User talk:Ravivundavalli

Ravivundavalli= V.Ravi Kumar as the former is a user id while the later is the name.

The Indian GIS scene -- Hype and reality

In the late nineties and early in the present millenum Geographic Information System saw a boom in the Indian market with millions spent on acquiring proprietory GIS software, hardware and digitisation of existing paper maps. Many universities started offering courses exclusively in geoinformatics as a seperate subject. Most of the metro cities have embarked on GIS projects to initiate use of GIS in administration. Many Journals specialising in Mapping and GIS also flowered and forcasted an exponential growth in GIS as public utility.

In reality, presently GIS is more used by the academia than by administrators. Many of the governamental agencies are unable to spend for upgrading proprietory GIS software and also lack trained human resource.

So the prevailing scenario is one which shows the need of sustainable GIS. There are many situations which are true to India unlike the developed world.

FOSS GIS to fight corruption: The maxim 'Knowledge is power' is very true in grass route administration. The district administration for example is most important in India. The very able administrators at the top, have to depend on lower level officials for actually running the administrative machine. The lower level officials have all the ground knowledge and any public distribution of funds etc is directly dependant on their efficiency. A corrupt low level official can make a mokery of the most novel of welfare measures. This is where FOSS GIS can help. Among the many possibilities with FOSS GIS, it can be translated to indian languages and customised.

How FOSS GIS can help: District level administrative GIS with all the requisite information can do the trick. Being in their own language, the citizens can in fact correct erroneous data. With this the top administrator can monitor the situation, and so are the benificiaries who can actually see any scheme functioning on a computer screen.

Examples: 1. Ration cards: In India ration cards distribution is vital for giving welfare for the poor. Georeferencing each ration card holder can show their actual spread in various localities such that anamolies can be corrected. If all the ration card addresses are georeferenced, it can be a boon to the administrator thus reducing chances of bogus ration cards and corruption.

2. Water bodies: The water bodies like lakes and ponds etc are desilted every year spending tax payers money. In fact many ponds have become cultivated lands and just do not exist any more. This can be seen by the latest imagery and even better visualised by seeing periodical images showing change. Quite a lot of research material is generated on this but very little of it is for helping administrators, as the test cases mostly canvas use of costly Proprietory GIS.

How Open Source GIS can help Citizens rights: The state of Andhra Pradesh pioneers in E-Seva which is a Governament to Citizen (G2C) concept. E-Seva centres are spread in all the towns and can add GIS terminals using Open Source GIS. Citizens can lodge complaints showing on the map (GIS) sites that require attention from Sanitation to road maintenance etc.

GIS is nothing new but what can be new, is its extensive use for civil administration. Only Open Source GIS can provide extensive use of GIS by administrators cutting down costs. In India GIS initiative is in the hands of academia giving it an aura of high and costly technology. This scene can change for the better with proliferation and mass usage of Free and Open Source GIS.

OSGeo India has done a project for the town of Rajahmundry (presented in FOSS4G2008 http://conference.osgeo.org/index.php/foss4g/2008/paper/view/30/116) involving local students for collecting and analysing data. Now the second phase of this very project will tune it for actual usage and benifit of society, by focusing on themes like, sanitation, water supply, roads and civic ameneties. Hopefully this example will be emulated for societal benifit.

Project GISDA for Pune City: http://pcmcgisda.org.in/technology This is a shining example to emulate in other parts of India. This project uses Open Source software for public administration.

OSGeo-UK : A begining

Open Source Geospatial and The OSGeo Foundation Talk by: Jo Cook, of Oxford Archaeology, 22nd Jan 2009

