a basis for decision-making in various domains.
The new geospatial policy’s ambition is to make India a world leader in global geospatial space with best-in-class innovative ecosystem and conducive mechanisms for fostering collaborations.
Jeffy JacobSub Editor, Geospatial World Jeffy@geospatialmedia.net
Sachin Awana
Sub Editor, Geospatial World Sachin@geospatialmedia.net
Pan India CORS Network is being established by Survey of India, to achieve centimetre level accuracy position in real time.
Total 1008 Continuously operating stations will be established in entire country, which will be capable of providing better than 3 cm accuracy in Real Time.
CORS Network in state of Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Haryana, Punjab, Karnataka and Maharashtra is operational and services are available on SoI service Portal.
Real-time and Precision positioning services by SoI’s CORS Network, are being offered on No charge basis for 3 months from 1st June, 2022 to all citizens in the state of U.P., Uttrakhand, Haryana, N.C.R., Maharashtra and Karnataka.
http://cors.surveyofindia.gov.in
The Himalayan hamlet raises some key questions about development patterns, government priorities, civic attitudes, and the need of restoring the tenuous balance in fragile ecologies before it’s too late.
By Aditya Chaturvedi
Samuel Beckett’s ‘Waiting for Godot’ is a discursive novel about a mysterious wait in the middle of nowhere. In the light of the damning comments by the MC Mishra committee in 1976 that Joshimath ‘sits on an ancient landslide’ and is ‘not a suitable place for setting up of a township’, the sense of complacency, blithe indifference, blatant disregard, gross negligence, and nonchalant anticipation of a disaster, is a cautionary fable in its own league.
More than four decades back, when cracks first
constituted an 18 member committee which unambiguously mentioned that any haphazard construction activities risk disturbing the fragile equilibrium of the region.
Years passed, and with the swaggering pace of ‘mistaken modernity’ and its visible accoutrements multiplied, the scathing indictment got buried under the miasma of a pursuit untethered from any considerations for nature. Environmentalists have asserted that detailed zoning maps, which warned of these risks, were submitted to the state governments over two decades ago. As per findings by Uttarakhand State Disaster Management Authority (USDMA),
Joshimath lies in a highly vulnerable seismic one, and has witnessed many earthquakes.
Due to the spate of mega development projects, aimed at boosting connectivity and access rolled over the last few years, there has been additional stress on the already fragile ecosystem. The issue concerns not just Joshimath but all climate-sensitive ecologies everywhere. Himalayas are more vulnerable than the others due to their unique geological formation.
Often referred to as ‘Young Fold’ mountains, they were formed as a result of tectonic collision millions of years ago, which is comparably recent on a geological timescale.
“Joshimath is a deposit of sand and stone – it is not the main rock – hence it was not a suitable place for the coming up of a township. Vibrations produced by blasting and heavy traffic will also lead to disequilibrium in natural factors”, states the Mishra Committee report.
It is worth noting that owing to shaky foundations over an ancient landslide, and the alarming risk of land erosion and dredging, Joshimath is not an isolated case, but a scary microcosm of the Himalayan region.
What transpired in Joshimath as a result of the flagrant breach of the covenant between mankind and nature, is more than just a frightening writing on the wall.
Other popular tourist spots in the region such as Mussourie and Nainital are being swamped under indiscriminate construction, mushrooming urbanism, and massive inflow of people. The ecological risk is of a grave
magnitude, from lakes shrinking to polluted seasonal streams, and unusually hot weather.
Beyond the immediacy of addressing these challenges, lies the fundamental dilemma of balancing growth and development, individual harkening and collective aspirations, and illusionary projections being foisted upon by the purveyors of unbounded growth as a self-exonerating end in itself.
This is a disaster waiting to cascade and unfold across different geographies, and a clarion call to avoid callous human intervention in sensitive areas. Conservation starts with the recognition of leaving natural landscapes unsullied.
Geospatial Solution?
Geospatial and Earth Observation have been of great help to
figure out the damage and calculate the land-sinking.
With the help of remote sensing techniques such as PsInSAR (Persistent Scattering Synthetic Aperture Radar), Machine Learning, and AI algorithms, subsidence has been determined.
A study by National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC) shows that between April-November 2022, Joshimath sank by 8.9 cms. Prior to this, in 2021, a team of IIT-Ropar predicted land subsiding in Joshimath while they were conducting research in nearby Tapovan.
“Initially we ran 16 images received using PSInSAR from Jan 2020 to April 2021 through Machine Learning models and predicted displacement to be up to 8.5-10 centimeters in the future. This figure is enough for cracks
Floodwater along with boulders rumbled down the mountains next to Alaknanda and Dhauliganga rivers breaking damns and bridges while forcing people to evacuate from surrounding villages. Photo Credit: AP, 2021The issue concerns not just Joshimath but all climate-sensitive ecologies everywhere. Himalayas are more vulnerable than the others due to their unique geological formation
to develop in buildings, possibly even cause structural failures”, said Reet Kamal Tiwari, Assistant Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering, IIT-Ropar.
The 7 page NRSC report, since taken down, bases its findings on Sentinel-1 SAR satellite imagery which uses the DINSAR (Differential SAR interferometry) method to observe change over a period of time. Precise SAR imagery can measure different terrains, buildings, settlements, and geological formations, and has millimeter level accuracy.
Launched in 2014 by the ESA (European Space Association), Sentinel-1 is used for monitoring geo hazards, polar caps melting, land movements, surface risks, and water management.
Sentinel-1 is one of the most authoritative satellite platforms for disaster mitigation imagery. The subsidence zone identified by Sentinel was correlated with imagery from ISRO Cartosat 2S.
Satellite data provides authoritative information pertaining to most climate change variables.
Satellites are used to track pollution and monitor greenhouse gas emissions, particularly methane.
New generation satellites have enhanced optical and temporal resolutions that have improved weather forecasting, climate modeling, and the ability to obtain real-time details.
Due to their peerless ability to operate during day and night, as well as see-through cloud cover, SAR satellites have become the preferred choice for ecological monitoring, from land degradation to subsidence, and depleting vegetation cover and biomass to melting polar caps. The additional advantage of SAR is that it remains completely unaffected by atmospheric conditions.
SAR has been used to monitor everything from volcanic eruptions, landslides to floods. With tech innovations and recent developments in SAR, it is an immensely powerful tool in combatting climate change and advancing sustainability.
A NASA-ISRO joint collaboration, NISAR, is going to be a breakthrough in space collab-
oration between two leading space agencies, as well as a new chapter in collaborative projects between Washington and New Delhi for high-definition earth monitoring.
NISAR will map the entire earth using two different radar frequencies, known as the L band and the S band. The satellite will provide an unparalleled view of the earth’s surface that will enable disaster management organizations and researchers to analyze.
As per the official communique, 'NASA is providing the mission’s L-band synthetic aperture radar, a high-rate communication subsystem for science data, GPS receivers, a solid-state recorder and payload data subsystem, while ISRO is providing the spacecraft bus, the S-band radar, the launch vehicle and associated launch service'.
ISRO will use NISAR data for agricultural mapping, and monitoring sub-surface changes and developments in the Himalayan region, along with coastline mapping. The first NISAR satellite is set to be launched in 2024, after more than eight years of extensive development and research.
NISAR will undoubtedly boost India’s disaster management capabilities, strengthening early warning systems, response planning, and enabling agencies to get the most accurate insights that can help people on-ground.
While SAR imagery undoubtedly plays a major role in detecting disasters and devising workable action plans for evacuation, rehabilitation, and preventing
the situation from degrading further, a lot more needs to be done, ranging from timely action to creating mass awareness about complex systems and their tipping points.
James Lovelock, a British scientist and environmentalist, is known for a lot of path-breaking inventions, including the Electron Capture Detector, which fundamentally changed the way we view our world, galvanizing environmental movements and creating awareness about the innate dependency we have on nature.
His Gaia Hypothesis talks about constant interactions and feedbacks in a synergistic and self-regulating complex system. Traditional communities dwelling in hilly regions had their covenant with their natural geography and ecology, which continued inter-generationally.
Joshimath is at the crossroads of many vaunted government infrastructure projects including the Char Dham Pariyojna, a highway project that intends connectivity across the four holy shrines.
