India

India will soon establish its own GPS-like satellite navigation system. According to the newspaper Times of India the first of seven satellites of the Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS) will be launched in June 2013. This system will provide India with its own data for location and time in all weather conditions.

Times of India cites K Radhakrishnan, chief of the Indian Space Research Organisation IRSO: "The satellite constellation, IRNSS, aims to increase position accuracy and provide standard positioning service for common users and restricted service for authorized users. A space based augmentation system for GPS will make major difference in the way the air ports are operated in India. In the next two years, our country will be blessed with several new satellite based... read more

The UN-affiliated Centre for Space Science and Technology Education in Asia and the Pacific (CSSTEAP) in India has announced its new training course programme 2013-2014 covering the fields of Remote Sensing and GIS, Satellite Communications, Satellite Meteorology and Global Climate and Space and Atmospheric Science. The courses are designed for scientists, engineers and university... read more

ArcGIS announced that an additional batch of the large set (up to 50 million square kilometers) of high-resolution imagery to be added to the World_Imagery map service is fully processed and published to ArcGIS Online. The World Imagery map was recently updated to include expanded coverage of 1m resolution GeoEye IKONOS imagery for parts of India and Africa. This represents the latest update as additional IKONOS imagery is fully p, rocessed and published.

SPOT-6, the new high resolution optical Earth observation satellite, built by the European leading space technology company Atrium, will be launched from India next month. . It will provide a wide view over a large area and it will offer enhanced performance compared with its predecessors and it is also lighter. It will have a service life of 10 years.

More information about SPOT 6: http://www.astrium.eads.net/node.php?articleid=8892

The International Charter: Space and Major Disasters was activated by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on 29 June 2012. Floods, caused by heavy rains over the last two weeks, have taken a toll of 27 human lives in Assam State, India and affected almost one million. The population in 2084 villages in 22 districts have been affected by floods this year. 173 relief camps have been set up so far to provide shelter for those affected.

The Brahmaputra river was reported, on 28th June, as flowing above the danger mark in all its gauge stations at Dibrugarh, Neamatighat, Tezpur, Guwahati, Goalpara and Dhubri, according to the evening flood bulletin of the Central Water Commission. The districts affected by the current wave of flood include Barpeta, Dhemaji, Jorhat, Golaghat, Tinsukia, Dibrugarh, Sivsagar, Nagaon, Morigaon, Lakhimpur, Kokrajhar, Dhubri, Nalbari, Bongaigaon, Chirang, Baksa, Sonitpur,... read more

On 26 April 2012, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) successfully launched their first indigenously built all-weather Radar Imaging Satellite, RISAT-1. RISAT-1, weighing 1,858 kg and being the heaviest satellite launched yet by the carrier PSLV, is an Active Microwave Remote Sensing Satellite carrying a Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) that will operate in the C-band. This means that RISAT-1 can send imagery of earth's... read more

UN-SPIDER and National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) of India jointly supported a training workshop on "Space technology applications in disaster management and emergency response" at New Delhi India. The workshop was organised by the National Institute of Disaster Management (NIDM). The event provided a platform to the... read more

India must embark on a “new evergreen revolution” with the extensive use of appropriate bio- and space technology inputs to ensure food security for all and enable the country to compete successfully in a globalised economy, says renowned space scientist U.R. Rao. India’s population is bound to cross 1.6 billion by 2050, which will demand doubling of our foodgrain production to ensure food security to all our people, according to him. And in the past one decade, India’s agricultural production has remained stagnant between 220 and 240 million tonnes. Agricultural productivity (1.8 tonne per hectare) is much less than the world productivity of 2.6 tonne per hectare. The solution, the former chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) said, lay in the application of science and technology... read more

[NEW DELHI] Combining remote sensing technology with water and soil conservation techniques can help raise crop yields in South Asia, scientists have reported.

Satellite data can help identify specific problems on farmlands such as moisture shortage, excessive soil wetness and flood occurrence.

Using the data along with appropriate resource conserving technology (RCT) will increase productivity, a study team of researchers reported this month (8 September) in Applied Geography.

The study team included researchers from the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), Manila, International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre, Banaras Hindu University, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi,... read more

The government of India made two major data sharing policy decisions on the 4th of July regarding remote sensing. They have opened up the possibility for more government agencies to own and operate remote sensing satellites other than the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), and they have freed up all remote sensing imagery up to one meter resolution, where the previous restriction required data up to 5.8 meter resolution to be protected.

Both restrictions have hampered the commercial viability of the organisation, and the geospatial industry development within the country. Geospatial practitioners within... read more

Shimla: Smt Sarojini Ganju Thakur, Additional Chief Secretary (Environment, Science & Technology) said that action needs to be taken at various levels to implement Disaster Management Plan in the State. She was inaugurating a two-day workshop on 'Training Need Assessment for Disaster Management in Himachal Pradesh' organized by State Council for Science, Technology and Environment in collaboration with Revenue Department at Himachal Pradesh Institute of Public Administration (HIPA) here today.

Smt Thakur stressed upon the need for swift, timely and appropriate action, keeping in view the of the State to earthquake, flash floods and other natural or man made hazards. She said that State Government had taken a slew of concrete measures for disaster management.... read more

The second NIDM/UN-SPIDER workshop on ‘Space Technology Application in Disaster Management and Emergency Response’ took place at the National Institute of Disaster Management (NIDM), New Delhi, from 28 to 30 March 2011. The aim of the workshop was to impart Disaster Managers with the knowledge on applications of space technology... read more