ISRO, MapmyIndia sign up for hands to defend myself against Google Maps/Earth
Indian Space Study Organisation and location and navigation technology solutions provider MapmyIndia declared an initiative to spouse together to provide India's best, and fully indigenous, mapping portal and geospatial products and services.
It combines the power of MapmyIndia's digital maps and technology with ISRO's catalogue of satellite imagery and earth observation info, according to MapmyIndia's CEO and Excutive Director, Rohan Verma.
He termed it a good path-breaking milestone in India's journey towards 'Aatmanirbhar Bharat', wherein Indian users would not be dependent on international organisations for maps, navigation and geospatial providers, and leverage made-in-India solutions instead.
"You don't need Goo*le Maps/Earth any more", Verma said found in the headline within an article on LinkedIn.
Regarding to ISRO, the Section of Space (DoS) -- ISRO comes under it -- features joined hands with MapmyIndia to combine their geospatial knowledge and build holistic solutions by leveraging their geoportals.
DoS entered into a great MoU with geospatial technology organization CE Info Devices Pvt Ltd, which owns MapmyIndia, on Thursday.
Beneath the partnership, the combined geospatial know-how of the DoS and CE Info Systems will be leveraged through their respective Geoportals, according to Bengaluru-headquartered ISRO.
The collaboration will permit them to jointly identify and build holistic geospatial solutions utilising the earth observation datasets, 'NavIC', Web Services and APIs (application programming interface) available in MapmyIndia, 'Bhuvan', 'VEDAS' and 'MOSDAC' geoportals, the area agency said in a statement.
Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS) called NavIC (Navigation with Indian Constellation, is India's individual navigation system, produced by ISRO.
Bhuvan may be the national geo-portal developed and hosted by ISRO comprising geospatial info, services and equipment for analysis.
VEDAS (VisualisationofEarthobservationDataandArchivalSystem) is an online geoprocessing platform working with optical, microwave, thermal and hyperspectral EO info covering applications particularly designed for academia, research and problem solving, according to ISRO.
MOSDAC (Meteorological and Oceanographic Satellite Info Archival Centre)is a data repository for all your meteorological missions of ISRO and deals with weather related details, oceanography and tropical normal water cycles.
Verma said there are numerous explanations why Indians are better off with an indigenous remedy for maps and geospatial companies.
"MapmyIndia, being truly a responsible, localized, Indian company, means that its maps reflect the real sovereignty of the united states, depicting Indias borders according to Government of India, and hosts its maps found in India," he said.
Through the combined partnership with ISRO, MapmyIndias end user maps, apps and services will today integrate with ISROs huge catalogue of satellite imagery and earth observation data, a MapmyIndia statement said.
It would be a far greater, more detailed and comprehensive, in addition to privacy-centric, hyper community and indigenous mapping remedy for Indians, in comparison to foreign map apps and alternatives, it said.
Verma said foreign mapping alternatives come with a lot of hidden costs.
For example, foreign se's and companies lay claim to provide "free" maps, however in reality they make money by targeting the same users with marketing based on invading user privacy and auctioning those users exclusive location and movement info," he claimed.
"This should be extremely alarming to all or any citizens".
"However, MapmyIndia comes with an ethical viewpoint against advertising led organization models of such companies, and hence, does not have an advertising business model.By using MapmyIndia maps and applications rather than the foreign map apps, users may better protect their privacy," he said.
The "sustainable and direct, clean business model" means that MapmyIndias maps and applications can be kept cost free as well as free of advertisements for users, according to him.
"MapmyIndias maps go over all 7.5 lakh villages, 7500+ cities at road and building-level, connected by all 63 lakh kilometres of road network pan India and within cities, altogether featuring maps for an unparalleled 3+ crore places across India," the company statement said.
Source: www.deccanchronicle.com