It's ironical that the Char Dham Yatra itself symbolizes a spiritual journey involving grueling hardships such as inclement weather, rugged terrain, and the immense faith and fortitude required to bear the ordeal and the various privations, with the aim of getting transfixed at the glimpse of the shrines. Such yatras are not occasions for “a guilt free spiritual saturnalia” as remarked by a very senior environmental observer and commentator.
There are also projects related to railway lines underway.
Local residents have blamed tunneling for feeding water to the turbines of a hydropower station in nearby areas by a leading state corporation for accelerating the subsiding.
The organization has rejected the allegations. There is no empirical way to ascertain the veracity of any of the respective claims and pass a verdict, and certainly, there can’t be just one proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back here. What happened was accruing over the years.
Doublespeak entered the English lexicon with George Orwell’s eerily dystopian 1984. The term denotes the acute inconsistency between the stated aim and reality. No other word can be used to describe the apparent chasm between the avowed aim of widespread distribution of geospatial data, and the facile attempt to tap the outflow of information under the pretext of ‘sowing confusion’. For advancing sustainability imperative and data-driven holistic development, this gap needs to be plugged.
The gag order issued by NDMA against NRSC and other government agencies is a part of the problem, not the solution. It is the same mindset of not addressing unpalatable issues and protracted delays that bring
us to the verge of these disasters.
Apathy of governments is among the foremost reasons for a lot of climate emergencies and ecological hazards globally. When spatial insights get mired in bureaucratic obstruction, glib officialese, and the interminable drill of holding things in abeyance, the true potential of geospatial can never be harnessed. This holds back societies and countries from keeping up with changing times.
While the world we inhabit is rapidly changing, there’s no alternative to striking a harmonious balance between innovation and sustainability. The two are not mutually exclusive, and should reinforce each other.
This can be done through new ways of conceptualizing the problems, and thinking and planning spatially, with the abiding spirit of convergence, not just of technologies, systems and workflows, but everything in the near environment.
Geospatial needs to be augmented with proper planning, swift decision-making, active response, charting assessment roadmap, and frequent impact validation. Mapping, monitoring, and analysis need to be in sync with concerted action and taking various steps to prevent the situation from worsening.
Due to their peerless ability to operate during day and night, as well as see-through cloud cover, SAR satellites have become the preferred choice for ecological monitoring, from land degradation to subsidence, and depleting vegetation cover and biomass to melting polar caps
At a time when there is a talk about making geospatial databases publically available and using innovative methods, the biggest stumbling block is any directive or order that restricts sharing of this data, or applying it. Diagnosing a malady is only the first step, though the most foundational one. This is why reliable geospatial insights have to be backed up with due vigilance, transparency, and a comprehensive action plan.
“Development is not a zero sum game. It must take a holistic view and balance conflicting demands of development and environmental and ecological protection. What is needed is an optimal solution, not a maximized solution”, says a former space scientist and geospatial veteran.
He asks some fundamental unanswered questions that lie at the core of hazard planning and mitigation: why build a four lane highway in a mountainous zone where two lane is sufficient? Why a railway line in addition? Why a tunnel to divert the river waters to the hydropower station turbines?
Were these studied in detail and in conjunction to analyze their impact? Time to apply Gati Shakti methodology and
processes here. Knowing that Joshimath is a temple town that draws seasonal visitors who outnumber the residents what were the ‘smart’ building codes, utilities management and disaster preparedness? Is ‘smartness’ only for megapolises?
In an interconnected world any outbreak anywhere, is a grim foreboding. Neither are risks localized, nor are the complex issues related to them. Global warming is said to be a major trigger for land subsidence. As per a 2020 report by the British Geological Survey, climate change is accelerating land subsidence, putting millions of people on the brink of homelessness in the UK alone.
The same year, UNESCO funded research said that by 2040 over 20% of the world population will be at the risk of land subsidence.
A Guardian article by Weronika Strzyżyńska, states that Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia, has sunk by more than 2.5 meters in the past decade, prompting the government to plan relocating the capital 1000 kms away to Borneo. Unregulated groundwater extraction, unsustainable farming prac-
tices, and increasing stress on habitats, are said to be the main reasons for compounding land subsidence from Indonesia to Iran, and from Granada to Japan.
"Groundwater in the US, Mexico, China, and India, is being rapidly drained to meet global food demand. Continued subsidence in those areas will affect populations worldwide", the Guardian quotes Gerardo Herrera-García, who is associated with the Geological and Mining Institute of Spain. Garcia was the lead researcher of the UNESCO report.
It’s evident that there are multiple reasons for land subsidence in regions that are topographically distinct. However, there is one common trigger – unrestricted human activity, unfettered resource exploitation, feckless attitude to nature conservation, outmoded town planning, and ever-increasing emissions.
Spatial applications help connect the dots to show how everything around us is inter-connected. No better visualization of assessment and analytics can give such a detailed bird-eye view. A multipronged approach with constant feedbacks and grassroot involvement is the need of the hour. There’s no deficit on the technology front and geospatial insights act as a canary in the coal mine. But someone has to discern discordant notes from the usual clatter, and act as befits a perilous situation.
Associate Editor Geospatial World aditya@geospatialmedia.net
There are multiple reasons for land subsidence in regions that are topographically distinct. However, there is one common trigger – unrestricted human activity, unfettered resource exploitation, feckless attitude to nature conservation, outmoded town planning, and ever-increasing emissions
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Founded in 2019, Indian space startup Pixxel is building a constellation of hyperspectral imaging satellites and aims to become the pioneer of Earth monitoring. Awais Ahmed, the founder, was part of the SpaceX team in 2017 and built India's first Hyperloop Pod for the SpaceX Hyperloop Pod competition. This inspired him to work in the space sector.
With the recently launched Anand satellite with ISRO, Pixxel is the first Indian private space startup to leverage ISRO's satellite testing facility and the first to demonstrate the launch of a satellite into space.
“There is still a big gap in what we need to be seeing from space and what is actually visible from space, that was the reason for us getting into space sector,” says Awais Ahmed, CEO, Pixxel
There is a need to examine greenhouse gas emissions or methane leaks, poisonous gas leaks, and poisonous chemical leaks that are occurring in our environment and to develop efficient and scalable technology solutions.
To solve existing problems related to monitoring, Pixxel decided to build and deploy a new kind of imaging technology called spectral imaging which provides high detailing. However, one of the challenges was to build that in a cost-effective manner as no one has commercially done that before.
With the launch of the satellite,
Bengaluru-based startup Pixxel is working on hyperspectral imaging satellites with an aim to pioneer Earth monitoring.Pixxel has completed its demo satellites. Their plan was to prove that hyperspectral imaging satellites are possible to build in a cost-effective manner and deploy technology demonstration satellites.
Pixxel took help from retired ISRO scientists, who had worked on satellite imaging and satellites before. They were able to find the same suppliers who worked with ISRO earlier, and they used the same hardware systems that were actually previously built and deployed in space through.
“Right now we are in the process of building six more satellites, which will be much larger, with longer lifetime and more capable, in terms of the resolution. We are planning to launch them in the second half of 2023. In 2024, we will follow it up with about 18 more satellites. We are looking at a total of 24 satellite launches in the next two years,” adds Ahmed.
“Anand really taught us, how to build and test satellites that has helped us put three satellites in space now,” he adds.
“The vision for Pixxel is to be a health pioneer for our planet. By providing hyperspectral data, we are building models and the solutions on top of this data, ensuring that agriculture can become more efficient,” adds Ahmed.
The amount of emissions, leaks for greenhouse gases and poisonous chemicals and deforestation can be better mapped and fought against. They want to do that at global scale in a variety on a different industries by creating a health pioneer for the planet.
Everything that the human eyes see is in a combination of three wavelengths, RGB, (red, green and blue) from the laptop and phone screen to all the DSLR
falls in the RGB spectrum. If one or two infrared bands are added it RGB, it becomes multispectral imaging, which is one step beyond the RGB visible range. Multispectral imaging is used in night vision goggles, used by the army to see heat signatures in the night, which are otherwise not visible to normal human eyes.
With hyperspectral, the information capturing goes to hundreds of wavelengths and the entirety of the visible range, but also in the infrared range. This is why hyperspectral is more efficient and has more value than the other kinds that's emerging in space today. In Pixxel’s case, it captures 300 wavelengths.
