India

Group on Earth Observations – GEO Week 2022

Statement of India

1. India has been an active member of GEO since its inception in 2003.  India has built, over the years, a strong Earth Observation programme, comprising space-borne, airborne and in-situ observation infrastructure. Over the past five decades of pursuance of space activities, India has developed complete spectrum of civil space capabilities with an indigenously nurtured space programme, with the primary objective of utilizing space technology for national development and governance. Currently, diverse remote sensing satellites are operational in low Earth orbit and in Geostationary orbit. Various instruments onboard these satellites provide data in varied spatial, spectral and temporal resolutions to cater to different user requirements in the country. The INSAT series of satellites, provide data for generating various parameters namely, cloud motion vectors, cloud top temperature, water vapour content, vertical profiles of temperature and humidity, facilitating weather forecasting, genesis of cyclones and their track prediction, intensity and landfall, etc.
2. With these in-orbit satellites and the planned ones, the Indian EO system will continue to provide high quality data products and services, enabling a host of applications relevant to national development and global requirements.
3. India has an institutional mechanism to involve Central Government, State Governments and Academia to address space applications, similar to the GEOSS Societal Benefit Areas. India has been pursuing its space activities with the vision of utilizing the applications of space technology for the benefit of the common man. This is evident from the fact that, Indian Space Research Organisation, the national space agency of India is currently working with 60 Ministries and Departments of Government of India, on promoting space technology tools and application for good governance and national development.
4. Government of India has opened the potential of the space sector for greater participation of Private Sector in space activities and ISRO to focus more on research and development and meet the requirements of national imperatives in the area of natural resources management, disaster management and advance technology demonstrations. This led to the restructuring of the National Natural Resources Management System (NNRMS) which was put in place as interface mechanism between Users Ministries and ISRO with Space Applications Management Systems (SAMS) with enhanced objectives.
5. India would like to emphasize the fact, that taking the benefits of space technology to the mankind and society has been the driving force of Indian Space Programme since inception. Towards this, the space based virtual constellation would bridge the data gap and avoid redundancy of the missions. The globally acquired EO data will meet the societal needs of the global community, and India is actively supporting this initiative of GEO.
6. Besides ISRO’s contributions in many global earth observations missions, in the recent past, India has focused on certain key areas in realizing unique missions towards ocean, atmosphere, meteorology, and weather related studies. Ocean wind vector and Ocean colour products, derived from Oceansat-2 and Scatsat-1 data are made available, free of cost to global community and is being assimilated in weather models. The joint realization of Megha-Tropiques and SARAL with French Space Agency has contributed significantly to the global user community. The data from three payloads (SAPHIR, SCARAB & ROSA) of the Megha-Tropiques satellite served GPM user community and open to global users. Similarly, INSAT-3D and INSAT 3DR carrying improved imaging system and atmospheric sounder from geostationary platform are used for weather observations as it provides frequent observational capability every 15 minutes.
7. ISRO’s portals (Bhuvan, MOSDAC and VEDAS) are being used to disseminate the satellite data, geophysical and biophysical products as well as thematic information derived using EO data. Bhuvan Geoportal provides selected satellite data sets, geophysical products, and thematic layers for consumption at user end through either as Web Services or as free download. Bhuvan was also extensively used for societal applications by policy makers during COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. I am also happy to inform that ISRO's Bhuvan and MOSDAC catalogue is now brokered by the GEO Discovery and Access Broker (GEO DAB) and discoverable and accessible via the GEOSS Portal. India has also made certain data with latency on freely basis to the public for research and innovation.
8. The data provided by Indian satellites have been of immense help to the stakeholders in disaster preparedness, damage assessment, rehabilitation and mitigation. Another interesting development by ISRO is the messaging receiver called Navigation for Indian Constellation (NavIC), which has been developed specifically for fisherman community for navigation and receive broadcast messages on fishing potential and disasters. These receivers provide alerts messages such as cyclone, high wave etc. and information on Potential Fishing Zone for the fishermen venturing into deep sea. Recently global standards body 3GPP has also approved NavIC.