It is a very nice occasion that a few weeks old OSGeo-UK, has started with a, 'curtain raiser' initiative. The talk covered the OSGeo's aims and goals, along with several other allied topics, like "Overview of the open source geospatial stack and the key packages within it". The material is available at http://www.archaeogeek.com/talks/bcs_talk_jcook_notes.pdf. But for a lack of OS of her choice on the laptop at BCS, Jo could have demonstrated gvSIG using ,openmoko phone, with flexible keyboard, for mobile GIS. Jo, mentioned that there are about 50, members in the OSGeo-UK. There was a mention of the very first conference on 22nd June 2009 at Nottingham (http://cgs.nottingham.ac.uk/~osgis/os_call_showcases.html). The talk also included lighter moments with a mention of, Open Source Beer project 'http://www.opensourcebeerproject.com/', a news to me. The talk ended with a lively discussion. I asked about status of free availability of Geospatial data in the UK, and learned that, is still faraway. I was all the time scribbling notes on a piece of paper, which is actually, a map (google-graphic-dump) of the venue, and a route from Covent-Garden, the tube station. I wondered, is this not free spatial data.. where is the glitch.!! The refreshments were so nicely served that, the talk was slightly delayed for the attendees to finish munching.

'You wont get a cent'

The magic landscape of the Table Mountain welcomed the geologist in me, while the Gandhi in the soul kept my eyes open for anything that can relate to the great man's experiences in this land that made a Mahatma out of a simple law practitioner.

Thanks to the mix up of airport pickups, My arrival was memorable. Coming out of the south African immigration, I searched for the FOSS4G2008 sign, and failed to find any. Squinted at all the Signboards held by persons waiting, to receive various persons. But no sign of my Indian name or OSGeo or FOSS4G2008 appeared. With some hesitation I was at the help desk with my suitcases on toe. The Help-Desk lady called the conference's location, but no one answered. It was 6-30 in the eventing and I was advised to take a taxi to reach the venue, which I eventually agreed after I was assured that the taxi accepts dollar payment too. At the International Convention Center I found the event managers very busy and the lady almost accused me that why I missed the pickup. The lady was so confused that she almost opened a door adjoining the counter she was attending, only to quickly close it after finding that it was actually a fire escape door. The taxi driver was advised to take me to The Fountains Hotel after the event managers gave me an approximate taxi fare of 300 rand. The next morning I returned the unspent amount of 30 rand to the same lady but received no courtesy in the form of 'Thank You' etc. I thought may be this is not reason enough in South Africa.

The conference schedule was so busy that days went like minutes. The Grand Gala dinner at Moyo was wonderful, but I wished the male singer made more of those 'Tongue in Palette', clicking sounds which I understood to be part of African Languages. It is amazing that such large bottoms can make all those wonderful dance movements. Making time for seeing the 'Water Front', and other tourist attractions was quite difficult, and on the last day of my Cape Town Stay, I took the red tourist bus up to the foot hill of the 'Table Mountain', but Alas it was too Windy and the cable car was not functioning, to reach the top of the, 'Table Mountain'.

On the last day of the Conference, to make sure that my pick up transport to the airport is intact, I paid a visit to the reception desk of the event managers. The Lady who paid for my Taxi was there, with her usual frown. 'Will you please make sure that I get my transport to the airport, tomorrow, I am in room number such and so..', I said politely in my in dish English. 'You wont get a cent, If you miss your transport', she admonished. Others in the vicinity could feel the tension in the air, but probably were perplexed to see my broad smile.

I thought to my self, ' You made it Ravi, you made it'. That night alone in my room nursing a glass of red-wine, I wondered, what it must have felt like for Gandhi, when he was thrown out of a train in The Then South Africa. http://www.encounter.co.za/article/112.html The next morning I found the OSGeo RSA organizer, Gaven at breakfast. I called Gaven aside and narrated the incident, but laughed it off when he confessed that the same Lady was worse with him. I will remain thankful to those who event-managed FOSS4G2008 for having made my experience so memorable.

Evangelising FOSS GIS:

After being actively involved with FOSS GIS and OSGeo and OSGeo India in particular, I have realised that the much needed proliferation of FOSS GIS and OSGeo software in the developing world (like India) is quite different to the model followed in the developed world. Even the departments like, 'Geological Survey of India', 'NRSA', pioneering in use of GIS in the country, have several (man made) issues which do not exist in the developed world like USA, Italy, Japan and the rest of Europe. For the OSGeo's gospel to be heard in India and Asia you require someone who knows the ground realities. India is already spending billions to GIS enable its gevernance at various levels. But this sure will be a sad storey, as the data products created may not be used due to lack of licenses of Proprietary software. This will create a vaccuum that can be naturally filled by the usage of OSGeo and FOSS GIS softwares. Indian states like Kerala have officially adopted GNU-Linux as the official Operating System, but with mixed success as far as FOSS GIS is concerned. The very 1st workshop for awareness building had a mixed response, due to some issues with the OS. In Kerala software on GNU-Linux is only acceptable. As Co-Chairman for OSGeo India events, have been going around spreading OSGeo, which is most relevant to Indian conditions. Trying my best to introduce FOSS GIS software in various educational institutions. Spread of FOSS GIS software is very beneficial to INDIA which has scarce funding. Lot of funds are spent for generation of geospatial data through Proprietary software, which then wait in vain for mass utilization for the lack of licenses of Proprietary GIS. Even if a few hundreds of Proprietary licenses are made available they cannot reach the nooks and corners of this vast highly populated country. So OSGeo can workout a GIS solution for India saving funds. There is also a catch-22 situation where students are only interested in learning skills that can land them a job, and FOSS GIS jobs can proliferate with availability skilled GIS personell. This can be solved by OSGeo's involvement by providing much needed encouragement to students. Conducting OSGeo Capacity building workshops and introducing FOSS GIS in curricula also will go a long way in realizing OSGeo's aims.OSGeo can also help customization of FOSS GIS through translation into Indian languages (already being done) and to suite various needs like, Urban town-planning, Policing, Sanitation etc, by roping in educational institutions providing possible research grants.

EVENTS of OSGeo India chapter

January 2007: Free and Open Source Software In Science, 4-6 January, 2007, Union Christian College, Alwaye, Kochi In this programme by a educational institution, the participants were introduced to Free and Open Source GIS software, and the organisations that promote them. A dataset prepared for the city of Hyderabad, using freely available satelite imagery along with freely downloadable SRTM data was demonstrated by V.Ravi Kumar, emphasising FOSS GIS. http://www.space-kerala.org/fsc/index.php/Fsc/FreeAndOpenSourceGIS

The 1st OSGeo-India workshop: The very first OSGeo workshop was held at the Map World Forum, Hyderabad 22-25th January 2007. This well attended event was also participated by OSGeo delegates from China, Vietnam and Japan. http://geospatial.blogs.com/geospatial/2007/01/map_world_forum.html http://www.gisdevelopment.net/magazine/years/2007/march/46.htm http://www.osgeo.org/files/journal/final_pdfs/OSGeo_vol1_Events.pdf

February 2007: National Conference on Biodiversity Conservation and Human Well-Being was organized by Department of Zoology, Osmania University and co-sponsored by SACON Deccan Regional Station, Hyderabad. The conference was held at Osmania University during February 8-10, 2007. SACON conducted a workshop on Wetland Informatics. It was aimed to address some of the issues related to spatial information generation, processing and data base design, dissemination and software development. In this workshop SACON presented Wetlands of India's website and it's future with the extensive use of FOSS tools. V.Ravi Kumar, Joint Secretory OSGeo India Chapter presented about the various FOSS4G's GIS software and their use taking the City of Hyderabad as an example. Prof K.S.Rajan, treasurer of OSGeo India chapter also actively participated in the proceedings. P.K.Sinha and A.V.Satya Kumar demonstrated FOSS GIS by showing OpenJUMP and it's userfriendly capabilities in performing vector GIS tasks like onscreen digitization of raster images to shape file with attribution.

March-2007: National Convention On Free Software, 3rd - 4th of March 2007, Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh included a session on 'Geospatial data'. Dr K.S.Rajan, and V.Ravi Kumar of OSGeo-India chapter, presented 'OSGeo phylosophy', and Open Source GIS alternatives respectively, which was attended by Free Software Foundation (FSF) enthusisasts from around the country. http://www.swecha.org/node/29 Society of Geoinformatics Engineering at Anna University, Chennai, conducted a two-day Geohorizon 2007 symposium (16-17 march 2007). There were four participants from OSGeo India chapter two on each day. Sri Neeraj Deekshith of Autodesk India and Santosh Gaekwad of SACON Hyderabad, presented use of Open Source Geospatial software in their organisations. Mr V.Ravi Kumar, and Mrs Mahalakshmi Narayanan presented 'Open Source GIS Galore', and 'Open Source GIS for web-services' respectively. Santosh Gaikwad presented the use of GeoSever for internet mapping of Wetlands of india. He delievered the SACON's experience while studying GeoServer- a open source server for Web-GIS. Use of Udig and GeoServer for publishing vector or raster maps onto web by storing the spatial data into PostGIS was demonstrated. http://societyofgeoinformaticsengineers.blogspot.com/index.html