In the case of an agricultural company that has millions of acres of farmland and the farmers want to know what's happening there. With an RGB satellite, they would be able to just look at the overall farm with their normal human eyes. With
Difference between conventional imagery and hyperspectral imagery.multispectral satellites, which are predominant in space today, you'll be able to go one step beyond that, thanks to infrared imagery, you will be able to see the health status of the crops, whether they are doing good, bad, or moderately fine.
With a hyperspectral image, the actual amount of methane leak can be identified and stopped from causing harm to the environment, etc. That's what really sets hyperspectral apart from today's satellite imaging technologies.
“The number of startups today have only incorporated in the last four years. We are at a very early stages compared to decades of experience that most of the geographies have,” says Ahmed.
He further adds that the next 5- 10 years will be very exciting. Tens if not hundreds of space companies will actually come into the fore and some of them will actually start competing in the global arena, going headto-head with the space behemoths around the globe. “We are still quite a few years away from other major geographies like US or Canada or Europe,” he adds.
The government of India has
made it clear that they want to support the private space startups, which in a way is boosting the investors’ confidence to invest in them but yet there are a lot of doubts like clarity in policy, ease of foreign direct investment etc.
“We need clarity on the policy in order to figure out the parameters or bounds within which we can play around. There exist a few early stage options for raising funding for space startups in the country. There are only a few private investors in the country with a risk appetite to invest in space technologies,” says Ahmed.
Ahmed further states that the government needs to be a big funder for these technologies because in the earlier stages, no one from a private commercial standpoint will want to take risks, only the government can, in order to ensure that the ecosystem grows. Either by providing grant funding at the earlier stages in a variety of different ways or by being a buyer or procurer of this data.
He points out three challenges: creating the policy in place, ensuring ease of doing business in the country to attract foreign capital. And finally, the government being the biggest supporter, not only from evangelism or from a policy standpoint, but by actually funding it in the early stages
and by becoming a customer of some of these technologies.
Space regimes around the globe have found a way of actually formalizing space sustainability in a variety of different ways. For example, in the US if one wants to obtain a license to be able to launch a spacecraft one of the things that they have to demonstrate is that if satellite that's going to go up in space, can de-orbit and come down and disintegrate in space, so as to not leave any debris after the end of its operations.
Now, that same policy has been adopted by different countries around the globe and that's something that Ahmed believes will be followed here in India as well.
ISRO has a space tracking mechanism where one can track how the different spacecraft are and if there are going to be any collisions, and to be able to communicate to the satellites and ensure that the collisions can be avoided.
Ahmed says that from a spacecraft standpoint, where companies and organizations have to launch tens of satellites or maybe hundreds of satellites, ensuring that these satellites do not just end up there without doing anything, needs to be taken care of. “That's something that we have seen in the policy drafts that will come out, and hopefully it will be there in the final policy too,” he adds.
With a hyperspectral image, the actual amount of methane leak can be identified and stopped from causing harm to the environment, etc. This sets it apart from other satellite imaging technologies
Chief Sub Editor Nibedita@geospatialmedia.net
Nibedita Mohanta
To understand our vision, first let’s understand some relevant pain points our nation is witnessing:
The cost of logistics in India is 15% of the GDP as against single digit in the developed world.
The urban governance in India can be more efficient, faster, and better. For example, better disaster management and response to fire, flood, etc., and future infrastructure planning should be done with greater accuracy, utilities planning, and maintenance.
The telecom infrastructure, especially the 5G network, requires nuanced geospatial information for network planning, identification, and inspection to read distress and do green coverage assessment.
India has a complex addressing system. Lack of last-mile accuracy in addressing and
routing causes a loss of efficiency in many businesses such as deliveries for e-commerce. Every eCommerce company is fighting the same problem on its own.
Due to the lack of accurate land titling records, approximately 7.7 million people in India have been affected by land disputes on over 2.5 million hectares, causing a considerable threat to investments valued at more than Rs 14 lakh crore.
There can be a considerable scope of improvement in the property tax collection by providing better and more accurate visibility through 3D Digital Twin.
Infrastructure building requires accurate geospatial information and a Digital Twin for planning, implementation, O&M, and monitoring.
Accurate Geospatial data (2D and 3D) would unlock a signifi-
cant GDP percentage. Genesys' vision is to provide this critical national digital infrastructure. All the above pain points are addressed well through Genesys’ 3D Digital Twin.
Why is Geospatial critical for the Digital India Mission?
Geospatial technology is critical to the Digital India mission by enabling geographic data collection, analysis, and visualization. This data can help in taking a wide range of informed decisions related to urban governance and planning, disaster management, and the delivery of public services, including Smart City Planning, Disaster Management, Agriculture and Rural Development, Health and Education, and Infrastructure Planning and Management.
The 3D Urban Spatial Digital Twins and its corresponding databases can be used to locate, identify, visualize and inspect the location of critical
In an exclusive interview with Geospatial World, Sajid Malik, Chairman-cum-Managing Director, Genesys, talks about a countrywide Digital Twin, Digital India Mission, and more.infrastructure such as roads, bridges, railway lines, hospitals, public amenities etc.
Government agencies can use this information to improve the delivery of public services by identifying areas where additional resources are needed and by monitoring the progress of development projects. Additionally, geospatial technology can
also be used to support disaster management efforts by providing real-time information on the location and status of critical infrastructure and resources, as well as the location and movement of evacuees.
In urban planning, engineering-grade geospatial data can be used to create detailed 3D digital maps of cities and towns, which can be used to identify areas that need development and plan infrastructure projects such as transportation and housing.
Furthermore, this technology can also be used to improve the delivery of public services such as citizen safety and security, healthcare, and education. Upcoming infrastructure and projects can be digitally modeled and inserted into the existing city. Simulations can be run to understand how the proposed infrastructure interacts with and affects the current city and town infrastructure.
Overall, geospatial technology is critical to the Digital India Mission as it enables the collection, analysis, and visualization of geographic data, which can help in taking informed decisions and improve the delivery of government services. This directly ties in with the government’s vision of achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
How Digital Twin would serve/ contribute towards national mission mode projects with a particular focus on city management, infrastructure development, mobility, supply chain, defense, and security?
Digital twin technology has the potential to support a wide range of national projects in India. Some
examples of how Digital Twin technology can be used to help Indian national projects include:
City management: Digital Twins can model and simulate different urban planning and development scenarios such as the impact of new buildings or transportation infrastructure on traffic and air quality. They can also be used to monitor and optimize the performance of existing city systems such as energy and water supply networks.
Infrastructure development : Digital Twins can be used to plan, design, and construct new infrastructure projects, such as bridges, roads, and airports, by simulating their performance and identifying potential issues before construction begins. They can also be used to monitor and maintain existing infrastructure, such as identifying structural defects or predicting equipment failures.
Mobility and supply chain: Digital Twins can be used to optimize logistics and transportation, such as simulating and optimizing delivery routes or identifying bottlenecks in the supply chain. They can also be used to improve the performance of transportation systems, such as optimizing traffic flow or reducing fuel consumption in fuel-powered and electric vehicles.
Defense and security: Digital Twins can be used to simulate and analyze military operations and scenarios, such as predicting the movements and actions of enemy forces. They can also be used to improve the performance of defense systems, such as predicting equipment failures or identifying vulnerabilities in communications networks.
Urban Spatial Digital Twins and its corresponding databases can be used to locate, identify, visualize and inspect the location of critical infrastructure
Emergency management: Digital Twins can be used to model and simulate emergency scenarios, such as natural disasters, accidents, and terrorist attacks, to help emergency responders and city officials to prepare and respond effectively, as well as to optimize evacuation and rescue plans.
What’s your take on India’s recently released geospatial policy?
The contribution of the geospatial sector to the Indian economy, as per industry estimates, is around INR 20,000 crore, but the true potential hasn’t been realized yet.
The policy strengthens the Indian Geospatial industry to support the information economy by laying down a framework for
developing a robust geospatial ecosystem is a landmark reform that will directly translate into the growth and expansion of the geospatial sector.
So far, there has been no clear policy, and the private sector needed clarification on what could and could not be done in the field. This policy has set out to rectify the uncertainties with a legal framework as it liberalizes the geospatial sector and democratization of data and encourages private-public partnerships.
