Publish Date: 02 June 2010
New Delhi, India: India's Chief of Army Staff General VK Singh PVSM, AVSM, YSM, ADC inaugurated GeoIntelligence Asia 2010, the Annual Asian Conference on National Security in New Delhi, India on 2 June 2010. In his inaugural address, the Indian Army Chief observed that India's boundary includes high altitude mountains, deserts and coastal zones and geospatial intelligence has a significant role to play in tackling security threats from the porous boundary. According to the General, it creates situational awareness and helps in precision operation. GeoIntelligence enables forces to work in network-centric environment. Such innovative visual tools multiply forces, said Indian army Chief.  |  |
Earlier, Lt. Gen. Ajay Kumar Singh Chandele, PVSM, AVSM, ADC; Director General of Electronics & Mechanical Engineering; Indian Army said in his welcome address that emerging security threats can be addressed by developing geospatial capabilities. Sanjay Kumar, CEO, GIS Development, in his introductory remarks, highlighted the need to strengthen spatial infrastructure to counter internal security. The inaugural session witnessed the release of bi-monthly magazine GeoIntelligence, a publication of GIS Development. The General also opened the exhibition for the public.
The first plenary session was chaired by Dr. MP Narayanan, Chairman, GIS Development. Session speakers were Lt. Gen. A K Nanda, AVSM, Engineer-in-Chief, Indian Army; Lt. Gen. S P Singh, VSM, Director General of Information system, India; Steve Benda, Director – International Defence Sales, DigitalGlobe, USA and Lawrie Jordan, Director – Imagery, Enterprise Solution, ESRI, India. Lt. Gen. A K Nanda explained functionality and importance of Defence Spatial Data Infrastructure (DSDI). He also highlighted how GIS prevents duplication of military effort. In his presentation GeoImagery and GIS Integration, Lawrie demonstrated how one can maximise the value of imagery and how it can be further used in various walks of life. He also emphasised on the shift from need to know to need to share and collaborate. Benda demonstrated innovative features of WorldView2 and how they can add value to military intelligence. Lt. Gen. AK Nanda discussed the requirements of geointelligence for defence, observing that the role of GIS is as a force multiplier in day-to-day decision making. Lt. Gen. SP Singh, observing that majority military information has a spatial component, discussed how geospatial technologies can be exploited for operational information centre. He added that geospatial tools find great applications in both operations and logistics. He emphasised on the development of indigenous GIS software and issues related with data interoperability.
The second plenary session was chaired by Rajesh C Mathur, Vice Chairman, ESRI India. Speakers in this session were Air Vice Marshal M Matheswaran, AVSM, VM, Asst Chief of Air Staff (Ops Space), India; Kaushik Chakraborty, Vice President, Asia-Pacific, ERDAS, India; Vishal Dhupar, Managing Director – SAARC Region, Symantic Corporation, India; and Chhavi Gupta, Senior Solution Manager, Technology Solutions, Oracle India. Chhavi explained how Oracle solutions are helpful in lawful interception project, battle space awareness and crime statistics analysis. She also acquainted everyone with location-enabled Oracle technologies. Vishal explained the cyber security threats associated with the data. Kaushik recalled Art of War by Sun Tzu and Clausewitz. He said that at the one end, the Pearl Harbor incident and the other end the September 11 terrorist attacks draw the difference between these two theories and in both the cases geospatial intelligence can be quite effective.
The third plenary session was chaired by Maj. Gen. Manoj Tayal, Addl. Survey General, Survey of India. In this session, the speakers were Mark Reichardt, President and CEO, Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC), USA; Maj. Gen. Girish Kumar, Project Director, Delhi State Spatial Data Infrastructure (DSSDI), India; Brig. Gen. Sutrisno, Director of Topography, Indonesian Armed Forces, Indonesia and John Allan, Vice President, Global Sales and Marketing, ExactEarth, Canada. Maj. Gen Girish Kumar elaborated how DSSDI is using geospatial tools in developing a digital map for the Delhi State. He said that approximately 337 features (above and beneath the ground) have been covered in this project. John Allan regretted that there are very less activities in marine field although it has 70% coverage on the earth. The Mumbai incident is an alarm that maritime areas need more attention now, he added. Mark demonstrated how open standards are driven by community resources, integration of sensor web enabled operation concept with UAV and so on. In addition, he explained compliance testing and certification by OGC.
Source: Our correspondent
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