India

India Chapter of OSGeo

About India OSGeo Chapter

Geographical Information Systems were seen as very special and very complex domain in India. There is a lot of hype attached with it and with that obviously high cost. So far such systems were seen as something to be used for high level planning and complex scientific operations by large corporates and Govt research agencies or departments only. Also the older mapping policy of India prevented virtually anybody except governments to possess any map data. The picture is however changing fast.

With recent developments in the areas of right-to-information and National Map Policy (http://dst.gov.in/whats_new/press_releases05/cabinet-approves.htm), there is a sudden increased awareness towards GIS based information systems. National Urban Renewal Mission (http://pmindia.nic.in/lspeech.asp?id=235), a well funded initiative has made use of GIS in urban local bodies mandatory. A large portion of geodata will now be freely available.All goverement departments are now trying to find easier ways to manage, update and publish information for the public. There are also large number of NGOs and citizen organisation which are working in areas like ubran poverty, town planning, solid waste management,rural development, school education,environmental issues etc. and they have started understanding and appreciating the importance of community GIS systems.

However growth of GIS is hindered by highly priced proprietory softwares and unavailability of public geodata. Many of such licenced softwares remain unutilized in various government offices because they require either extensive training or easy availability on multiple locations. All this can be changed by the use of Free/Opensource software tools. There is hardly any proprietory GIS software that can show text in Unicode standard in maps . This is significant since all governmet data and most educational institutions work in local language media . FOSS GIS has already shown this solution. Thus, Free/Opensource Geospatial softwares which are much more powerful and usable can be used for developing systems where more and more public participation is sought.

The India OSGeo Chapter is formed to fulfill the mission and objectives described in this document. India OSGeo Chapter will earnestly follow the Local Chapter Guidelines stipulated by OSGeo and cooperate closely with OSGeo Board in promoting the use and development of OSGeo projects in India. The India OSGeo Chapter will strive to serve anyone interested in Open Source Geospatial Solutions and related issues, and to cover all the activities associated with the application, development and promotion of Open Source Geospatial solutions in India.

Mission

Promoting Free/Opensource GIS tools and publicly available Geodata
Advocacy of and promoting Localized GIS
Act as a bridge between various groups like Developers, Application Users, NGOs, Government departments
mentor various FOSS GIS miniprojects by providing resources such as technical guidence, webspace etc.

Objectives

Development:

follow up on indian language support in various free/opensource GIS tools like GRASS, MapServer etc.
initiative for standardisation of publicly available geodata
setting up WMS/WFS based geodata servers using publicly available geodata
toolkit for localised GIS including with special focus on schools, governments , public causes such as child malnutririon, mass education.

POCs (Proof Of Concept demos):

free/opensource based GIS demos
localized GIS (interface and maps)
Collaborative platforms for participatory governance

Regional Events:

Workshops and Training sessions for
- comp science students/teachers
- geology/geography/civil engineering students and teachers
- others
Special Lectures
Demonstrations

Communication:

Networking Local Communities related to geo-issues
Mailing Lists
Wiki

Legal status

OSGeo India Chapter is, presently, a voluntary organization, and has not been registered as a legal body. At present, OSGeo legal status is similar to other Open Source related organizations in India such as "Linux India" (http://www.linux-india.org/), "gnomebalgalore"(http://www.gnomebangalore.org/) or "KDE India" (http://in.kde.org/). Recently, "Free Software Foundation India" (FSF India) was registered as company and been granted the 80G status under Income Tax Act. India OSGeo Chapter is still a nascent voluntary organization and will consider the modalities to register as a legal body at some stage in the future. The India OSGeo Chapter will consult a certified tax cosultant when necessary to ensure compliance with the Indian tax laws.

India OSGeo Chapter Officers

India OSGeo Representative
Dr P.S.Roy
Deputy Director (RS&GIS-AA)
National Remote Sensing Agency
(Deptartment of Space, Government of India)
Balanagar, Hyderabad-500 037
Telephone :+91-40-23884255 Fax: +91-40-23875932
E-Mail: psr at nrsa dot gov dot in

India OSGeo Chapter Coordinator
Dr. Yashodhan Joshi
CEO Relatioware
Pune, India
yyj at relationware dot in

OSGeo Software Development Committee
Chairpersons
(Prototyping, Localization, Proof of Concepts etc.)
Dr. Jitendra Shah
VJTI Mumbai, India
jituviju at gmail dot com

Dr. T.V. Ramachandra
Indian Institute of Science
Bangalore, India
cestvr at ces dot iisc dot ernet dot in

Regional Events Committee
Chairpersons
Mr. V. Ravi Kumar*
Director
Geodata Division, Southern Region
Geological Survey of India
Bandalaguda, Hyderabad 500068
India
ravivundavalli at yahoo dot com
(*Ravi is involved in India OSGEO Chapter in a purely personal capacity)

Mr. Neeraj Dixit
Product Manager Autodesk India Pvt. Ltd.
Infrastructure Solutions Division (ISD)
Neeraj dot Dixit at autodesk dot com

Education and Training Committee
Chairpersons
Dr. N.J. Pawar
Department of Geology, Pune University
Ganeshkhind Road
Pune 411007, India
njpawar at unipune dot ernet dot in

Dr. S.N. Prasad
Sàlim Ali Centre for Ornithology and Natural History (SACON)
Deccan Regional Station, Secunderabad - 500 017, India
wetlands at sancharnet dot in

Advisors

Dr. S.S. Thigale (spathigale at rediffmail dot com)
Dr. Rajendra Jagdale (rajendra dot jagdale at gmail dot com)
Dr. Vishwas S.Kale (vskale at unipune dot ernet dot in)
Mr. Ashok Saraf (saraf dot ashok at gmail dot com)
Dr. Venkatesh Raghavan (venkat at osgeo dot org)
Dr. K S Rajan (rajan at iiit dot ac dot in)
Mr. Kiran Chandra (kiranfsf at gmail dot com)
Mr. Achuthan Mohan (achuthanmohan at gmail dot com)
..Add more Advisors here

Initial Membership

Amol A. Sale
Anand Akmanchi
Ankur Mehrotra
Gangavane
Indrajit Patil
Jayant Kirtane
Kanhaiya Kale
Mahalakshmi Narayanan
Mahesh Jeevane
Maneesh Prasad
Mohan Patil
N.R. Karmarkar
Rahul Kaura
Sajith
Saroj Akiojam
Shekhar Krishnan
Swapnil K. Hajare
Uttam Kumar
B.N. Umrikar
Vrishali Deosthali
A.V.Satya Kumar
Praveen Kumar Sinha
Santosh Gaikwad
C. Pattanaik
Hardeep Singh Rai
M.Surendranath
N.Rajendran
Srinivasan K
Nageswaran B
N.R.S.Reddy
L.P.Singh
S.Ramamurthy
B.K. Sahu
J.Simhachalam
V.Hanumantha Rao
S.Ananda Murty
K.Seshayya
N.Padmayya
N.R.Ramesh

 Temporary mailing list - http://wgrass.media.osaka-cu.ac.jp/mailman/listinfo/osgeo_discuss

Meetings of India OSGeo Chapter

4th Oct 2006, Hyderabad Meeting Minutes

Contents