It also establishes a National Geospatial Data Infrastructure (NGDI), which will be responsible for integrating and managing all geospatial data in the country, and a National GIS Council, which will formulate policies, standards, and guidelines for geospatial data
management in India.
It is helping foster innovation, creation, and collaboration in the Geospatial field by bridging the geospatial data divide.
The policy looks forward to making India a ‘World Leader’ in the global geospatial space and identifies corresponding milestones with palpable objectives within a pragmatic timeline. This makes the strategy and approach of the policy towards geospatial infrastructure and frameworks promising, realistic, and achievable.
Hopefully, this will translate into an increase in the demand for Geospatial Solutions and Services in India in 2023 and beyond.
How do you plan to fund your mission of developing National Digital Twin, and is there a scope for PublicPrivate Partnerships?
Through internal resources. The revenue model is very similar to any content program which follows the licensing model.
It’s the need of the hour. This can lead to the rapid creation and adoption of this technology.
Let’s face it — government is the single largest user of this content — the private sector has the technology and the capital to support the country’s needs for the longterm success of the PPP model.
Interviewed by Sanjay Singh
The policy looks forward to making India a ‘World Leader’ in the global geospatial space and identifies milestones with palpable objectives within a pragmatic timeline. This makes the strategy and approach of the policy towards geospatial infrastructure and frameworks promising, realistic, and achievable
“Spatial planning becomes eminently capable of catching the popular imagination through the creation of Digital Twins,” says Alok Prem Nagar, Joint-Secretary, Ministry of Panchayati Raj in a conversation with Geospatial World.
What are the new opportunities that the National Geospatial Policy will unravel for the Ministry of Panchayati Raj?
The Ministry of Panchayat has been devoted to the artificial divide between urban and rural areas. If you are in a village that means you can't have good quality services. You are not assured that if the power goes out or if there's a water supply failure, how quickly you can get it fixed. Whereas, that is not the situation in villages. So a constant endeavour for us has been trying to extend these
services to everybody in Gram Panchayat (GP) as well, so that at least on that front, people are not inconvenienced.
With the new Geospatial Policy and this data being available by and large in the public domain, of course, there are some accuracy constraints and scale constraints. But other than that, with the demand that is going to rise from the rural areas, I think it enables the private sector and various kinds of partners to come together, and unleash this big opportunity that we have.
For instance, we have been working on smart villages, so now with the data restrictions out of the way, one can expect that people would dedicate putting together all the information that is there, to pull out information from the innumerable databases that we have in the government, and then make sure that if there is a water supply disruption, then the house has got a barcode, somebody comes and scans that, and your complaint is logged.
Then within a certain time limit, which is enforced by the
Panchayat, which has a contract with a group of young skilled people dedicated to this task, it is ensured that the problem is removed at the earliest possible, or as per the policy that is agreed upon. We've seen that during the Covid time, vaccine delivery was such a big hit because the drones could do that with the continuously operating referencing station network, and with five-centimeter accuracy data being available everywhere.
Especially enabled by the new Geospatial Policy, those things are not an issue anymore, and it just needs people to have a fresh re-look at the work that they've been doing, to refocus their energies on newer geographies and to give services to the rural folk that are long overdue to them.
The policy has actually emphasized more on publicprivate partnerships, like having hand-in-hand while working for the development of the nation. How do you see this strengthening the projects and the programs of the Ministry of Panchayati Raj?
We had a smart village Panchayat program in the month of September in Uttar Pradesh, where we got a lot of industry people together. We did have people who were already working in the rural landscapes, and their work was related to how do you find comparative advantages in sourcing your, food grain or certain rations for a certain location and in a manner that minimizes the loss to these people incur and increases the value that they can get from their money.
There was of course telemedicine there, and Health Buddy, an application, which was an
eye-opener. What they were doing on a very small scale with a lot of resource-intensive applications of technologies with the kind of scale that is available to us. And with the fact that these things have already been tested over smaller areas, I think it is a natural progression that more and more people will be covered in the future.
This is something I also told the people from the ICAI (Institute of Charting Accountants) in a meeting, that you were too focused on your urban area, and I don't know if it'll stop
people to get more and more invested in these technologies and to reach out.
You may need to have a longer break-even period in the time that your investment fully comes to flower. But my whole presumption is that why would people not want these good quality services back in their villages? If that presumption holds good, then it's only a matter of time before this whole thing is going to catch on, and the people who move now would then be able to reap the initial mover advantages.
the influx from the rural areas. But then one thing that also became clear with the Covid lockdowns, is that if you are in a good clean landscape with good internet connectivity, and good environments, then it doesn't bother you if you're working from Bangalore or Mashobra in Himachal Pradesh.
So that kind of a realization is now there with us. If services, facilities, and value-added services are available to you within your villages, you don't need to move out if you've got good schools and good hospitals coming up in your neighborhood. And to do all this by itself is not something that a government is capable of here or anywhere else. So private partnership that is viable really makes economic sense by the sheer scale of it, for
The policy stressed on building a national Digital Twin that will catalyze the new digital revolution. How do you see the national Digital Twin helping rural economies?
Before the rural economy, there is another endeavor that the Ministry of Panchayati Raj was involved in, to a limited extent. It takes off from the PURA (Providing Urban Amenities to Rural Areas) concept that was initially mooted by President APJ Abdul Kalam. It again had the same presumption that why can't villages have city-like services available to them? And what we tried to do is through our knowledge of the roads network and state and national highways that were passing through villages and Panchayats, initially and of course depending on the interest
With a Digital Twin, we have a real advantage of enabling people to see what a reimagined village can look like. Creating awareness and building readiness serves as the first step in spatial planning
of the state, we narrowed down to 34 Gram Panchayat all over the country. Two in the vicinity, 17 sets of two GPs each all over the place. And to these, we mapped the local architecture with planning colleges. In the initial phase, which was in 2021-22, we got them to develop spatial development plans for these areas.
In a village, it is characterized by narrow lanes with filth, drains that are not draining, and disease and pestilence. So if a fire tender needs to approach, I don't know how it'll do it. Why go to extraordinary events like a fire, it’s impossible even if you want to get your septic tank clean. So
for a vehicle to drive into a place and to be able to do that and move out effectively, it is a hell of a bother. Why? Because these places grew organically. They were never planned.
With a Digital Twin, I feel that we have a real advantage of making people see what a reimagined village can look like. That is the first important step that people should see the value of. Right now, the engagements that we've had in Panchayats are, people think that having rural area planning is going to insert license raj in some form. So it is a bother.
Digital Twin to begin with, I feel, will help us create this awareness and this readiness for the villages to adopt spatial planning. This is again an extension of the ‘why can't they have the same facility that people in cities do?’ Which is why people don't stick to villages.
You find doctors getting posted to villages, but nobody stays because soon as that guy gets married, he has to be in a better place. If there is a child that has to go to a school, where is the school? Where does one take their parents in case of health emergencies? Put all these things there, and increasingly you'll find that they do not have a reason to move out of cities.
Spatial planning is something that becomes eminently capable of catching the popular
imagination through the creation of Digital Twins. I am looking to do it in fact over the next three, or four months, so that by the time we are in the month of July, we can have a series of three or four national workshops where we would be engaging with Panchayat to tell them this thing because this thing can't be top driven.
The political leadership in a state will also go by what their GPs are telling them, and how people feel about it. So unless we banish this fear of a new license raj from their minds, and we make them see that this is what your village can look like should you apply yourself to the situation. Again, that's not something that the government could do out of its own funding purely. We'll have to find alternative strategies. We need to find banks. We need to find people parting their lands in a certain part of our village.
We'll need to devise multistorage structures. You can't be spread out all over the ground. If you are growing as a population, you have to rise vertically. All these things would become possible I think with this Digital Twin coming through. In fact, in this endeavor I would be creating not a Digital Twin maybe, but some kind of a 3D model of each of these GPs that we had chosen for ourselves, and then work on them and in the Panchayats in their proximity, so that more and more people could come to agree with us.
A flurry of geospatial enterprise in the industry, academia, and research is being planned by the government. How do you see
Spatial planning becomes eminently capable of catching popular imagination through the creation of Digital Twins. We need to engage with Panchayats to tell them that it can't be top-driven
this trickling down to the rural areas?
