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DATA : November-December 1998
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Information Hut
High Speed National Data Network
New Data Archival Policy of NRSA
Asian Pacific Disaster Management Centre
Information Hut
Renowned Agricultural Scientist M.S. Swaminathan is on his
latest mission to bring awareness about the development programs amongst rural
people nearby Pondicherry. He believes that unless the villagers for whom the
Govt. runs many development schemes are made fully aware, such schemes and
programs have no meaning. For this, Swaminathan and his colleagues are giving
training to women volunteers to run "value-added centers" across the villages,
which are equipped with Tamil software. Accordingly villagers are now taking
interests in computers and are eager to know things like forecast of climate
changes, water and pest management, tissue culture and other such things which
they now have started to think is useful for them.
High Speed National Data Network
Sankhya- Vahini is set to serve a national Internet Backbone and it will connect users like Universities, Schools, Hospitals, Business, Manufacturing units and Financial Institutions. The network will provide for their educational training, healthcare, and other knowledge oriented multimedia applications for the technological and economic growth of the country. "Sankhya Vahini India Ltd." is a Joint Venture to be set up in India between IUNet Inc. and Dept. of Telecommunications (DoT) along with some selected educational institutions like IITs, and IISc. A MoU for this project was signed between Prof Raj Reddy, Chairman, IUNet Inc USA and Mr. Anil Kumar, Secretary, DoT, in the presence of Mr. Naresh Chandra, Ambassador of India to USA. Sankhya Vahini will also provide a test bed for research in developing and providing multi- gigabit technologies. The cost of the project is estimated to be $50 million for creating the national backbone and $100 million for developing urban links. At least 10 metropolitan centers and over 100 universities, institutions of higher learning, and research centers will get interconnected.
New Data Archival Policy of NRSA
National Remote Sensing Agency (NRSA) has reviewed the Archival policy in order to keep a better record of the satellite data which is collected from various satellites and is stored in High Density Tapes (HDTs). This has been done in order to avoid the maintenance and storage problems. It has been found that maintaining the data stored in the HDTs requires considerable amount of expenditures and efforts. The HDTs have to be stored in a dustfree, cool, dry and air-conditioned environment; and the tapes have to be regularly exercised. And there is very much possibility that it is not possible to retain all the accumulated data. Also, from the offtake patterns of IRS and Landsat data during the past few years it has been found that the demand for data of a particular year is maximum for that current year and up to two years before that current year. Thus, the demand for old data being much less, the new archival policy has been designed accordingly
Asia Pacific Disaster Management Centre
The Asian pacific Disaster Management Center (APDMC) has been established in the Philippines to provide an independent, regional, technical resource center in disaster and risk management, serving in both public and private sectors in countries of the region. Recent natural events in the Asia Pacific region, such as EL Nino related crises and their direct impacts on economics, food security, agricultural production, health, water and sanitation and the environment have demonstrated the urgent need for strengthening national and regional capabilities for prevention.
For more information, contact the Head Office at PO Box 1005, Makati Central Post Office, 1250 Makati City, Philippines; e-mail: apdmc@nsclub.net
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