[00:00:00] Narayan: Hi, you're listening to the new space India podcast, a biweekly doc show that exclusively brings insights from the Indian space activities ecosystem. I'm your host nine, the co-founder of India's first space focused think tank spaceport by guests on the new space in depth podcast. Help you understand space activities related macro and micro trends within India in all aspects, including spaces.

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[00:01:00] V S Hegde: satellites.

Uh, nice to be participating in this, uh, very interesting, uh, project started by our dear friends of mine beside and this colleagues, uh, see basically I'm a geologist. I come from a small religion, Western guards, uh, how the privilege of. Becoming the first post graduate in entire grammar, you know, India is made out of 250 grandmas or so I was a first post graduate.

And, uh, why I studied geology is also pretty dressing. When I went to college. When I opted to study geology, the lecturers or teachers were surprised that you can get the physics or mathematics. Why do you want to study geology by the night? I heard that if I secure good, good marks in BSC, [00:02:00] I can get scholarship to study masters.

Otherwise I don't take, my father was in a position to support. So I did well. I got scholarship and came out with first rank with the university. I got too many jobs in Hindustan zinc or in GC state mines and geology department. But then when I studied applied geology, two subjects, Attracted my attention.

A lot. One is photo geology. That is, uh, you know, how do you make sense out of aerial photographs? And another one was airborne geophysics in that there was one section on conducting aerial surveys for mineral exploration. So those two remained in my mind too much, but much, much hesitantly. I joined the state mines and geology department.

I was into groundwater, but interestingly, I was [00:03:00] also greatly attracted to working underground because I had worked at 7,600 feet below the ground in Cola goldmines for a month. So with all this a funny thing, uh, I worked for two weeks in the mindset, geology department Karnataka, and the same time I had one off.

With the national remote sensing agency, that is advertisement number one, but 1975, the first advertisement where they wanted to recruit somebody, such fellows for conducting airborne geophysical service. But I found the offer letter was from Kaveri bourbon in Bangalore. I went and met the director who was sitting here you know, because the contract said you can't publish anything.

You can't reveal what you're doing. I said, then what kind of research fellow you are? I went in, told, he said, this is a new organization going to have a [00:04:00] great future. And we have fire lacks sanctioned by the government. Fire. Lax was a big money for conducting aerial service for mineral exploration and a 1972.

The McPhatter company in Canada had conducted some airborne surveys in different mineral belts of India under a project called operation Hardrock. They had junker those equipments since of the ginger airport and an aircraft, which was mortified for agriculture alleviation

was also available. So, uh, I found it's a very, very challenging offer. So just four guys joined. I was one of those four joined , but then, you know, seeing an aircraft was a thrill and getting the aircraft ready [00:05:00] was a thrill. And, uh, my good colleagues that are not familiar with, uh, writing a letter to a foreigner because we had to write a letter and, you know, anatomy letter, I wrote to some contact in McPhatter company one fine day.

He landed and fixed it up. Okay. Hardly, hardly any aircraft and all other side, we used to see San Diego and flying in Dilley flying club. And this side are beaver flying with some all funny bird. We used to call, you know, the sensor which keeps hanging in all so slowly, slowly, what happened is, uh, nobody was ready to take up Advil navigation.

I was asked, I got ready. I said, I am ready to learn flying on. So I am ready to do navigation also. So I came to Bangalore, took training in research flight, facilitated jail in airborne navigation. I mean, uh, the grandson was a Bombardier [00:06:00] navigator, B 66 Bombardier navigator. He gave me some coaching, so I started navigation flying.

So I flew 250 hours. Uh, nearly 25,000 lane kilometers for middle service in various mineralized belts over India, it was difficult job, but, uh, the, our thing was all for 400 rupees fixed. And then they told me in commander, I want to get out of this. He said, no, no, no, you're being very crucial job. So by the time what happened is we decided to wind up the Lee office and not as the headquarters had come up in Hyderabad.

And when I came to Hyderabad, I got into regular aerial photo interpretation for geology and related aspects. And we also procured when 11 channel Bendix scanner, before that we had a borrowed, uh, C-band Rhoda, you know, [00:07:00] service-y from Canada. We had tried it out. So with Bendix came in the Indo fr.

Collaboration, uh, you know, uh, from free university Berlin, the geologist came with them a B what could and all that. So that was a great thrill, but the significant part, what I feel we did is flying in Western guards for mapping thermal Springs, a project for geological survey for India. Uh, the first two, interesting, it had only one terminal channel as a doctor in that episode would know.

But prior to that, we had a brief stint that these Russians had, uh, given us one, a scanner analog, thermal scanner called . So we had tried with that, but then, uh, you know, being in a log, it didn't give good results, but working with. Uh, Bendix was a [00:08:00] great experience. And what can with the, you know, professor list and his associates from free university, Berlin was marvelous.