It has to be tied to the utility. People ask me, ‘why is the Panchayati Raj participating in SVAMITVA scheme?’ I am clueless really. But it is also a fact that we've been able to break a lot of ground. We have kept with the milestone that we had devised for ourselves. Why? Because we are the user department. We are in the business of first seeing what value it's going to bring to the people, and then everything works backwards from there.
We are not people who are in an enterprise because of the technology that we are trying to push. That is something we do, and that is something which is ingrained in all our endeavors, whether it be a people's plan campaign. If people see a utility,
it is linked to all these other things that I have said from the very beginning, a smart village, better services, citizens, charter, and people having all manner of facilities sitting there in their villages.
Once these values are very clear to them, technology is something that is a means to an end. And once the ends are clear to the people, there would be a demand. Then the private sector and everybody who is in this domain have to double time to keep up with the expectations. For example, we are currently with the CORS Network that we had set up. If you put meteorological sensors on all your stations, then it is possible for you to get better quality weather forecasts, maybe at a block and Zila level.
We are not in the weather
business, nor are we in the CORS technology business. But what is our business is that people at a local level can get a better weather forecast. We are now in the process of bringing together an MoU between the IMD and the Survey of India.
We are also signatories because it'll be our job to ensure that the information gets encapsulated in the form of a Panchayat or Zila Panchayatlevel broadcast and that the messaging goes out to these people.
This is an example of how the clarity of the use is going to lead to better utilization of technology in a manner that works to the advantage of everybody concerned.
Interviewed by Sachin Awana
India’s space diplomacy has evolved over time with not only multiple international partners but also creating a commercial pathway for the private space sector.
Though there are still numerous policy reforms required to increase the participation of the private sector, it is fair to say that India’s recent activity in the space domain has made it one
of the most resilient international players.
Looking back at the South Asian cooperation, India has been leading the way forward and simultaneously uplifting the innovation pathway for its neighbors. One of the key examples is the GSAT-9 satellite launched in 2017 for the member states of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC).
Space has emerged as one of the key pillars of India’s outreach in the global comity of nations. Building durable overseas engagement and cooperation exemplifies India’s policy of non-aligned multilateralism.
By Omkar Nikam
While such cooperation between India and its neighbouring nations is thriving on the country’s growth in the space sector, the privatization policies will also further create opportunities for international relations. To better understand this sphere of India’s footprint in the space sector and how it will impact diplomatic relations in future, let’s dissect the following points step by step.
Space technology is a domain which requires the utmost risktaking capabilities as well as heavy financial investments. The NewSpace wave has reduced the overall costs in this field and opened a gateway of opportunities for the private sector, but the ratio of investments vs. return on investment remains uncertain for most of the verticals in the space industry.
To have a broad perspective, let’s travel back in time and look at India from the 1960s and 1970s. This was the time when the country gradually started prioritizing its economy, civil development projects, and education. While some of its neighbors were heavily injecting funds into the military domain,
India took a different route.
Circling back to 2023, India today has one of the most powerful young forces driving the wheels of the economy at both national and international levels.
This similar bottom-to-top approach is also necessary to create a sustainable sphere of space assets. The current state of privatization of the space sector is gradually benefiting the downstream market. But the upstream market still requires more flexibility to drive innovation in the supply chain.
Strengthening the upstream space market policies reduces outsourcing, which further leads to the acceleration of financial and innovative technology, and lastly, it positions the nation to invite or supply the upstream space products to its international partners. India’s supply chain requires more flexibility in terms of both government support and finances. And this will be one of the key factors in the future to drive international relations from the lens of space technology.
India is one of the top consumer markets in the world, and therefore several satellite communication operators and service providers target this commercial hotspot since past two decades. Services like Direct-to-Home (DTH) have
been widely popular across the country and companies like Airtel, Dish TV, and Tata Sky are some of the prominent players to provide satellite services in both urban and rural areas.
Similarly, casting a wide net over private space companies for unlocking their potential is necessary to ensure the healthy growth of the space sector. For example, companies such as SatSure are solving some of the critical issues in agriculture (and other industrial sectors). This doesn’t only create a strong impact on the space sector but also directly yields productivity at the grassroots levels.
The unlocking of high potential for companies operating in other space verticals is possible but requires strong government support to get the ball rolling in the market. India recently created multiple agencies, including Defence Space Agency (DSA), which are reportedly catering to developing space assets for military agencies. This can be seen as a progressive step by the government but the resilience in the upstream supply chain requires a stronger push to smoothen the overall space technology development and manufacturing process.
The world is closely observing India, especially the developed nations, not only for its mammoth-sized consumer
Image credits: Naratrip Boonroung, Canva ProThe development of India’s space assets, its in-house production capabilities have the ability to trigger the wave of partnerships as well as increase cooperation in space supply chain globally
market but because it has the necessary resources to participate and amplify international relations globally.
In 2022, India unveiled its plans to develop military satellites for each of its armed forces (Air Force, Army, and Navy). A step that also signaled India’s ambitious plans to integrate space technology and applications in the military domain. While the shared defense and security goals have been only limited to military exercise, uplifting the upstream space market can possibly help India create a pathway to trigger military satellite cooperation with its allied nations.
Coming to the nexus of international relations, the current geopolitical landscape is gradually pushing India on an unstable tectonic plate where the country is consistently hammered to forged alliances; a move India has ignored for several decades and has been the key reason for its rise as an independent nation.
The Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (QUAD) brought together Australia, India, Japan and the United States (US) to sign the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for Space Situational Awareness (SSA). While this can be seen by many as a sphere of influence for alliance building, it is necessary to consider that the interests of each of the QUAD members do not fully align from the geopolitical perspective.
Currently, both China and India are seen as the prime nations in the Asian region. While the US sees India as a potential navigator to overcome challenges in its presence in Asia, India on the other hand prefers to blend in with its independent position in international affairs.
While the joint-military space asset development is not a high priority list, the US and India are currently strengthening bilateral cooperation in space for collaborating in the earth and space science field including human space exploration, global navi-
gation satellite systems, spaceflight safety and space situational awareness, and policies for commercial space.
From the recent developments, it can be considered that India is in the hot seat of both challenges and opportunities. In this climate of stretched international relations, space cooperation (from both civil and commercial perspective) can be used as one of the ways to keep its global position independent.
India’s future in the space sector, aligned with its international relations, has the high potential to navigate through uncharted territories of the world. The key factor backing this point is India’s independent decision-making power and its ability to narrow its focus on supporting its partner nations rather than churning out fuel from its allies. This has potentially led it into this diplomatic hot seat from where the country is navigating and maintaining healthy relations with multiple nations.
The development of India’s space assets, in-house production capabilities have the ability to trigger the wave of partnerships as well as increase cooperation in global space supply chain globally. Simultaneously, a gradual change in private policy reforms and providing more government support in the upstream market will further scale its private space sector to new heights.
Omkar Nikam is an independent consultant and strategist specialising in space applications for defence and security, based in Strasbourg, France. In his decade-long career, Omkar has advised a range of clients including governments and private space/defence agencies across multiple countries
Email: omkar@accesshub.today
Rourkela is among India’s oldest planned cities and the third largest urban agglomeration in the eastern state of Odisha after Bhubaneshwar and Cuttack. The city is known for India’s first integrated public sector steel plant, set up in the 1960s with German collaboration and technical expertise.
The township in the vicinity of the steel plant city was also designed by the German planners. This is one of the reasons why that area is better developed than adjoining localities which got neglected and often lacked basic amenities.
“Before the implementation of the Smart City project, the civil township area did not have all the facilities that was available for the Steel City people. We had to address that gap and GIS solutions played a huge role in defining the overall growth of the city,” says Ram Mohan Mishra, Town Planner for Rourkela Smart City Ltd. (RSCL).
“Our mission is to provide healthy and hygienic life to the people of the city and to improve the life of the people in our area
with the help of user-friendly, sustainable and smart technologies,” he adds.
When Mr. Mishra joined the Rourkela Development Authority, they developed Comprehensive Development Plan (CDP) on the GIS platform.
“We began using Esri’s ArcGIS platform, and with the help of GIS we are addressing all the infrastructure related issues, such as traffic management, sewage drainage, firefighting, solid waste management, electricity distribution and restructuring/ redevelopment of old buildings, as well as in construction of the new infrastructure and to improve the quality of slum people’s lives,” says Mishra.
