How do you see the successful launch of Resourcesat -1?
The successful launch of Resourcesat-1 into a perfect orbit by our own PSLV is another major milestone in the Indian space programme. The satellite was crucial for us to maintain the continuity of IRS services all over the globe - especially to replace the ageing IRS-1C and IRS-1D with 56 m resolution in multi-spectral bands from the AWiFS with a wide swath of 740 km; 23m resolution in a 142 km swath over 4 bands from the LISS-3 and the 5.8m multi-spectral images from our most advanced sensor - LISS-4. We are happy that we shall continue to maintain our path of supporting national requirements and also making deeper forays in the global market. We have many newer features - the advanced imaging sensors; the more precise attitude and orbit determination systems; the satellite positioning system onboard, the mass storage devices and many other features. Further, Resourcesat-1 will open up new applications in resources monitoring - especially for vegetation assessment.

China recently undertook a successful manned-mission to space. Do you think that India should also consider a similar plan?
India has a well developed space programme driven to meet the national development requirements. From the beginning, our space visionaries conceptualized such complex space systems to support our communications, broadcasting, weather and climate observation and natural resources management needs. With this experience, undertaking any future challenges will only drive ISRO and the nation to more excellence and what is important is that a scientific demand for such systems must emerge. ISRO has immense technological capability, especially through its motivated human resources. While nothing is impossible, the thrust has to be on generating a scientific plan and demand for unique space excellence and I am sure that ISRO can rise to the demand. My own perspective is that we concentrate on areas where the nation can benefit, societally and technologically. Our future decadal programme is in this direction.

India is considered as one of the leading players in Remote Sensing. How can other developing countries, especially in Asia, benefit from its capabilities?
India is definitely the leading player in Earth Observation (EO) in the world. The IRS is global and IRS images are available through the global network in many countries of the world including the Asia-Pacific countries. Developing countries, like India, have many common problems of managing scarce natural resources, recurring disasters and pressure of growing population on development - that calls for scientific and systematic planning for development. They can actually benefit from the many applications that have been developed in India on EO data - targeting groundwater, disaster management support, wasteland mapping, urban mapping, crop forecasting, forest management, infrastructure development and many others. IRS images can play a very crucial role in providing the right information on the land, water, soils, forests, terrain etc and all of which can be integrated into specialized Decision Support Systems (DSS). In India we are doing this through the National (Natural) Resources Information System.

Actually, ISRO has a very vibrant programme of sharing our knowledge with developing countries -especially in the region. We are supporting the UN Centre for Space Science and Technology Education in Asia and Pacific (CSSTEAP) and offer 20 scholarships annually to Asia Pacific professionals to get M.Tech education in RS and GIS. Till now, almost 180 students from 35 nations of the region have benefited. We also have bi-lateral and commercial relations with many countries (like Thailand, China, Malaysia, Japan and many others) in the region through which both countries benefit.

In the view of availability of high-resolution imageries, what policy you would like to suggest in balancing the developmental needs and security implications?
I think we already have a very good Remote Sensing Data Policy (RSDP) - which enables a system by which images and data of all resolutions are made available to any Indian user - government, private and academia. We have positioned operational mechanisms for this, without compromising the national security considerations and are gearing up for distribution of our own high-resolution images from Cartosat.

ISRO is one of the key players in NSDI initiative. What is your idea about 'data ownership' in this context?
ISRO, in fact, has provided high-quality leadership to NSDI and looks forward to NSDI becoming a reality. Data Ownership is a key issue in making the NSDI successful. As you will all know, as more information is made available, the demand will grow. Thus NSDI would trigger demand for more spatial data.Ownership rights have to be recognized for data and thus appropriate commercial licensing, IPR and copyright provisions would have to be built in to safeguard ownership rights.