They used to participate in the fieldwork call. So now what happened is we found that the bending scanner was, uh, uh, not all the tech work we wanted to buy one. They do less ADM. They do less ad world thematic mapper, which are two middle and fry to thermally infract channels. Now, professor, very good. You can buy, but then you have to make somebody friend so marketing the dealers ATM, you know, eh, and airborne scanner technology was very difficult.

We targeted two people. One was doctor , who was German NOI in GC and was also director at GRI. Another one is. Dr tendon, you know, who was [00:09:00] calling their chairman. So that marketing job was left to me. But fortunately I spoke some good English those days because my father had taken extra care to tutor me with the, when the bash counterpart to my land and then market and grammar.

So, so it was nice. Both of them agreed to fund the scanner. You throw never wanted to pay for that, but they want it to be treated as preferred users. So if they have a request, we are to honor, but, uh, since this is an informal kind of session, what I enjoyed most after making presentation to Dr. , he said, Hey, day, I have listened to you.

I have agreed to partially fund also. So you should treat me with a good dinner. So it was only me. So we went to an hotel in, but they can continue. He said, let's say grilled fish and beer. It was too good. Okay. [00:10:00] So we got Daedalus ATM, but uh, the most significant job we did with Daedelus ATM was, uh, flying or what are the geria and Ronnie going to coal fields.

Uh, basically I'm sharing the firsthand experiences of mine were planning to exertion to interpretation. I was involved, uh, coal fields have lot of, uh, you know, because of the high-grade cooking coal that is underground, uh, fire and the valuable resource gets burned. So thermal sensing was the only way.

So we flew over those areas and we sense the thermal hotspots and, uh, coal India took the quenching operations. Uh, it's it's probably one of the unique studies conducted in the. For mapping underground coal fires and quenching burning coal underground based on [00:11:00] added born a set of ways, edibles, scanners, service, or thermal sensing.

Now, by this time, uh, you know, about 10 years of my career, 75 to 85, 86 were over. But then by 19 83, 1 of the most important things happened because you know, you, we are all aware that, uh, the ERT S one earth resources technology, satellite, or landside one went up in 1972 and in that essay was born for operational remote sensing in 1975, almost contemporary.

So we were getting the analog data image by image frame, you know, for blue, green, red, and near it. Negatives. They have to be registered made into a color composite. It was only 80 meter resolution data. So we were comfortably using that. And professor Devon felt [00:12:00] it is the time we should have the consensus from all the development sectors in the country that is national natural resources management system.

I don't know whether, um, mentioned about it. So we had a national seminar, a unique event in Hyderabad where all the secretaries of developmental departments, but dissipated and we had conducted a good number of, uh, pilot studies. They were presented to them. So it was an animal really agreed that what you, our system called national natural resources management system would be launched in the country.

Now, what it meant is. It is only a consensus by all the development departments, under the chairmanship of deputy chairman planning, commission, government of India, where planning commission should make some funds available to all the [00:13:00] sectors in our agriculture, ruler development, all these kinds of sectors for using remote sensing for national development.

And, and then not a mess, we'll have an effects planning committee of it in mess. It will have some standing committees for each sector. And the members, secretaries of standing committee will be some is throw guy and chairman of standing committee will be secretary to government of India of concern sector.

Okay. We had about eight or nine and I had the good fortune of being member secretary to four of them. So a lot of interaction with Delhi. So what we basically proposed, if I can summarize it slightly. Synthesized, we basically suggest how remote sensing or satellite remote sensing can be used for developmental activities in a sector.

That approach would be clinical [00:14:00] or based on clinical facts are symptomatic and arrive at, or suggest some possible solutions, but stay connected or stay addicted, carry on. So that went on for a long time, um, in long time. So, uh, during the 85 86 timeframe, as I said, I have tried, uh, narrating the first and the S off my life.

They'll know, of course, in between I had a very interesting things. I had a UN fellowship in Adelaide, Australia, uh, where I studied the interpreting ad board magnetic. So, uh, I, I must say that, uh, those days, uh, opportunities were plenty and they were, uh, so good opportunities that they innovate tempted to switch over to the other side.

Also see, when I went to Australia, they offer us soul to stay back. So and so also [00:15:00] at later stages, but somehow is through, was also equally addictive. You know, uh, it was very difficult for me to take a decision whether I should stick with this role or go back, things like that. So, uh, then the game when India, uh, you know, after that basket hiney, all those, when India wanted to embark on a regular operational remote sensing program, of course, as well as operational communication program.

Because by the time, as I told you, national natural resources management system was. Some communication next experiments are made. So, uh, it was time for India to get into the IRS program, Indian remote sensing satellite series. But prior to that, using aerial later airborne scanner data Landsat data, satellite, remote sensing pizza Landsat data.