May 2007: On 11th May 2007 one day OSGeo-India workshop was held at, 'GIS Development', Noida (Delhi) with participants from the Indian geospatial community. They represented organizations like National Remote Sensing Agency, Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (CDAC), Tata Consultancy Servicesv (TCS), MapInfo, Adroitec, GIS Consortium, Eicher, 5Map, Infosys, Autodesk, National Institute of Health and Family Welfare, and Bharti Vidyapeeth's Institute of Computer Applications and Management (BVICAM). The workshop was opened by OSGeo-India representative Dr P.S.Roy, with an opening remark that,"GIS has emerged as an important technology tool. GIS initiatives need to be upscaled in terms of outreach and this is where OSGeo comes into play." One of the most important objective, from an Indian context, is to convert the free GIS tools like GRASS and MapServer in vernacular languages to form a large interest group. Dr. Roy also elaborated upon some of the noteworthy initiatives taken by organizations in India in the open source domain. V.Ravi kumar, who is a founder member of OSGeo India, spoke about various FOSS GIS like GRASS, Quantum GIS, UDIG, Open Jump available today. The demonstration on 'Locating a Nuclear Power Plant', using Open Jump, was not only interesting but also testified how FOSS GIS can be equally useful as Proprietary GIS softwares. Ravi Kumar also talked in length about utility of FOSS GIS in India. The most pertinent point raised by him was that FOSS GIS is cost effective and can, therefore, become popular in a developing country like India. It can also provide employment through promotion of Village Cadastral GIS where all that one spends on, is a branded computer (available for less than Rs.20,000), as no cost is incurred on the software because it is, free and open. Sridhar Saraswati of Autodesk India, also gave a presentation, which answered a vital question- why is Autodesk supporting free and open source softwares? The reason is that firstly, Autodesk wants a broader adoption of Internet mapping technology and secondly, FOSS would create higher demand for related products. It would also be beneficial for the customers as the frequency of software releases will increase, cost of ownership will come down and there will be more innovation and support for standards. Satyajit Rath from CDAC, Noida presenyted 'CDAC's Initiatives on Open Source GIS'. 'Geospatial Convergence with Open Source' was presented by Amit Jain, of Infosys. The workshop came to an end with the closing remarks by Dr. P.S Roy. He expressed hope that "Proprietary softwares should invest in open source to make it a win-win situation for all." http://www.gisdevelopment.net/magazine/global/2007/june/48.htm

June 2007: The OSGeo-India chapter has conducted it's 1st Capacity building 3 day workshop from 26th to 28th June 2007 at Salim Ali Centre For Ornithology & Natural History (SACON) Hyderabad. The workshop was attended by -18- participants from NIC, NRSA, IIIT, Spec Systems, Army and Survey of India. All the participants were conversant with Proprietary GIS software and were eager to acquaint with FOSS alternatives. The 1st day included demonstration and hands-on practice with OpenJUMP GIS and map composition through Inkscape. The 2nd day was devoted to ILWIS GIS through raster analysis and generation of stereo pair and 3D visualization. The 3rd day was for using GRASS GIS for network analysis and creation of 3D visualisation and fly-bi. The participants were shown how one can join the OSGeo as a member and help spread the awareness. The resource persons were from Geological Survey of India.

July 2007: A two hour lecture come demonstration of 'Open Source GIS GALORE', was presented by V.Ravi Kumar of OSGeo India, for the students of Geoinformatics post graduation course Nannaya University, Rajahmundry on 3rd July 2007. GRASS GIS and OpenJUMP were demonstrated using sample data. The students who could interact well in the question and answer session were presented GRASS6.2 Live CDs.

Link to photos of the above events http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=cjns10h3.batchqkn&x=0&y=o6f4mq