Sam Pitroda to launch India biodiversity portal - PFA Haryana
Naresh Kadyan, Representative of OIPA in India | 16.12.2008 07:24
A week from now, you can check in to a one-stop warehouse of information on India's biodiversity - generally, short for biological diversity - at the click of a mouse: the India Biodiversity Portal (IBP) will be launched in Bangalore on Monday by National Knowledge Commission (NKC) chairman Sam Pitroda.
City ornithologist (bird specialist) M.B. Krishna told India Today that such biodiversity portals are common in the developed nations because they are a storehouse of information for the common public. India his home to a high level of biodiversity; it is one of the 17 mega diverse countries and includes four of the 34 global hotspots of biodiversity.
"It is a good initiative here in our country because there is no one place where a storehouse of knowledge can be shared by others," says Krishna, who has a PhD in ornithology from Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. "Am glad that some private and government institutions have come together to launch this portal that will hopefully serve the lay public and quench their thirst for knowledge. I hope a large number of government research institutions and universities will farm out their studies or research for the benefit of the masses. Knowledge has to be shared."
Others say that the central government, by default, should have launched something like this many years ago but as always it is better late than never.
According to the lead agency involved in the launch of the portal, the IBP "seeks to host information on various aspects of biodiversity in India and is designed to harness collective knowledge, seek voluntary participation of users and establish a participatory platform for content generation, verification and usage." The idea is also to mobilise a collaborative community that will build high quality map based multimedia information on India's biodiversity.
The portal has been created by a team led by conservation science research institution Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE) using open-source software.
ATREE was set up in 1996 to address, among other key issues, the degradation and rapid loss of India's biological resources and natural ecosystems. Its founder Professor Kamal Bawa will introduce the portal at the December 15 launch in the city.
Other institutions involved in the IBP plan include Agharkar Research Institute and National Chemicals Lab in Pune, Foundation for Ecological Security, Anand; French Institute of Pondicherry; Nature Conservation Foundation, Mysore; and Foundation for the Revitalisation of Local Health Traditions, National Centre for Biological Sciences, University of Agricultural Sciences and Wildlife Conservation Society and ATREE, all based in Bangalore.
Over the last few months the portal has been seeded with data collated by the partners involved in its founding. Data are spatially referenced and organised into layers. Maps are organized-at the national scale, some basal maps provide the background for biodiversity; at the local level-there is geo-referenced information, biodiversity information on local geographies. These are just indicative layers to show the possibilities and the potential of the portal.
Enjoy looking into the biological diversity of the area of your interest within India. Join the community and provide information on the biodiversity of your neighborhood. We are hoping that in due course we will have sufficient information based on widespread participation to provide information related to your neighborhoods. We hope these initial seeds will evolve into large flowering trees and then into a diverse forest.
Ravi Chellam, adjunct senior fellow at ATREE and India director for Wildlife Conservation Programme, says the IBP idea has multiple origins and it was all brought together in discussions that were held in Bangalore a few years ago with IISc ecologist Madhav Gadgil, University of Agricultural Sciences professor K.N. Ganeshaiah, scientist Darshan Shankar and ATREE founder Kamal Bawa as the main movers of this idea.
They decided to send a unified proposal to the National Knowledge Commission, which after some clarifications in approved the joint proposal in mid-2007; the inaugural national workshop was held in October 2008 by the NKC.
"The IBP is an important step in aggregating and sharing high quality map-based biodiversity data in the public domain through the internet. The portal is designed to facilitate widespread participation in all aspects of the design and management of the portal. The NKC endorsed initiative is managed by multiple institutions with ATREE taking the lead in this," says Chellam, adding that the NKC wants this initiative to be strongly rooted in the civil society and non-governmental space. The National Remote Sensing Agency has also chipped in to help IBP.
Satyanarayan Gangaram Pitroda - better known as Sam Pitroda - holds many key technology patents and had been a successful entrepreneur in the US until Indira Gandhi called him in 1984 to pioneer a telecom revolution in India.
Rajiv Gandhi also made him the head of the telecom commission and more recently, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, asked him to head the NKC whose key objective is to transform India into a knowledge based society.
As Prime Minister Dr Singh had put it, "the time has come to create a second wave of institution building and of excellence in the field of education, research and capability building so that we are better prepared for the 21st century."