It was so [00:16:00] household. So, uh, a program called IRS utilization program was launched in their association with concerned state or center, user ministries. So India being a, basically a geological museum, because you'll find the oldest of the rock types are Kian to the most recent. So all geological sequences that are preserved in this subcontinent.

So we pick it up highest number of desks, site, drill test sites in 12 different geological studies. That gave me an opportunity to travelers', uh, LinkedIn breadth of India for ground truth in the name of ground to a lot of time we used to spend in the field. So an interesting thing I want to tell you, because when I was appearing for my B to E DPC [00:17:00] departmental promotion committee, normally, you know, our mentors or bosses or deputy director level people would say make a two page summary and circulated to members.

I made one map, I just made one India map. I just blotted all the project areas where I worked at, where I private first and where all I have conducted, or I have flown for airborne geophysical surveys. I said, sir, this is enough. I made an index. He said, what is this funny thing? Nobody will understand. I said, sir, I feel make them one.

I don't think there is any second person who has seen so much of India by foot. So I just went with, it went dry. Of course it was medic promotion I got through. But a 1986 is a very interesting thing. I was dimension because 86, 85, 86, where CBR drops in large part of India. You know, Maharastra Karnataka reeled [00:18:00] under very, very bad drug.

So 1986, uh, sometime beginning of summer, the then chairman his role was called by the then minister for us. Mr. see, do something to provide drinking water for religious in Mara restaurant. I'll give you one month time. So suddenly we were all summoned in a few geologists from NRSA and SAC. Uh, we've asked someone, then we said we will.

See, what had happened is by that time for any geologist, what made sense from satellite imagery is marking something linear Mets, you know, linear features, lanes, and lines and lines and crisscrossing lines. Every time you see the image, you feel like adding some more lines, but very quickly, we didn't a week's time.

We sat through, we devised a methodology. I was [00:19:00] also at a course called hydro geomorphological approach. See, what is most visible from either aerial photo for the aerial photo becomes too, too much in detail. If you slip slate, your course level, the most striking feature that you see on any space based image is landforms.

You know, the larger terrain features. So we thought we will map all the landforms in geomorphological. We've got landforms that evolved carved due to weather engagements, water after the crest is formed. Right? So if you'll see the magma then comes, the photography then comes further up, further up the weather layer on that soil layer, then vegetation then net MOSFET.

I mean, if you're talking in sense of the broad sense of earth system science, the total thing is an integrated, it's a dynamic system. So map the [00:20:00] landforms that the visibility today, mostly Hills valley slope steady and all that, and evaluate that landform for its groundwater content. So how do you do that?

A landform you can describe in the form of what is the top cover? What is the soil type? What is the kind of runoff? If precipitation happens because groundwater is nothing but the rain water, which has to go and stay and what could it be? Well, Ross city permeability with the area is suitable for that grill or that gumbo or shell or the grill or deep your breath.

So we devised a methodology, which is acceptable to everybody we embarked upon, but then it was not possible for the state government people to make sense. So we accompanied them, we showed, but when you were in the field, there are big issues. You know, if the serpent of a particular village is from upper caste, he will say the [00:21:00] Bordwell has to be in, in front of my house because anybody had to, everybody can't touch that, but we had to convince them, look, this is out of government when it is for everybody.

So tens of thousands of board Wells were drilled in Marvista religious, which was followed by a similar approach for Karnataka. Now this was a precursor. And let me also tell you the funny thing. We were not able to go home and take, but also quite a few of us grew beard. Okay. So I also had no time to share 1986 Vimeo in day and night for providing drinking water in the religious.

I grew beer after that, they never shield. I retained it. Okay. So then game a, you must have heard about the fire technology missions, which India launched the Sam Patrola was the [00:22:00] adviser and drinking water was also one of them. It was the telecom technology game, literacy, vaccination, that immunization then drinking water.

So national drinking water mission was launched. And we had the approach. We had success rate, we have proven everything. So, uh, we took Countrywide mapping then subsequently during. But by Stein, they wanted the groundwater recharge also to be insured. So identify each other structure, but then we have to solve problems for arsenic contamination, fluoride, iron, the mobile.

So all agencies gaming and it was a great, great national moment because these are the kinds of projects which made India a leader in remote sensing applications. So, uh, and, uh, [00:23:00] one of the key things under, uh, in an RMS national natural source management system was also to ensure that all the states will set up their own remote sensing application centers.

So the first one was a triple dish. There was one professor Chaturvedi from. Uh, uh, he, he struggled to establish the first one. There was no entry for anybody. So the second one was Mara Astra. I tried going, but they said you are a bit junior, some senior colleague of mine giant. The turtle was a hundred per dish.

