India: The inaugural session of 38th INCA International Congress on Emerging Technologies in Cartography was held on 29-October-2018 at Hotel Taj Deccan, Hyderabad. More than 350 delegates participated in the session. Dr Shailendra Kumar Joshi, IAS, Chief Secretary, Govt. of Telangana was the Chief Guest of the inaugural session.
Mr Uday Raj, Chairman, Local Organising Committee (LOC) welcomed all the delegates and briefly introduced about the Congress, giving details on technical sessions planned covering different technologies of digital cartography, research papers submitted and invited lectures planned over three days. He also outlined the efforts put by LOC in making all the conference processes online, to make delegates’ experience better.
Mr Santanu Chowdhury, Director, NRSC in his opening remarks provided insight on ISRO’s current and future satellite missions supporting cartography and its application. He also provided details on NRSC’s contribution for various ministries and departments to adopt geospatial technology applications for better management of natural resources and improved governance.
Lt General Girish Kumar, VSM, Surveyor General of India during his special address reiterated the importance of digital cartography in the current scenario of topographical mapping. He explained various services offered by Survey of India and informed that they have created reference frames, both for planimetry and height. He also added that for 35% of the country’s geographical area, geoid with an accuracy of 10cm is available and can be shared with authorized users.
Dr P G Diwakar, Director, EDPO, representing ISRO HQ, in his address, explained the role of technology & gadgets in the day-to-day life, the role of cartography in Location Based Service (LBS) and being updated with the latest technology like cloud computing, big data management and analytics. He also stated that vast data from different platforms like UAV, drone, aerial and satellite through more challenges in data consumption and data analytics.
Mr V Raghu Venkataraman, President, Indian National Cartographic Association (INCA) during his presidential address briefly explained the history of cartography and emphasized that this congress is addressing on how the suite of space technology, digital technology and mobile technology leads to the recent development of cartography.
Dr Shailendra Kumar Joshi, IAS, Chief Secretary, Govt. of Telangana, during his address, emphasized the importance of digital cartography and geospatial technologies for the society and governance. He explained how the Government of Telangana has adopted these technologies with the help of NRSC/ISRO for improved water management, tax collection, traffic management and various other g-Governance applications. Telangana government is looking forward to work with central organizations & stakeholders.
During the inaugural session, a souvenir was released, which contained abstracts of all the papers presented in the conference. The recent edition of “Indian Cartographer”, which contains the full paper presented during the 37th INCA congress held last year was also released during the session. The winners of the National Map Quiz and Braille Map Quiz 2018 organized by INCA were also felicitated during the inaugural session.
The 38th INCA Congress also has organized an exhibition on geospatial products & services. More than 20 institutions representing primary data providers, field instrumentation and drone & UAVs are participating in this exhibition.
