India is FINALLY, finally getting digitized. For those of you spatially-challenged and geography-illiterate folks, digitizing is a process of producing digital maps. Maps are an integral part of our lives, and if you don't know this yet...here's an interesting tit-bit for you: 80% of every-day life problems involve some spatial (location) aspect. Think about it!
No doubt, India is changing fast! Economy is growing fast, service sector is improving, domestic airline travel is booming (yes!), and people have more money now than they had five years ago. So for me, a GIS enthusiast, a major thing missing was digital maps. India has a great space program, top-class remote sensing satellites - many of them MUCH better than the ones from the "first-world" countries like the USA/France, etc - and a great expertise in map making. However, most of these maps are just paper-based. These paper maps severely limit the ability to analyze the data. This analyses can help better plan transportation, plan utility installations, improve transit systems, and the list is endless. And, if you realize the power of maps, you can better answer your neighbors that portray parts of your country as a part of theirs, and with the Web, they are available for everyone to look at these versions!
So far, the National Map Policy is strict and most of the satellite imagery is restricted and can only be used by military purposes. If you traveled over India, you would know that you are prohibited to even take pictures from the airplane. India recently revised its National Map Policy, and made is a bit more "liberalized". A recent report on The Times of India proclaims that a revised National Map policy will help "India emulate the success of several developed countries, many of which are helping create a Global Spatial Data Infrastructure (GSDI)". Interestingly, all the high resolution imagery and satellite maps are available for sale through Antrix corporation setup by Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO). Now, all that data, maps, imagery will be available for us - sooner rather than later. The possibilities of such map use are endless - you can use these maps to have an interface like "Google Maps", standardize addressing system and generate point-to-point driving directions, combine maps and census data to better plan businesses, integrate maps into GIS and better plan transportation, utilities, and oh, I can go on forever! I can not even tell you how much I am excited!
Indian has also setup
a National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI) website, from where you can download and view data, maps, metadata, etc. This is a good beginning, a great beginning!
Is this the beginning of the emergence of India 2.0? I only hope so.
PS: I plan to write more the world class Indian satellites and spatial efforts soon. Check this space later.
Remember the post I put up last Fall when I met Astronaut Piers Sellers? Well, guess what...he is flying on Discovery this Saturday. He is the mission specialist for this trip!