I applied again, heck day, you make a very good candidate for the problem is the north things in state government. How to be in Telegu. You don't not tell a photo Scotland Arctica there were 12, 13 people. I played. I got it because I could write [00:24:00] Canada and, uh, okay. I was fairly good enough. So 89 to 97, I was the founder director of the Karnataka state remote sensing center.

And we did a lot of interesting projects, but one of the most significant project we did again in one month is alignment of Bangalore. Outrageous. So it was a 62 kilometer kind of ring road in three stretches. They were not able to implement because wherever they try to align, people will make some hearts and create a record that, that heart is there for several years.

And, uh, Bangalore development authority could never acquire that land. So within one month you should be able to tell what is that in the corridor and what is created overnight. And also they wanted to give the broad alignment itself. So in [00:25:00] fact, uh, it was so interesting. I didn't know anything about highway alignment.

So I went to Tata Institute and believe me, you're, you're all aware. Internet was not there today. You can Google and find a lot of things. So I took one civilly, but how to, how to align the road, you know? Okay. Line of sight, you should be able to see as far as possible, it should be straight and. Ups and downs should be minimum cutoff should be minimum, all such basic facts.

So we did the alignment, uh, for Bangalore ring road. I led the team and it was a highly satisfying project. And that time it was a trendsetter project in India. Uh, several newspapers, several local national, all quoted there and BDA choir. And there was a great, uh, sidekick out of that. So you throw employees that made one housing society about a hundred acres and thousand sites really of was not clearing it because [00:26:00] there were a lot of lacuna because it's through people think that they know everything and they plan the layout the way they weren't, or these are the Hegra day.

Why don't you help us? I said that Goodwill like created by aligning the ring road was good enough for BDA to clear that whole site layout overnight. So, of course, these guys facilitated Phyllis dated me on live at the bookend Albert network, give me a free site. Okay. So that is all the, uh, funny story.

But then, uh, but what happened is two by two years, I was a bit tired in state government because what culture in state is very different, it is very slow. Uh, I must tell you one very funny thing. See, I had some, uh, optical equipment to analyze the remote sensing data. I had to set up the center in a dusty place.

I wanted a vacuum cleaner, heavy duty [00:27:00] now, heavy duty vacuum cleaner. What a remote sensing lab. They never understood the file of Roundup printer. I mean, briefly I have to mentioned the difficulties of working in Indian system. Then somebody told me, refer that matter to kg, CC Karnataka, government, computer, say.

Who are the ones to advise on how to maintain computer system equipments are now he was a good friend of mine director. I thought he would simply say yes, incentive in equality, quality and shouted at me. KDCC Karnataka government computer center is meant for guiding government departments to bike computers, not vacuum cleaners.

Uh, see, but then, uh, how will you break your head? I mean, these were certain are things. I got tired. I went back, I went and talked to so that I want to get back he's okay, come [00:28:00] back. Yes, sir. After my two year storm was over, I went back to Hyderabad the after week. I got a call. Hey, today. I think you forgot what I told you.

So you had told me, come back. I told you to come back now what y'all gone back, but. So once again, you know, shifting my son's school and it's difficult, but, uh, I came back no coming back with significant because the real art submitted just happened and a professor wanted to initiate a program on sustainable development, uh, off watersheds.

Okay. What should means, you know, they given the area from where the water drains out of a single point because morphologically watershed is considered as this small list development unit for natural sources because it is anyway, it's [00:29:00] not a valid approach today. And, uh, whatever it is, so sustainable development, we wanted to launch in all the critical districts of India, nearly 175 districts out of 600 districts of the country where.

And, uh, I was also fortunate to be a tick part of making presentation to Dr. Pranab Mukherjee, who was a deputy chairman planning commission. And, uh, we also had to convince the, the then prime minister, we were in a similar, because it was a unique project of its kind. And we launched it that again, same thing, we map all the different natural resources available, uh, or natural resources as the street in a given district or a given watershed and deduce local specific action plants means in terms of this parcel of [00:30:00] land requires soil conservation.

This parcel of land is good enough for growing for the, that patch of land is good for. Literally agriculture horticulture or agro horticulture or regroup, uh, uh, what they were, you know, multi crop or whatever, depending on slope, uh, the water availability, the soil characteristics, the underlying weather column, various things.

Okay. And also the consumption pattern. So we integrated social economic data as well. You know, what is the livelihood of the people living in the watersheds and all that. But, uh, subsequently I once argued with , uh, this concept is not, uh, correct because the watershed can never be made sustainable. He was not [00:31:00] comfortable.

Then I told him that, uh, you know, there is lot of iron load mining that goes on in or Western guards. You'd causes environmental degradation in Western gods of India, but economic prosperity happens either in Iran or Japan. Right. So today's sustainability. The moment you bring in socio-economic aspects, these gradable across continents also today in south India, people eat wheat.

