In an interview with Geospatial World, Lieutenant General Vinod G. Khandare, PVSM, AVSM, SM, Former Officer, the Indian Army; and Principal Adviser, Ministry of Defence, speaks about the need for GeoIntelligence strategy in the Indo-Pacific region.

Where geospatial information is needed the most today?

The most important requirement today is to make students understand technology in our schools or colleges. Whatever is taught is possibly the fundamental issue about technology.

But conferences, seminars, or closed-door ideating sessions, can explain to people the difference between theoretical technology and technology applications. The geospatial applications are used in everyone’s daily life.

Take an example of the nodal ministry, or the Science and Technology Ministry, but practically every ministry and every department is capable and they should use geospatial technology.

What is the need for geo-intelligence strategy in the Indo-Pacific region?

The term Indo-Pacific was coined because of the geopolitical order of the world, as President Obama used to say, “Asia is the pivot now”. So the entire emphasis has shifted towards the Indo-Pacific region.

There are many reasons for it, whether it is the revisionist China coming ahead and threatening Taiwan the Southeast Asian nations or the ASEAN nations questioning the authority of international conventions.

There is a challenge to the world order, and this challenge happens to be coming out of the Indo-Pacific region. In addition, this region has more than 50% of the population, and nearly 90% of the world trade going through this, possibly the future of the world to a large extent, rests on the Indo-Pacific.

And to be able to do well or to survive in this area, you need information. And geospatial technology or geospatial intelligence is one of the primary means today, space being the high ground. Now you can see everything, if there is any suspicious activity going on or if there is suspicious presence, or suspicious movement in that area. All that comes beautifully from the geospatial technology.

What is the role of geospatial technology in defence ground?

In defence services, whichever be the service, Air Force, Navy or Army, information is the most important thing. Information gets collected using various sensors, whether it is a human sensor or it is an imagery sensor, or it is something that picks up your radar activity. All that is information, but that has to be analyzed.

And then assessments come out, and that is called the intelligence. Geospatial technology gives you an overview of where all kinds of intelligence get fixed. Say if you pick up from a sensor or radar, but what does your satellite imagery give you? It gets corroborated. If you pick up, from human intelligence that there has been a movement of military vehicles, what does the geospatial intelligence tell you? Does it corroborate or it doesn’t corroborate?

So to that extent, I think there is a strong presence of geospatial technology to corroborate what other sensors are telling you.