Since the late 80' India has slowly but surely come up as an outsourcing destination for US and European consortium. The data conversion sweat shops are the geospatial equivalents of call centers where low cost but efficient delivery of jobs is guaranteed. It has been an issue of serious concern and debate among the Indian geospatial academia as to the direction in which the career of our graduates (and sometimes post-graduates) is moving in. The release of indigenous products like IGiS is some comfort though.

In parallel mode since the late 80' was the steady progress of ISRO with its reliable satellite launch technology which has succeeded to a stage where they started a commercial arm to sell their wares - both data and technology to developing countries. And now, ISRO will launch satellites for the US! - or do we look at it as yet another outsourced job...