Dear colleagues,
I would like to share great moment of India. India's Mangalyaan mission enters Mars. India is first country in the world to put satellite around Mars in First attempt (Total four missions successful: in country USA, Russia, Europe and India) .
R.B. Singh
Vice President: International Geographical Union (IGU)
Head: Department of Geography, Delhi School of Economics,
University of Delhi, Delhi - 110007, INDIA
Tel.: +91-11-27666783 (Off), 27553850 (Res),+91-9971950226 (Mob)
e-mail:/
Press Release
Operationalization of Mars Mission on 24th September 2014: Prospects for Future Earth
New Delhi, 20 September 2014: Himachal Pradesh Project, Department of Geography, University of Delhi in collaboration with The Indian Society of Remote Sensing (Delhi Chapter) organised Remote Sensing Awareness Day for Future Earth on 19 September 2014 at Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi on the eve of Operationalization of Mars Mission on 24th September 2014. In the welcome address by R.B. Singh, Vice President, International Geographical Union (IGU), Head – Department of Geography recognized Remote Sensing and GIS as very instrumental for development of Indian society particularly in Disaster Risk Reduction through mapping the vulnerabilities and promoting resilience building. Dr. Singh discussed the advances in Remote Sensing and GIS starting from Bhaskara in 1979 to CartoSat 2B. Remote Sensing provides promising prospects for Landslide Monitoring through LIDAR technique along with Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) for Earthquake Prediction. Data gathered from remote sensing will be helpful for micro-level village community planning under geospatial technology framework. Academic community particularly youth should promote the utility of Remote Sensing satellites like NOAA, AVHRR, IKONOS, QUICKBIRD, Landsat 8, etc. for planning sustainability of society and he asked the academic community to participate in Future Earth Programme and engage in collaboration with research institutes like Indian Society of Remote Sensing.
M.R. Bhutyani, Director, DTRL, DRDO, Government of India introduced the Delhi Chapter of Indian Society of Remote Sensing. Being the chairman of the Delhi Chapter he discussed the development of Delhi Chapter from its establishment in 1980. The awareness generation among the academic community is first and foremost task, without which the future utility and growth of the technology is not possible. Stating the activities of the Chapter he discussed the advances in spectrometry, computational intelligence, LIDAR technology and BHUVAN. The future road map for Delhi chapter includes national seminar on landslides, membership drives among academic community, conduct of popular lecture series, publication of e-newsletter, conduction plantation drive, visits to various Remote Sensing labs in Delhi, guidance to students for project in Remote Sensing and awarding best paper published in international and national journals. According to Dr. Bhutyani the future activities in the field of Remote Sensing will be focused on landscape synthesis based community initiatives involving Terrain Evaluation, Terra-dynamic studies, modeling stimulation and visualization of terrain, computational aspects in terrain evaluation, natural disaster management studies, Off road mobility maps, landslide hazard zonation maps and atlases. Dr. Bhutyani showcased the automated remote monitoring of a landslide in Uttarakhand area. Geo-Information as a force multiplier is a repository of geospatial intelligence. In the context of climate change in the Himalaya, the capability of Remote Sensing in monitoring temporal and spatial changes, changes in response of glaciers and hydrological characteristics should not be underestimated. The increase in temperature in Himalaya is not uniform as the temperature in Karakoram range has showed a cooling trend. The recent tragedies of Leh, Uttarakhand and Jammu and Kashmir are a result of Climate Change. The remote sensing has a capability to monitor the changes in geomorphic hazards including the earth flows and mud flows and quiescence of surging glaciers. Climate change has also impact on river discharge, reducing water availability in Himalayan Cryosphere. The proposed solution to future water scarcity has been seen through interlinking of rivers, but during flood situation only 2.5 per cent of the Brahmaputra and 2 per cent of the Ganga flood waters can be diverted to the links. According to Dr. Bhutyani the alternate to ILR is water harvesting, snow harvesting and glacier harvesting and provided taking examples from Alwar, Ralegaon, and Nand village in Ladakh. Remote Sensing definitely can be very helpful in arriving at solutions.
Sitting from right Saji A Kuriakose, Dy Director, Sensors, Space Applications Centre, ISRO, Government of India, Ahmedabad; M R Bhutiyani, Director, DTRL, DRDO, Government of India, Delhi; Anand Prakash, Dean-International Relations (Humanities and Social Sciences), University of Delhi; R B Singh, Vice President-IGU and Head, Department of Geography, University of Delhi
SajiKuriakose, Dy Director, Sensors, Space Applications Centre, ISRO, Government of India Ahmedabad gave a talk on Journey of Indian Earth Observation Sensor Programme and showcased the significance and images of Mars Colour Camera. Mr. Kuriakose speaking about the operationalization of Mars Mission on the 24th September 2014, asked the audience to boost the moral of the organization as it is a matter of national pride. The mars mission at present is traveling at a speed of 82,000 km/hr which will be reduced by igniting the engines and will start monitoring the Mars. Mr. Kuriakose discussed the challenges in sensor development. The temperature in space ranges from 220oC to -1600oC making it very difficult to design the sensors, but the sensors are well tested so that there is no chance of mistake. Speaking on the Indian Mars Mission he told the audience that the mission will also monitor the atmosphere of Mars for Methane and Temperature. The development of space borne sensors involves configuration finalization, system engineering, design subsystem, reviews, fabrication, testing, integration and more testing. The Indian sensors experienced the development from spatial resolution of 1 km to less than 1 meter. India now has the capability to sense various wavelength bands observed from space. The new sensors include LiVHySI and Chandrayan I. The sensor development in India for resource monitoring had a quantum jump through IRS 1A/B, which was first operational satellite for resource monitoring. The three tier imaging capability improved through launch of IRS 1C/D with sensors LISS III and WiFS. The LISS IV has 100 per cent albedo with single gain and full 70 km data coverage with the capability to monitor deforestation. India has also developed oceanographic sensors to monitor phtoplanktons, chlorophyll and fisheries; and cartography sensors like TES and CartoSat. Mr. Kuriakose told that the challenges faced by the Indian scientist are signal strength, large focal length, weight, etc. Recently the organization has came up with solution by using carbon fiber. The space instrumentation for weather observations includes cloud particle measurement, SST observation, winds, vertical temperature profile, etc.
The function was graced by presence of Anand Prakash, Dean International Relations, University of Delhi as Guest of Honour. He introduced Remote Sensing as problem solving product for the society emphasizing on healthy interface in world of academics for solution to global and regional problems through bridging gaps in practice and theory. The relationship between nature and man has not been negotiated in healthy and effective ways and since man feels guilty of spoiling the natural environment, it is his duty to reconstruct and make balance in future. Giving example from the book Geography of Bliss, he emphasized that wealth is not the sole criteria for happiness. Speaking about the remote sensing and GIS, Dr. Prakash stated that at some instances the Remote Sensing and GIS is not able to solve the problem of disasters completely and therefore the world experiences repetition of disaster events.
The function also came with release of a collaborative book of R.B. Singh, University of Delhi, India and R. Heitala, University of Turku, Finland published from reputed publisher Springer entitled “Livelihood Security in Northwestern Himalaya”. The book has 18 chapters dealing with a range of issues in the northwestern Himalaya viz. climate change, glacier lakes, land use land cover, dynamics of agriculture diversification, forest based livelihood outcomes, ecosystem services, migration, role of NGO’s, tourism, solid waste management, hydro power, etc.
Remote Sensing based quiz competition was organized which widely received by the students of Delhi University, DTRL, JNU, IARI, IGNOU and TERI university.