Note: I wrote this on my earlier blog hosted as https://blogs.seds.org/pradeep. I recovered the text from the WayBack Machine. This post appeared on February 20, 2007 as per the timestamp. I’m trying to collect here again all my old writings spread on various blogs.
The NSDI has been trying for a long time to implement GIS in India with the aims of “to ensure that departments open their trove of information maps and data on forests, minerals, town planning, rainfall, archaeology for being placed on a proposed Geospatial Information System (GIS) backbone”.Yesterday, they must have had the happiest day of their life (I’m just thinking here) when they read this half-page report.
The Indian Government has finally decided to release data stored in files, cans and what not to the modern GIS. This comes as a surprise even for the NSDI. GIS will also provide imagery.
As the report goes on: “The NSDI web-user interface will provide open access of the information processed by the project. But further access to its metadata, data about data or a cataloguing system, will be secure. The metadata server will be the brain of the system and guide access and use of the NSDI agency server which contains the spatial data.”
There are also talks of releasing .8 m resolution satellite images available thanks to CartoSat 2. Let’s see how thinks go. The Defence establishment has already given the green signal.
Parallel Spirals 