9. India is working with other space faring nations like USA, France, Germany, Japan and Canada in building satellite with advanced Earth Observation payloads for improved estimation of vegetation, forest biomass, forest fire, soil moisture, oil slicks, surface deformation, ice-sheet dynamics, ocean surface wind vector, energy and water budget etc. The space agencies of India and USA are jointly building dual frequency L&S band microwave remote sensing satellite, named ‘NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR)’ which is first of its kind SAR mission with sweep SAR technology. ISRO and USGS are exchanging their satellite data with each other which is landmark cooperation towards solving our planet’s most pressing issues using EO data.
10. India has taken up a project with the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) comprising Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Viet Nam to establish a ground station in Viet Nam to receive, process and use data from Indian satellites for variety of applications including disaster management. IRS data would be provided to the ASEAN member countries - free of access fee with assured continuity of data from Resourcesat & Oceansat series in addition to training on space technology applications. We have also provided the geospatial portal support under Bhuvan for the SAARC countries, High resolution satellite data and DEM data support to Bhutan and SAS satellite for addressing the communication projects, realization of Data Cube initiative for BIMSTEC countries (Bhutan, Bangladesh, India, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Thailand) to meet the application needs towards SDGs.
11. As part of India’s commitment to support International Disaster Management, satellite data support is provided under International Charter and Sentinel Asia. India is also providing the required assistance to establish a network of weather stations in SAARC countries to support severe thunderstorm predictions.
12. India, as an active member of the Regional Space Applications programme for Sustainable Development for the Asia and Pacific (RESAP) of the UN-ESCAP, is contributing to promote operational utilization of space technology and equitable sharing of benefits from space technology towards achieving these sustainable development goals. Under Regional Cooperative Mechanism of UN-ESCAP, India offered technical support to Sri Lanka on agricultural drought monitoring. Dedicated software called ‘Drought Monitoring System-Sri Lanka (DMS-SL)’ was conceptualized, developed and operationalized in Sri Lanka along with required training. India also signed an agreement with BRICS Space Agencies for sharing remote sensing satellite data to address global climate change, major disasters and environmental protection.
13. India continues to pursue several engagements not only at bilateral level, but also at regional and global level using platforms like CEOS, GEO, CGMS, QUAD, UN-SPIDER, APRSAF, BRICS and UN-ESCAP.
14. Role of GEO in promoting the use of EO data for sustainable development would be incomplete without the capacity building for its use.  In this domain, ISRO continues to share its facilities, expertise in the application of space science and technology through the United Nations (UN) affiliated Centre for Space Science and Technology Education in Asia and the Pacific (CSSTE-AP) located in Dehra Dun and Ahmedabad. As of now, CSSTE-AP has benefitted more than 3000 officials from 64 countries which includes 36 Asia Pacific Countries and 28 outside Asia Pacific Counties. In addition to the regular courses, the Centre has organized four special courses on disaster risk reduction and emergency management for the Asia Pacific region jointly with UN-ESCAP, UN-SPIDER and SAARC Disaster Management Centre.
15. As part of UNISPACE 50 initiative, India is conducting the programme on “Capacity building on small satellite realization” named UNNATI which stands for UNispace Nanosatellite Assembly & Training by ISRO. The programme has been completed for 2 batches (Jan-March 2019 and Oct-Dec 2019). The 3^rd batches have commenced recently. It is a unique contribution providing excellent opportunities to entities in developing countries to strengthen their capabilities in assembling, integrating and testing small satellites.
16. India actively participates in developing a Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS) and pursued its 10-year extended mandate (2016-2025). India is shouldering the responsibilities such as supporting the G20 initiative of GEO, including Global Agricultural Monitoring initiative (GEO-GLAM), identified sites in India under Joint Experiments on Crop Assessment and Monitoring (JECAM) initiative, Global Forest Observation Initiative and GEOSS Data CORE (Collection of Open Resources for Everyone).
17. India will continue to strive to actively engage and contribute in various activities of GEO, including further strengthening of GEOSS and in achieving its objectives in the coming 10-year period.