COPUOS/T.551
Page 14
Mr. Chairman, let me briefly present to this
Committee the significant achievements made by India
in the space field since the last session in June 2005.
An important milestone during the year has
been the launch of India’s most advanced
communication satellite, INSAT-4A, intended mainly
for meeting the demand for Direct-to-Home television
broadcasting requirements. This satellite was launched
by the European Ariane-5 launch vehicle from Kourou,
French Guyana during 21 December 2005. It carried
12 high-power Ku-Band and 12 C-Band transponders.
The satellite has been commissioned and has been put
into regular service.
In addition to this, the space application
programmes have continued to make forays with the
advent of several newer initiatives. Over the year, a
number of tele-education, tele-medicine and Village
Resource Centre networks got commissioned and has
provided for better outreach. In the area of the tele-
education project, today more than 3,500 EDUSAT
classrooms have been created in the country. Through
the use of the tele-education network, more than
200,000 students got benefited which includes students
from schools, colleges, professional and training
institutes. The system has been used for imparting
teachers and nurses training as well. Similarly, in the
areas of the tele-medicine projects, we have
successfully expanded the network in the last one year.
Presently, ISRO’s tele-medicine network consists of
160 hospitals, of which 133 hospitals in the remote,
rural and district levels have been connected to 27
Super Speciality Hospitals located in the major cities.
India attaches high importance to the use of
space-based systems for water and forest resources
managements. Presently, remote sensing data has been
effectively put to use for a number of water-based
applications, which includes, among others, irrigation
water management, snow and glacier studies, surface
water bodies mapping/monitoring, ground water
prospecting and recharging. Similarly, in the area of
forestry, remote sensing data is being used extensively
to generate forest cover maps for monitoring the forest
cover changes and planning conservation measures.
Forest cover maps are being generated in the 1:50,000
scale.
Mr. Chairman, during this session, the Indian
delegation will make three separate presentations under
the agenda items on space and education, space and
water, and space and forestry.
Adding another dimension to the effective use
of space-enabled services for societal benefit has been
the initiative of ISRO in creating the Village Resource
Centres, VRCs. Village Resource Centres are
envisaged as a single window delivery mechanism for
a variety of space-based products and services, such as
tele-education, tele-medicine, information on natural
resources for planning and development at local level,
interactive advisories on agriculture, fisheries, land and
water resources management, livestock management,
and so on and so forth. A number of clusters of
Village Resource Centres has been established across
the country providing valuable inputs to the local
community and helping them in addressing a variety of
social aspects. It is planned to set up at least 100
VRCs across the country by the year end.
In addition to this, some of the other major
space application programmes were continued. They
are crop acreage and production estimated, forecasting
of potential fisher zones, and creating national
inventory on wastelands.
Mr. Chairman, international cooperation has
always been an integral part of the Indian space
programme. Over the years, ISRO has established
bilateral and multilateral agreements with a number of
space and other related agencies. ISRO takes special
interest in providing the expertise and services for
helping the developing countries in the application of
space technology. The Centre for Space Science and
Technology Education for the Asia and Pacific Region,
affiliated to the United Nations and operating from
India, is an initiative in this direction. The Centre has
continued to make good progress and has carried out
22 post-graduate programmes with a duration of nine
months and two are currently ongoing. In addition, it
organized a number of short-term courses/workshops.
So far, 643 scholars from 46 countries, including the
Asia-Pacific region and outside the region, were
benefited from the educational activities of the Centre.
We are happy to inform the Committee that during
November last year, the Centre has successfully
completed 10 years of its service.
Mr. Chairman, during the year 2005-2006,
there have been some significant agreements that were
signed between ISRO and other international agencies
in the space technology front.
ISRO and NASA of the United States of
America signed a Memorandum of Understanding on 9
May 2006 for inclusion of two United States scientific
instruments onboard India’s first mission to the Moon,
Chandrayaan-1.
ISRO signed an Agreement with the European
Space Agency, ESA, in June 2005, which will provide