Location plays a crucial role in every aspect of city development planning. To better the quality of life of the citizens, GIS provides an IT infrastructure where all the stakeholders are involved in every activity starting from planning and conceptualization to development, monitoring and maintenance.
“There is a vital role of Geospatial data in building the smart city. The foundation works for the preparation of smart city projects are based upon the CDP of Rourkela which prepared the geospatial data on GIS platform,” adds Mishra.
With the help of GIS, planners collect the required data, tally it with the grievances/queries, build capacity to address the needs and develop infrastructure based on the demands and requirements.
In order to fit into achieving the Sustainable development goals (SDGs), RSCL has taken up envi-
Projects
Budget Allocated
Upgradation of Birsa Munda Stadium INR 157.21 CRORE
Smart Road Phase-2-All other Road ROW varying from 5 m to 30M with carriageway, Footpath, Cycle Tracks
INR 120.84 CRORE
Rourkela One INR 137.76 CRORE
Integrated Command Control Center (ICCC) INR 106 CRORE
Implementation of Storm Water Management Project INR 91.2 CRORE
Upgradation of markets (Panposh market, Daily market, Wholesale market) INR 53.59 CRORE
Smart Road Phase-1- Panposh Chowk to Ambedkar Chowk with Carriageway 20.7m ROW, Footpath, Cycle Track
Development of Big Recreational Park
INR 24.8 CRORE
INR 23.53 CRORE
Vedvyas Tourism At Rourkela INR 21.59 CRORE
Beautification of Ring Road Traffic Chowk to Hanuman Vatika Chowk
ronment, energy, area development projects, and is contributing to the development of parks, plantations, riverfront development, and a lot more. The existing sports complex is also being upgraded.
“With the help of GIS solutions and Smart City initiatives, we are trying to develop operational activities for the city’s municipal corporation which includes clear communication with citizens, addressing their grievances, and providing smart solutions through a single platform,” he adds.
Along similar lines, there is a need for other smart cities to find their potential to bridge social divide and devise tech infrastructure for education, tourism, healthcare, and other specialized services.
Rourkela was awarded as one of the 10 Indian cities to win the “Nurturing Neighbourhoods Challenge” under the aegis of the Smart Cities Mission of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA).
INR 21.71 CRORE
Apart from that, as soon as International Hockey Federation (FIH) awarded India the rights to the men’s Hockey World Cup, Hockey India announced that Odisha will host the 2023 edition of the World Cup in Rourkela.
Within 15 months, not only Rourkela planned the upgradation of Birsa Munda stadium to FIH standards but also delivered it and recorded itself in the Guinness book of the world for being the best hockey stadium in the world with the highest sitting capacity of approximately 25000.
Along with the upgradation of the stadium, other developments that took place during these 15 months included the development of an airport, smart bus service, Science Park, and installation of smart lights to ensure better connectivity and attract more visitors to the city.
Nibedita Mohanta Chief Sub EditorNibedita@geospatialmedia.net
A conversation on the state of electric vehicles in India and the challenges ahead.
Abhijeet Sinha is a technocrat and policy entrepreneur, currently working with tech pilots in the Prime Ministerial initiative on Ease of Doing Business (EoDB) as National Program Director. He is also the Project W, and holds additional charge as Project Director of (Jaipur – Delhi – Agra) Pilot Project. In an exclusive interview with Sanjay Singh, Managing Editor, Geospatial World, the National Program Director of EoDB talks about anchoring of geospatial technologies by EoDB, adoption of EVs in India, and the challenges ahead on the road to EVs.
Since the Ease of Doing Business (EoDB) is anchoring new technologies, how do you see the use of geospatial technologies and Space in the sustainable development of India?
You have started with a very important question not only for the technology sector, but also for the economy, as to how this adoption of technologies happens. As a piloting agency, we do pilot technologies, but when it comes to Ease of Doing Business, most of the readers relate to the World Bank ranking of the Ease of Doing Business in which we have been doing reasonably well. We have reached from 143 to 63 global ranking. In this journey we further aim to reach 50, which is a ranking enjoyed by Italy.
However, when you land in Italy – the
type of handholding, felicitation, and comfort that you will see will be quite different from India — in adoption of technologies named by you just now.
The Ease of Doing Business is to make the landing of these emerging technologies in India smooth. Our role is to make available the infrastructure which are required to make the adoption of these technologies easy.
If you look at the economic history of India, we started with an agricultural economy in 1947 and then became a product
economy, where manufacturing took a centerstage. In the last 20 years, we have been a technology-driven economy. The moot question is where we got stuck in delivering these technologies to common people — whether it is in the field of EVs, management of highways, traffic, fast tag, ambulances, or drones.
In a developing country like India, the problem of
traffic jam, pollution, emissions, and net zero are profound.
The use of technologies is dependent upon adoption, the certification and complete solution, which comes from the government side as certification. Secondly, the confidence of financial sectors on these emerging technologies and thirdly, people adoption — how we wish to achieve and what we want to deliver. Common people are the end users and circular financing, or emerging financing models can be created out of it.
How can electric vehicles contribute to a more sustainable world?
If you look at electric vehicle technology being sustainable, we will have to keep the users at the center. It is not meant for the buyers or the EV companies or the charging companies. It is meant for people who will use it. Users will be comfortable when we give them comfort of using it.
Areas of concerns which need to be addressed are if someone goes out of the city with his/her EV, and his vehicle shuts down. Who will help him?
If somebody is setting up a charging station on highway, he would be more concerned about the profitability. Who’s going to come and get his vehicles charged so that the business is profitable.
If someone is buying an EV for lending it out to a fleet operator, what’s cost of the EV he will have to pay to run the vehicle. Is it going to be comparable with diesel or petrol vehicle or is it going to be a costly affair. People look at it as the price war between EVs and diesel and petrol vehicles. We try to maintain this balance.
The entire EV highway is geo-tagged, where assistance can be provided to customers in a very short period. It has charging station every 50 kms, which is equipped with roadside assistance.
Secondly, someone who’s willing to buy or invest in charging infrastructure can also have a guaranteed income and utilization so that their profitability and model for operation does not get hampered. These are some of the roadmaps that we can bring out with the help of emerging technologies and enjoy the confidence people, their finances, and their government.
Now, tell me how geospatial technologies are being used to locate suitable hotspots for charging points of electric vehicles?
Geospatial technologies are being used in multiple layers. On national highways, customers will get EVs without driver also. When we are providing these vehicles without drivers, there are multiple trackers and devices installed inside the vehicle to on and off continuously track the movement of vehicles through geospatial technologies. It also has active and passive trackers. In case of a theft, or if somebody escapes with the vehicle which he/she has not booked, the vehicle can be stopped through compulsive discharge.
Vehicle’s current location, how far it is from the next station. What type of fleets are there, what type of stations we are going to have, geo fencing of the highway e.t.c are the geospatial technologies that we are using for transition to EVs.
The best part is that a vehicle
operator can give an EV on rent without any risk. And the people taking these vehicles on rent can compare it with diesel and petrol vehicles.
Does that mean that the locations of the charging stations are not determined using only semantic information, but by integrating spatial information with semantic information.
It is not only the 3-D mapping, but geo mapping of the entire highway is done. It is the micro level grid mapping of almost fourmeter square digital patches for the entire highways. These digital patches have information about toll plazas, their stations, important places like police stations, hospitals, fire stations, also if there is a commercial entity on the highway. The entire highway is geo-mapped and geo-fenced. The car, bus EVs or anybody travelling on this highway and is connected with certain devices inside the vehicle can meet each other technically.
What do you think is the biggest challenge facing electric vehicles adoption in India?
It depends upon how we are going to look at it. If we look at vehicle-to-vehicle comparison, we will end up comparing an electric vehicle with a diesel vehicle. If we look at as electric mobility as the cheapest and most reliable, we will end up comparing a Metro with Highway. Metro has a tube formation; it starts from a point and ends at point. It consumes electricity continuously from the overhead wire. Electric mobility or E-highways, wherever we can find a pattern, inside the city there can be a circular pattern of electric mobility running around.
I am not talking of overhead wire. What I am saying is that if the route is fixed. If we can give the approximate number of people who are travelling on a particular route to fleet operators. A business model can be developed by asking the fleet operator to come in rather than asking more and more people to buy EVs.