Okay. Are, I mean, so it's sustainability is linked to many things today. I mean, uh, okay. The gloss or productivity, the consumption pattern, the requirement. I mean, everything comes in. Okay. So anyway, that was a great project at that point of time. Uh, and, uh, when we took up various [00:32:00] projects, uh, subsequently I was also project director for one heli district.

You know, Neil Gary's Neil Gary's had a big. You know, it's a nice green district, but then it is extremely important for slope based zonation of land use. Say zero to 10 degrees. Slope is good for a vegetable growing or horticulture in that area and say 10 to 30 degree, it should be mixed, but mostly the steep plantation that about 30 degrees.

It should be necessarily forest. But today, I don't know. You must have many of you must have gone to ODI or wherever from valley to top. You know, they have gone for plantation through ages, but the valleys will get affected by frostbite. The middle slopes will go a lot of landslides, a lot of degradation.

So, uh, we adopted something in line with the USDA [00:33:00] classification, uh, the United States department of agriculture classification. Slow based on nation of land use. It was a great success story. I must mention that Laura, prior to, because after that planning commission increased allocation to Neil Gary's district and also Tor such approach should be adopted to every hill district of the country.

And in the process, became the first district in the country to have their own remote sensing cell, the district remote sensing self. Uh, so, uh, I mean, uh, and another very, uh, important thing I wish to recall is say when I was in Karnataka, Karnataka government was giving, uh, licensed a lot of polluting industries.

So distilleries, you know, mostly and who see molasses business Laureus, who [00:34:00] ended up discharging. A lot of effluent with high biochemical oxygen demand already content into the system. Now that is not only rich with the lignin and caramel color, but it is also a great pollutant, can all with high bot content.

So I had dork, Antarctica government, the pollution control people. Satellite imagery helps you in understanding the groundwater regime in the area where you want to discharge a fluency. You may discharge for irrigation, there's a good manual, but then it's boys. The groundwater, you know, Bordwell water will come out with Coca Cola color.

So, uh, we did a lot of projects to understand the possibility of pollution due to, uh, this kind of effluent, discharge, and [00:35:00] subsequently. It triggered a huge project, national deliberate action plan action plan action plan, you know, gap. So we really scaled up, scaled up, scaled up the national level. And, uh, you must be aware of the national deliberate action plan or government of India.

What they did is along the river banks say whether it is Gunga or Yemen or whatever, all the polluting industries, whether tanneries or other polluting industries, which are those points where the pollutant enters the rework, so catch all of them and make those industries street, you know, in that national environment system, it must have hurt.

Uh, it gave more subsequently of course, India took the help of, uh, French government and action plan. But, uh, I mean, ganjas in the. [00:36:00] glitch now almost all major. He was, it opted this strategy, but then everything starts in a small way. Okay. We have to be able to start somewhere like, uh, you know, the urban infrastructure projects, which my other colleagues worked.

I am focusing on basically, uh, what, uh, uh, what I did to directly I was involved then, uh, in the same, uh, in the same time and other very interesting things, you know, because India is also a highly disaster prone country, you know, uh, Irish dimension about just a couple of projects. One thing is when, uh, when, uh, the COSI, uh, river breach happened, you know, C it was a bad age, which breached in Nearpod.

[00:37:00] So, uh, suddenly the inflow into the Swan river basin, quasi increased and, uh, and we didn't know the costs. Okay. So satellite image indicated that, uh, that is probably a breach, which is dangerous. So they would not, uh, uh, we approached, uh, through ministry of external affairs, uh, Nepal, government, they, they said, no, we won't give you permission to overfly our area.

Uh, we had that

but, uh, it's take, it's a big procedure, you know, we wouldn't take so long. And I don't know if you people have seen the, uh, satellite picture of Indo Gangetic LVL plane, especially, you know, song COSI cozy. Kinko's is so further up. It is also tectonic. Yeah. Active area. So one [00:38:00] thing is that terrain is flat.

It is mature terrain in geological terms of geomorphological terms, we call it as the terrain, which has reached base a level of erosion. So a river cannot erode their terrain anymore. Then what happens? They will start swinging. Now when the river starts swinging, it would have meandered. Some of the meanders will be cutoff.

Some Oxbow kind lakes will be formed and all that. But if this kind of terrain is further trigger from underground near tectonic activity, that he was seeing like pendulum. Okay. So when the breach has happened, upstream, all the earliest streams, which are not active today, we call it as ephemeral streams will get flooded with.

And just imagine about 500,000 fire lack people were to be evacuated, but to [00:39:00] understand the serious of the seriousness of the problem. By the time I was director of the disaster management project in Israel. So we flew, we flew with because it looks sideways now 42 degree off. So we flew along the border, but we look at the other side in Napa, we understood the is really serious.

