My ‘BHUVAN’, My ‘NAVIK’

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Omkar Nawlakhe elucidates India’s advancement in space technology, by explaining ISROs achievements and aid in the technological growth.

Till date, in our country, many innovations are stacked in papers only due to the lack of practical exposures in experimental labs. If these innovations or experiments come out to be successful then definitely we can tackle many manmade and natural calamities. But according to the Indian way of thinking, “as self possessions are always undermined and others possessions seem better”, we tend to seek help towards developed foreign countries neglecting the Indian talent.

Maybe India and Indians don’t reckon the importance of navigation system developed by Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) due to the general tendency such as “what happens in abroad and whatever technology imported here is the only way to solve out problems instead of what India has”. Many Indian people don’t recognize the importance of such projects developed by ISRO. The reason is lack of knowledge about the basic sciences. In this ‘Use and throw’ era we have developed an unknowledgeable culture of felicitating applied science instead of basic sciences. The group criticizing ISRO constantly has such mentality. However, basic science is the origin of technology.

Through experiments and tests conducted, ISRO has achieved many accolades which directly impacts on general daily routine. For example, Remote Sensing Satellite, is one of the best in the world’s space organizations. Due to that, weather forecasting, tornados, places having most minerals and which part of the sea has more creatures etc. can predicted. At ISRO, this work is going on since two decades, but not even a single common man knows about it. If an image gets published via ISRO’s ‘BHUVAN’ technology system many people consider it as ‘Google Earth’ image. Maybe because the name ‘BHUVAN’ is Indian word and the same situation is of ‘NAVIK’.

‘NAVIK’ is the satellite projected in space by ISRO. Through that, ISRO launched ‘Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System – 1G ’ and furnished self GPS system. Prime minister named the satellite as ‘NAVIK’. This GPS system was owned by America, China, Europe and Russia, and now India has carved its named in that list. In field of GPS, America has captured the most market. For that, has 33 satellites and that facility is provided to the world by the America. But America has restricted its accuracy for the business purpose, as the accuracy we are getting today by ‘Google Earth’ is restricted to 20 to 30 meters only. No country gives more accuracy than this and to empower our security system we needed more accuracy. This need is now fulfilled by ISRO’s project. The nations having such GPS system needs total 20 satellites to remain updated with the system. But, ISRO has lowered down this number to 20 to fulfill that requirement and the total expenditure on the project was only 1420 crores, which is much lesser than the cost for other countries’ system.

Whenever we buy a new mobile phone, we have to pay for some bills too which is included in the phone’s cost and one of those bills is of GPS system. The money we pay for that gets credited directly into the America’s account. The simple reason is we did not have our own GPS system. But now due to the ISRO’s GPS, those bills will get reduced with the cost of mobiles. Through that, we can achieve the accuracy up to 20 meters, which will be more for the security system.

BHUVAN is getting in use for the GPS system nowadays. It has more information and accuracy too, but also the information is categorized according to the each different state. When BHUVAN and NAVIK will start co working together then only we will be able to use our own Navigation system. But due to the government’s ignorance and user’s reliance on Google, BHUVAN has not reached to the most people. The same situation BHUVAN is facing as C-DAC operating system. The 2206 originated C-DAC operating system is far away from the computers.

If government determines to use the Indian originated system then only the big haul of money will be within India. The question is all about our willpower. Though we are soaring high in the sky compared to other nations, but still our base is weak due to this lack of willpower. But no one talks on the issue of what science has developed and how Indians have restricted it. We do not need any BHUVAN or NAVIK to locate such behavior. It is within us.

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