My plan is to make available electric mobility to people without even buying EV. This is what NHEV is doing — if you do not own a car, you can still hire a car. Go to Jaipur…go to Agra…you are highly tracked and monitored. Your safety is not a concern. Wherever you are moving, your safety is not a concern, we will take care of that.
Where do you think India stand visa-vis other nations in EV adoption?
It is very motivating at this stage of time that we have programmes like CUP 27 or Niti’s life mission which gives some insight not only from the commercial point of view, but from the lifestyle point of view that India is a leading nation by its ancient wisdom and its nature and origin to give an environment friendly and eco-friendly life to people, not only from West to wealth management, but also from the aspects of nature and environment, which is the core value of our ancient Vedic culture.
This brings us to a place where we will not only talk about it, but also need to have a proven model. If you do not have your cities which are very well managed in terms of traffic, pollution, emission, AQI and air quality, we cannot go out and say that India is in a leading position to tell the world as to how to live with nature.
Our economy has reached a point where we have two divides — if we manage to give our success story of how we resolved our problem, world will be after us. Five trillion or 10 trillion economy is just a number for us. This decade is India’s decade, this century is going to be India’s century. If we fail to manage the eco system where we have technologies and resources, lot of value creation done, but we could not retain, when it comes to delivery.
Technology is growing, but how do you make people accountable, discipline and make them aware about the technology is the basic challenge. We grow as community to use the best technologies to resolve our day-to-day problems.
As an economy we have reached on a delivery challenge. If we meet that challenge and deliver ourselves as a successive and progressive economy, we will be able to take not only electric mobility, but geospatial technologies including drones, 3-D and space forward and create success stories.
Where do you see India in EV adoption 10 years from now?
If we look at the eco systems, we will completely change the way we grow into EVs. If you look at retail products, we will only be able to forecast sales of EVs. If you look at railway stations, airports, cantonments, refineries, universities, or any premises which have several vehicles. These premises should be declared green, and they should use electrical vehicles inside the premises. The people who use EVs in such ways will gradually become part of
electric mobility. These people can gradually think of adopting electric mobility by buying an EV of their own.
The onus must shift from individual to community. The responsibility lies with the communities like university, societies, and other organizations to provide green fuel to society. They have enough money to go for adoption.
In 2021, the global EV market achieved 108% growth in sales. The Net Zero by 2050 project predicts that by 2030, EVs will account for over 60% of new car sales. Do you think it is achievable?
I am not the right person to comment at the global level. However, India’s position in terms of percentage for adoption of electric mobility may look very promising because they are multifold, they may vary from 200% to 300%. But if you look at the area we need to cover, the numbers we need to do, globally we do not stand at a very significant position. We are not even at top 40 or 50 position, we are below that. And it is not because our numbers are less but have lot of work to do. Whenever we try to do something, it looks like little and too late. So, if you look at India’s strategy of adoption, we need to have a growth of 500%. That type of growth will help us in finding our position somewhere in the list.
Countries which have looked at it from the infrastructure perspective have an easy adoption, which is not the case with us. This is because of the low segment of vehicles and then our vehicles are low priced.
Interviewed by Sanjay Singh
1. Foster spatial thinking and help rural women leverage ‘The Science of Where’ in every corner of the country.
2. Hone technology skills of rural women for collective problem-solving, decision-making, and collaboration.
3. Make rural women job-ready by inculcating basic knowledge and skills in GIS.
4. Help rural women to contextualize location and understand interdependencies and interconnections better.
5. Build interest in spatial thinking, maps and GIS.
Disclaimer:
The Bhu-Kaushal, which loosely translates to Geographic Skills, is an Esri India CSR Program for women empowerment designed to impart basic to advanced learning in GIS to empower rural women with spatial skills a nd the use of GIS technologies.
With a better understanding of the value of adopting a geographic approach to problem-solving rural women can collaboratively leverage the context of location and interdependencies of various factors for solving pressing economic, social, and environmental challenges in their rural environs.
Under the umbrella of women empowerment through the promotion of education and livelihood enhancement projects, the vision of the program is to skill 10,000 rural women in 3 years.
CSC Academy’s Learning
Management System hosted the Bhu-Kaushal program in English and Hindi languages through their CSC centres. So far, the program has been launched in 21 states covering 157 districts with 5128 students getting certified in the first year of launch. The program was formally launched in 2021, with plans to skill 10,000 rural women in 3 years.
The course comprises engaging modules that help students to imbibe spatial thinking. The modules enable them to gain a basic understanding of GIS and its concepts, brush up their geographic knowledge, identify maps and their uses, and understand the basics of geospatial data and its use in their day-to-day life and in the context of digital systems. This becomes a unique opportunity for the students to acquire skills in leading mapping and analysis solutions. Additionally, they learn how to visualize the data and carry out basic data analysis.
1. To detect, locate, and monitor the potentially tsunamigenic events occurring in the Indian Ocean Basin.
2. To forecast and provide Storm Surge advisories with storm surge heights and inundation extent along the Indian coast.
3. To improve coastal community's preparedness for tsunami emergencies, minimize the loss of life and property and ensure a structural and systematic approach to building community preparedness.
The world’s second-largest recorded earthquake, the great Sumatran earthquake with a magnitude of 9.3 in 2004 caused a tsunami that took an unprecedented loss of life and damage to property claiming 10,745 lives in India making it one of the deadliest natural hazards in history.
In response to this, The Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES), Government of India, had taken up the task of establishing an Early Warning System for Tsunamis and Storm Surges called the Indian Tsunami and Storm Surge Early Warning System (ITEWS) in response to the Tsunami that caused unmitigated disaster in 2004.
The vision was to provide timely tsunami and storm surge advisories to the stakeholders to mitigate the disaster.
MoES, NDMA, MHA, IMD, State and Union Territory Disaster Management Authorities, State and District EOCs, Navy, Coast Guard, NDRF and coastal communities.
The Tsunami and Storm Surge
Early Warning system software and applications were built entirely using GIS techniques. ITEWS was implemented with a real-time network of seismic stations, Tsunami buoys, Tidal gauges and a full-day operational Warning Centre to detect tsunamigenic events.
It is deployed with back-end support of a pre-run model scenario database and a comprehensive Decision Support System (DSS).
Every coastal forecast zone in the spatial data is provided with attributes such as estimated time of arrival (ETA), Estimate Maximum Wave Amplitude (EWA) and Threat Category.
The detailed tsunami bulletins are issued in both text and graphical formats to stakeholders along with GIS-based maps such as tsunami threat Maps, directivity Maps, and Travel time maps, which are useful to the disaster mitigation teams to act swiftly.
The warning system utilizes the automated DSS based on GIS and database technology to provide real-time storm surge and inundation forecasts during cyclones.
Disclaimer: These case studies have been extracted from the Integrated Geospatial Information Framework report.
Adivasis and other traditional forest dwellers have been living in the forests from time immemorial. Yet their rights over their lands and forests were never properly recognized and recorded during the forest settlement process, even after India’s independence.
This made them ‘encroachers’ in their homelands and deprived them of the rights and security of tenure over their lands and forests, which is why they have been living a life of extreme poverty and hunger amid areas rich in forests and other natural resources.
The project began by raising awareness among tribal communities about various provisions of the Act and the Rules, providing training to Forest Rights Committees (FRC) members for various tasks.
Despite all the efforts, nearly 70% of the total 17,000 claims of the Narmada district were rejected due to a lack of documentary evidence. The government decided to use historical Satellite Imagery of 2005 as documentary evidence to prevent such instances in the future.
Printed images from Google Earth were provided to the FRCs and they were asked to identify individual farms on the maps. This convinced FRCs of the role of satellite imagery in verifying claims.
However, the process of mapping was difficult and prone to errors, hence they used GPS technology for marking the boundaries of each plot on these maps. This data was superimposed on Google Earth. They calculated the area and condition of each plot automatically in 2005. The process was adopted by more than 200 villages. To avoid questions on authenticity, they used imageries from National Remote Sensing Agency, Hyderabad.
So far, with this method, they have prepared maps of about 19,000 land parcels belonging to about 12,000 claims from more than 200 villages in the Narmada district.
From 2022 onwards they are using a new mobile-based system for carrying out GPS surveys of pending claims in the remaining 13 tribal districts of Gujarat. This system uses ArcGIS mobile applications -Survey123 and Fieldmaps together for carrying out GPS surveys.