Then we acquired of course, high resolution, satellite images. We understood the nature of it, but the beauty is Mr. . The other was the chief minister with great difficulty. We convinced them matter is extremely serious. You have to evacuate people from all these villages and they successfully evacuate. We had a fight, black people who would have any trouble casualties, or we run a bit tough.

Livestock was bad [00:40:00] minimum and enter. The interesting story of the kind is buddy. Julie, have you heard about it? I don't know. See, uh, it is a lake in the debug region, uh, occupied by China, same thing, one, one a day. Suddenly the NAFTA jaggery power plant, which is down below in India, the satellites basin, they call the Kuno dirty waters entering the turbine.

We have to shut down the power plant. We didn't know. We took the satellite image, you know, IRS Whitefield, uh, sensory image. We've seen major as we call. And we found that there is a small glacial lake, which has burst, you know, due to landslide, glacier lake. Block actually a glacier lake was formed such lik skip for me, but that was breaching.

And certainly, you know, NAF digest report plan, Gord, [00:41:00] dirty waters, muddy waters. Okay. That wasn't a shutdown. But then we had to monitor that and approach foreign ministry. They discussed with the counterparts in China saying, I said, you guys don't come, we will breach it in a controlled manner. So, uh, we not only say people down the line, we sailed back NAFTA, Jack or plant also.

And, uh, you'll see. I mean, uh, the, this is called, you know, the remote sensing based, uh, diplomacy and which did good for India and the Chinese authorities, Chinese experts breached it in a controlled manner. So now routinely we monitored all the glacial lakes in the upstream. I mean, NRDC does it operationally.

So, uh, I'm in, uh, a lot of, uh, interesting things of this type. I, I would like to mention just two more [00:42:00] anecdotes as to be more down the line, because I was more into more due to applications or observation and, uh, and which are more societal in nature. So we, we, by the time my colleagues had also, uh, I mean, they, they also did models projects.

One of the wonderful projects we did is the biodiversity characterization of the entire, you know, Western guard, CSUN, godson island territory and Mullin region, which of course my colleagues did. I was only coordinating because I was in headquarters. I was the deputy director in charge of applications in the program office.

And, uh, you may be aware that, uh, during the. The earlier regime of NDA and trimester, which by was there Mr. Modeling on the radio, she was the minister for science and technology. There started something called JV, JV gun, national [00:43:00] technology mission. So under that they had a special concentration for island territory.

Also, I was working in, uh, undermine Nicobar islands, uh, basically, uh, creating an information base, setting up a geospatial database and also see how best we can help the island people and the Monaco, but islands, you know? So, uh, one, Mr. And then the job foreign service person. I think his last posting was ambassador at, in Sri Lanka.

He was the left-hand governor bet. So when we were discussing and anybody goes from mainland, you know, uh, I must also tell you, uh, when the fever went to North Korea, The chief engineer, we are having some discussion with chief engineer. He will immediately call, send the executive engineers, sprinting engineer.

Some scientists from India have come [00:44:00] in money, Moneyball. Okay. Those who go from mainland, not from India, they had that Northeast. So, uh, at the one was not so bad. So Mr. And then Jack told me a very interesting story. He said, uh, see, mistake, Dave, you have only one referral hospital here. There are some doctors, but they are not specialists.

We have an arrangement with the Calcutta, uh, coachee and, uh, and some, two or three hospitals, not Germany, Sweden, Chandra, see any critic, any patient of the island needing critical health care. And the man administration gives them one. The only criteria ICS drive a ration card is really resident of islands.

Now he said a C, there is only one flight per day. And sometimes if the stretcher patient, they say sitting patient and stretch a [00:45:00] patient, that is the language they use. We have to remove eight seats in the aircraft. Under eight people will be offloaded and they don't know when they will be able to fly back.

So is that anything you guys can do by the time I had heard of telemedicine, I said, we will do telemedicine. Very good. We will do telemedicine. So, uh, so if you set up some telemedicine facilities basically reset based low bit rate connectivity with wherein, especially this doctor could have videoconferencing with the patient along with the local doctor or local healthcare worker and give some.

And medical records could be transmitted live across. So that, uh, that is available to the specialist doctor. I mean, a very simple way. So starting with the, on the manual, what I, Lance, which was, uh, [00:46:00] inaugurated by none other than the then prime minister of India, I must probably say that was my project.

And subsequently we scaled it up. We scaled it up so much that, uh, at one point of time we were the largest satellite based a delimited in network in the world with about 370 north, about 60 super specialty hospitals, whether you say Tata Memorial cancer, it's the hospital or forties or whatever in all hospitals.

