ISRO, MapmyIndia to develop India’s “indigenous mapping portal”

What is the News?
Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and MapmyIndia announced a collaboration. They will launch an indigenous mapping portal and geospatial service. It will be an Indian alternative to Google Maps.

Read about new Geospatial policy

About collaboration on indigenous mapping portal and geospatial service:

• MapmyIndia is one of India’s oldest players in the cartography space. It is even older than Google Maps. However, due to lack of access to satellite services, it was not able to provide similar services like Google Maps.
• The collaboration will enable them to jointly identify and build a holistic geospatial portal.  They will utilize earth observation datasets, ‘NavIC’, Web Services, and APIs (Application Programming Interface) available in MapmyIndia.
• These organizations will also leverage ‘Bhuvan’, ‘VEDAS’, and ‘MOSDAC’ geoportals for their collaboration.

Geospatial Portals:

Bhuvan Portal:

• It is the national geo-portal developed and hosted by ISRO. It provides geospatial data, services, and tools for analysis.
• The portal is used to find and access geographic information (geospatial information) and associated geographic services (display, editing, analysis, etc.) via the Internet.

Visualization of Earth observation Data and Archival System(VEDAS)

• It is an online geoprocessing platform of ISRO. It uses optical, microwave, thermal, and hyperspectral Earth Observation(EO) data. Its applications are particularly meant for academia, research, and problem-solving.
• Some areas of application are; Renewable Energy, Coastal & Marine Resources, Hydrology, Climate Studies, Cryosphere, Atmospheric and Ocean Sciences, Planetary Sciences, and so on.

Meteorological and Oceanographic Satellite Data Archival Centre (MOSDAC)

• It is a data repository for all the meteorological missions of ISRO. It deals with weather-related information, oceanography, and tropical water cycles.
• The portal provides a variety of products and services on a wide spectrum of applications. Its applications are weather forecasting, cyclone prediction, and other vital ocean and atmospheric parameters.

Click Here to read about NavIC

 Source: Hindu Businessline