Tribal region map
The purpose of the AMRUT is to:
1. Ensure that every household has access to a tap with an assured supply of water and a sewerage connection.
2. Increase the amenity value of cites by developing greenery and well-maintained open spaces.
3. Reduce pollution by switching to public transport or constructing facilities for nor-motorized transport (e.g. walking and cycling).
The government of India launched the Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation
(AMRUT) in 2015 as a National Mission. The AMRUT mission focuses on 11 reforms and 52 milestones to be implemented by 500 Mission Cities in different States, revolving around e-governance, constitution and professionalization, augmenting double-entry accounting, urban planning and city level plans, devolution of funds, review of building by-laws, setting up financial intermediary at the state level, municipal tax and fee improvement, improvement in levy and collection of user charges, credit rating, energy and water and Swach Bharat Mission (Clean India Mission).
The mission focuses on the following areas:
1. Water supply
2. Sewerage facilities and seepage management
3. Storm water drains to reduce flooding
4. Pedestrian, non-motorized and public transport facilities, parking spaces, and
Enhancing amenity value of cities by creating and upgrading green spaces, parks and recreation centres, especially for children.
The Mission has committed central assistance of USD 4.5 billion with a 100% centrally funded sub-scheme of the GIS-based Master Plan for all 500 cities with a budget outlay of USD 0.064 billion.
One of the key efforts of the Mission is to improve governance through a set of Reforms, of which formulation of a GIS-based Master Plan is an important one. The objective is to develop common digital base maps/land use maps using Geographical information System (GIS) in each AMRUT city to enable them to make more informed strategic decisions for Master Plan Formulation.
The entire process of large-scale urban geospatial database preparation comprised 4-5 major activities and was carried out by NRSC in association with State/ UTs and support of the private geospatial industry. MoHUA and TCPO – the technical wing of MoHUA was the nodal Ministry/ implementing agency.
The key efforts of the Mission is to improve governance through a set of Reforms
To leverage Geospatial data and technologies for monitoring and managing the planet’s green cover, in line with the Sustainable Development Goals for life on land (SDG 15) and climate action (SDG 13).
An application was developed for vegetation monitoring derives data from the Indian Remote Sensing Satellites and archives them. The data includes vegetation indices, soil moisture, temperature throughout the field, rainfall and other such parameters which are continuously archived by the application. Data from a freely available foreign satellite are also used.
The application facilitates interactive visualization and analytics on the web. The repository of multi-temporal (over 22 years) and multi-resolution (500 to 10 m) NDVI time series data is available on VEDAS (https://vedas.sac.gov.in/vegetation-monitoring/index.html).
The website provides capabilities to perform several image processing operations such as image differencing, temporal classification, Geospatial query, principal component analysis, temporal NDVI compositing and long-term statistics.
The application also supports the presentation of data such as heat maps, temporal profiles, and Year-on-Year (YoY) comparisons. Zonal statistics at the district, taluka and village levels are also supported. Furthermore, the time series of vegetation indices derived using Sentinel-2 data enables farmlevel assessment of vegetation condition and crop growth.
The project uses an in-house developed raster analysis server, an open-source image processing library, spatial RDBMS, web-GIS software, client-side GIS-based JavaScript libraries and Python.
Outcomes Achieved
The application is being
1. To enable interactive visualisation and geospatial analysis of multi-satellite, multi-sensor and multi-date EO data and data products pertaining to vegetation cover on a single platform.
2. To assist farm-level assessment of vegetation condition and crop growth using EO data.
used for providing inputs for Agro-met advisories by IMD. It complements the activities of Mahalanobis National Crop Forecast Centre (MNCFC) under the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmer Welfare. The application has the potential to provide feedback for timely policy interventions for defining import-export policies, fixing MSP, and monitoring and evaluating irrigation programmes and canal command areas. Insurance companies can use it for claim settlement and risk assessment for crop insurance. The application can also be used for providing advisories to farmers for efficient agricultural management practices, precision agriculture, contract farming etc.
Book: China’s Space Program
Author: S. Chandrashekar Reviewed By: Arup Dasguptawo major events that proved China’s space prowess are the Lunar lander rover, Chang’e 4 and the Mars lander rover, Tianwen-1. The question then arises: how a country which began its space activities in 1970 could develop it so rapidly to rival the successes of a leading spacing nation like the USA?
China’s Space Programme: From the Era of Mao Zedong to Xi Jinping by S Chandrashekhar provides a detailed account of the country’s rise to become a space power worth reckoning.
The book is structured in two parts. The first part, consists of five chapters covering the evolution, growth and future. The second part consists of 11 chapters which cover in detail the different aspects of the program, including the evaluation of the technology covering launchers, satellite and human spaceflight, and the international impact of the Chinese space programme. Each chapter carries a wealth of information in the form of tables and diagrams.
The book traces the evolution of the space programme beginning with the formulation of a 12-year plan in the aviation, missile, and space domains by Quian Xuesen, a US citizen who made a major contribution to the early aerospace efforts in the US. Accused of being a spy in the McCarthy era, he was deported to China in 1955. Qian became the head of the Institute of Applied Mechanics under the Chinese Academy of Science, CAS. The Institute concentrated on the study of missile technology with the approval of Mao Zedong and other political top brass of the Chinese govern -
ment. Further, though Qian was the Director, the unit was headed by a People’s Liberation Army (PLA) veteran. This clearly shows the deep political and military involvement in the programme.
The book, as it delves into the successive years, through a series of diagrams, traces the politico-military-administrative triad that continues to guide the Chinese efforts in space. The initial efforts were supported by the erstwhile Soviet Union through consultancy, supply of materials and training. The book notes however, that beyond the initial help the Chinese made every effort to be their own masters in all aspects of Space technology through a wellplanned program that covered all aspects including engineering, science and education.
The Chinese programme was stimulated by the early Soviet success, Sputnik-1, in 1957. Planning started in 1965 under a newly created Group 681 in CAS for sounding rockets, small satellites and heavy satellites and their launchers. To accommodate this thrust, in late 1964, the Fifth Academy became the Seventh Ministry of Machine Building and the various other units were promoted to full Academy status under the Ministry. The goal among others, was to launch a small satellite by 1971.
The Chinese Human in Space programme was also catalyzed with the success of Yuri Gagarin in 1961. A formal program was proposed in 1970, which was kept low key due to adverse political and economic climate that arose during the tumultuous Cultural Revolution. Consequently, the
intended scientific payloads were dropped in favor of a payload broadcasting the song “The East is Red”. Quian and many of the scientists of the day also fell afoul of the dreaded Red Guards, highlighting once again the domination of the politico-military axis in matters of S&T.
Things soon changed with the arrival of Deng Xiaoping on the political scene. Ia major departure from Beijing’s prevalent policy, Deng did not want China to enter the Space Race. He also played down the need for moon missions. Instead, he insisted on space for betterment of the
difficulties it faces as well as the challenges it poses to the other space actors, notably the US.
Part two of the book covers in detail the activities in space and is a treasure trove of facts and figures. It is interesting to note that the first satellite efforts were on recoverable satellites which not only carried cameras but also small experiments related to the Human in space studies.
Looking at the details of the chapters on various satellites: recoverable, communications military communications, data relay, LEO, weather, remote
country through the development of missiles as well as satellites for communications and remote sensing. The book analyses the impact of these reforms.
Some scientists did not take too kindly to the restrictions brought on by the reforms. They resurrected the human spaceflight in Programme 893 which was finally approved by Deng and brought back Chinese space efforts to the forefront and enabled its access to the political elite.
The remaining chapters in part one describe the effect of the end of the Cold War on the Chinese space efforts and its rise as a global space power and the
sensing and navigation it is clear that the Chinese left no area of space unaddressed. The section on human spaceflight is equally detailed and shows the singleminded and tenacious approach of the Chinese scientists and engineers to achieve their goal in spite of political and economic upheavals. Space Sciences also has been addressed with the Lunar and Mars missions. The section on the launcher development is also of great interest and shows the ups and downs before success.
The richness of information on the Chinese Space programme makes the book a historical study, a tutorial, a study in management, and a reference guide.
The book traces the evolution of the space program beginning with the formulation of a 12-year plan in the aviation, missile, and space domains by Quian Xuesen, a US citizen accused of being a spy in the McCarthy era, and deported to China in 1955