And then we took it down to states. Federal Nautica set. These seven states, you know, under the, uh, United nations, they did a health system, developing projects. Some states got big funds also, but everywhere, we made sure that they respected chief ministers, inaugurating[00:47:00]

Georgie like that. You know, it was a big, fun a game. And, uh, you know, I enjoy traveling, meeting these people, you know, the politicians or bureaucrats, all the sport, you know, this, uh, telemedicine subsequently what happened is the, the regular telephone line BSN. They also started a so-called broadband. So when broadband connectivity came in, of course we have been giving, uh, satellite bandwidth, uh, free of cost for societal costs.

Uh, uh, I mean, at the, at the epics, the best time we had to put about eight transponders of 36 megahertz, each for societal use on which the telemedicine, tele education and religious or centers programs for running I'll come to religious or centers. So, uh, now telemedicine is continuing in, [00:48:00] uh, say, uh, the border areas, our defense telemedicine network is the largest.

Now a lot of military hospitals, and they also extend healthcare. The military hospitals in border areas, extern healthcare to the local lights. Also there, uh, they don't differentiate any border fellow working in the treat. So there, and, uh, and Dr. Calum wanted that, uh, we help, uh, Afghanistan. We help Africa with telemedicine, uh, it all proliferated, but my different colleagues to.

And, uh, and other followed up, this is, uh, when, uh, the national disaster management authority came in because of, uh, you know, lot to earthquake the catcher quick. And, uh, I'm sure that everyone is aware that, uh, after the, uh, Kobe earthquake, [00:49:00] the Sendai framework and almost concurrently was the, uh, the New York art summit, Reno Rio, plus 10 plus 20, the hopeless 10, probably everything got aligned, you know, the, the sustainable development motored by you and during the Rio summit, further refined during the New York, uh, convention got merged with the Sendai framework.

And at the international level, the sustainable development goals also engulfed the mainstreaming of the disaster risk reduction or mitigation. So with that, uh, India also, India has been extremely responsive. So they started the national disaster management authority with the general vis as the chairman.

So we set up a separate database for them and, uh, we set up, [00:50:00] uh, several disaster control rooms, you know, the India mythological department, geological survey, central water commission, settled water commission for floods, geological survey for earthquake landslide, and, uh, somebody else for forest fire. I mean all these, uh, national control rooms, including BMR and cabinet, secretary eight, we connected with the state disaster controlled room.

Again, as a societal projects where we gave satellite bandwidth free, we set up the facility free. And of course, as the time moved, they have done the right thing. They have switched over to either fiber optical, fiber or other broadband means. And beside is also that as redundancy it around this time, there was a great demand to reach of the villages with connectivity deals.

So we set up village resource centers, you know, we had, uh, [00:51:00] 470 plus village resource centers with, we worked with 40 NGOs for zero and we connected, uh, we gave a connectivity to a lot of, lot of, uh, religious in 22 states and all the islands. That was a unique project. And, uh, I mean that in, I slowly got into the communication application site or.

Uh, we are in the red lot of new technologies, you know, eh, a wll or a small visa working as a wifi hub along the wifi hub, you can have hundreds of connectivities going down and a lot of mobile Vance carrying knowledge, as well as healthcare facilities to religious. In fact, uh, uh, we are all aware that even during this recent Corona pandemic, this technology, what could very well, one of the most successful stories comes from, uh, Malaysia where some Tycon [00:52:00] capacity was used to drop a local wifi hub and at our own, which warned track all effected patients and, uh, give them treatment or give them vaccine.

And then in their online. So beautiful. Uh, I mean, these are all in the public domain today. Uh, I think I covered a lot of interesting things, but, but not do I also have really, uh, some regret that, you know, one of the, one of the great blueprints we have tried to make was, uh, you know, it was, uh, during prime minister, but by Stein, interlinking of it was, you know, country had launched, uh, on golden quarter lateral, not so high highways.

And also there was a great project for interlink Nico. He was saw that the excess water flood water gets diverted to, you know, some of that it [00:53:00] was so that flood is avoided in certain regions and certain dry areas, get water and end route, lot of bloody tanks and all will be de silted failed. And it's a great project, but I, I wish someday.

Embarks on that. Uh, see we did the country reverse could be nationalized because there are a lot of disputes, a controversial topic. I don't want to talk much, but then it was a great visionary plan of government. But my take on the whole story was, uh, to gain consensus how remote sensing could help. I had the good opportunity of alone.

Single-handedly making presentation to Manmohan Singh, who was opposition leader, then Pronamel Koji and, uh, and you know, a lot of big leaders and also to Dr. Callum, who was the sitting president [00:54:00] and to all the industry, tycoons like data, somebody. I thought that was in Dodge with a live Mumbai. So, uh, really to gain consensus how effectively remote sensing can help in planning, implementation, and monitoring.

So I was okay. Doing background work is one thing, but, uh, to work and make presentation to all these people is different. So that way I was fortunate, I think maybe I'll take the last five minutes of my, uh, interaction in this. Uh, of course, uh, I mean, uh, 10 years ago I was a director for the earth observation program, disaster management support program and the lead for focused societal applications in 13 states and UTS in the country, all through regular official arraignments.[00:55:00]

And, uh, with all these, uh, I also, uh, Got into little program management side, more formally as scientific secretary. So, you know, who takes care of, uh, what all program budget, manpower, and a bit of administrative activities, and more than anything else, the main interface with deli on the parliament mattress and all that.

And in that position, I also had good opportunity of, uh, uh, w going to UN office of auto space, UN OSA, you know, yearly twice as a delegation. And, uh, I had the good fortune of, uh, becoming elected vice president or vice president of international smart Federation for two terms. And, uh, I also had the good time of, uh, you know, one of the founder members of molding the Sentinel Asia project, which [00:56:00] was Jackson.

Chatting database for the Asia Pacific region. I mean, a lot of opportunities came my way. I mean, as a geologist, uh, are definitely throw us indeed create and it's throw is working it most, very new. So of course of late, it turned a bit bureaucratic, uh, which normally happens with the organization aging, but still you throw has been really infectious as for the same concern.

But then I taught, uh, sometime before I call it a day, I must get into some executive position. So there was only one very difficult optional position available because, uh, the entry Scott operationally throws commercial alarm. Okay. It had run through a little difficult time, but, uh, there was an opening I accepted to go as chairman and the managing director of entry.

In the [00:57:00] 2011 after all this stint, because from regular distro, I wanted to have a taste of being an executer though. It is, it is a commercial arm, but, uh, it was a wonderful for me to get exposed to judiciary legal system coordinating and being tightly pray about everything because in Israel, we all speak a hell of a lot.

So I ordered a position, very ought to be tight lifted about the auto market. But, uh, it was, uh, I mean, uh, business-wise, it was a great time, you know, that is where I interacted with the forthcoming, interacted quite a lot with us. Um, but, uh, they could have done better out of it because he was coming with a lot of technologies, miniaturize based system subsystem.

But are all believed in all the big satellites [00:58:00] even today, we believe in something looking big. Uh, so what happened is, uh, during my time in enterics, uh, we were able to market the ocean color data to, to European countries, to customers, UK SLS, uh, uh, Euro map, GAF, Germany, uh, we could, uh, market or see bantered our data to KSA Norway.

And the most satisfying thing has been, uh, image difficult times. We could start one new word. We go, there was a great demand for launching small satellites. So that were tickle. I started seeing today, uh, during my time I signed agreements with, uh, say 21 countries launched a little less than a hundred satellites, but when I was CMD city, But subsequently I think, uh, I [00:59:00] had concluded contracts for about two 50 satellites or so today the score is nearly three 50 satellites from 32 countries.

And it is all, of course, all credit goes to PSLV the versatility, but a lot of changes have come in that segment because we used to batch variable. It is possible within the payload fairing volume, but today there are beautiful dispensers. You throw the dispenser out rest is taken care. So, uh, I think I, I left, uh, my active life in Israel with a great, great satisfaction that, uh, and bricks imaged difficult times.

I would take the company's revenue from 1000 to 2000 gross. Be once again, uh, branded or rebranded entry six. See if you are aware at one point of time, And us known globally for IRS drone stations, [01:00:00] Indian remote sensing, satellite ground stations. We had done it with a business partner, your set of us.

Then, uh, we came out of that. We, we get more of the exclusivity. We started marketing, remote sensing data. I was sales, but like, no, that is a depletion of, uh, dispersed assets in that segment. But the launch service is going great guns. We still have a lot of active contracts and, uh, uh, and, uh, that's it. But of course I could have stayed probably with Maria, but that night thought enough.

But, uh, after my retirement, I continued another four years as advisor and cumulatively. I ended up working 45 years and two months in Israel. So. If somebody says, you know, you had a long career in Israel. I always say I had long [01:01:00] life in Israel, your sore carrier for me, it's life. So, uh, I mean, uh, I must say that as a geologist, the kind of opportunities you throw gave me unbelievable.

And, uh, life is stuff. Of course. See if you, if you have to be, if you have to be active, if you have to be in limelight, if you weren't an identity, it is that you did a lot of struggle, but, uh, it was worth it. I had great time because okay. Going to be 70 soon, but, uh, living without any ailments and still I'm able to recall a lot of things that speak.

I think really it goes to his throat, not to me. Good day. Thank you so much. It has been great in track.

[01:01:56] Narayan: Thank you for listening in to this episode of the new space in debt podcast. [01:02:00] If you enjoyed this conversation, please share this episode with anyone you believe will enjoy listening to it. You'll be able to find the new space in your podcast, in any of the podcasting platforms that you may be using, including apple, Google, Spotify, YouTube, and others do subscribe to the podcast in case you want to receive new episodes automatically.

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