The commission was set up in June 2005 with a time of three years October 2005-October 2008. As a high-level policy making body under the prime minister, it has been given a mandate to guide policy and direct reforms, focusing on certain key areas such as education, science and technology, agriculture, industry, e-governance etc.
Easy access to knowledge, creation and preservation of knowledge systems, dissemination of knowledge and better knowledge services are core concerns of the commission.
The IBP is one of those objectives that Dr Pitroda's body would have helped achieve and something that might find a mention when he launches the information portal coming Monday in Bangalore.
Source -
http://indiatoday.digitaltoday.in/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=22473§ionid=4&issueid=83&Itemid=1
City ornithologist (bird specialist) M.B. Krishna told India Today that such biodiversity portals are common in the developed nations because they are a storehouse of information for the common public. India his home to a high level of biodiversity; it is one of the 17 mega diverse countries and includes four of the 34 global hotspots of biodiversity.
"It is a good initiative here in our country because there is no one place where a storehouse of knowledge can be shared by others," says Krishna, who has a PhD in ornithology from Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. "Am glad that some private and government institutions have come together to launch this portal that will hopefully serve the lay public and quench their thirst for knowledge. I hope a large number of government research institutions and universities will farm out their studies or research for the benefit of the masses. Knowledge has to be shared."
Others say that the central government, by default, should have launched something like this many years ago but as always it is better late than never.
According to the lead agency involved in the launch of the portal, the IBP "seeks to host information on various aspects of biodiversity in India and is designed to harness collective knowledge, seek voluntary participation of users and establish a participatory platform for content generation, verification and usage." The idea is also to mobilise a collaborative community that will build high quality map based multimedia information on India's biodiversity.
The portal has been created by a team led by conservation science research institution Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE) using open-source software.
ATREE was set up in 1996 to address, among other key issues, the degradation and rapid loss of India's biological resources and natural ecosystems. Its founder Professor Kamal Bawa will introduce the portal at the December 15 launch in the city.
Other institutions involved in the IBP plan include Agharkar Research Institute and National Chemicals Lab in Pune, Foundation for Ecological Security, Anand; French Institute of Pondicherry; Nature Conservation Foundation, Mysore; and Foundation for the Revitalisation of Local Health Traditions, National Centre for Biological Sciences, University of Agricultural Sciences and Wildlife Conservation Society and ATREE, all based in Bangalore.
Over the last few months the portal has been seeded with data collated by the partners involved in its founding. Data are spatially referenced and organised into layers. Maps are organized-at the national scale, some basal maps provide the background for biodiversity; at the local level-there is geo-referenced information, biodiversity information on local geographies. These are just indicative layers to show the possibilities and the potential of the portal.
Enjoy looking into the biological diversity of the area of your interest within India. Join the community and provide information on the biodiversity of your neighborhood. We are hoping that in due course we will have sufficient information based on widespread participation to provide information related to your neighborhoods. We hope these initial seeds will evolve into large flowering trees and then into a diverse forest.
Ravi Chellam, adjunct senior fellow at ATREE and India director for Wildlife Conservation Programme, says the IBP idea has multiple origins and it was all brought together in discussions that were held in Bangalore a few years ago with IISc ecologist Madhav Gadgil, University of Agricultural Sciences professor K.N. Ganeshaiah, scientist Darshan Shankar and ATREE founder Kamal Bawa as the main movers of this idea.
They decided to send a unified proposal to the National Knowledge Commission, which after some clarifications in approved the joint proposal in mid-2007; the inaugural national workshop was held in October 2008 by the NKC.
"The IBP is an important step in aggregating and sharing high quality map-based biodiversity data in the public domain through the internet. The portal is designed to facilitate widespread participation in all aspects of the design and management of the portal. The NKC endorsed initiative is managed by multiple institutions with ATREE taking the lead in this," says Chellam, adding that the NKC wants this initiative to be strongly rooted in the civil society and non-governmental space. The National Remote Sensing Agency has also chipped in to help IBP.
Satyanarayan Gangaram Pitroda - better known as Sam Pitroda - holds many key technology patents and had been a successful entrepreneur in the US until Indira Gandhi called him in 1984 to pioneer a telecom revolution in India.
Rajiv Gandhi also made him the head of the telecom commission and more recently, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, asked him to head the NKC whose key objective is to transform India into a knowledge based society.
As Prime Minister Dr Singh had put it, "the time has come to create a second wave of institution building and of excellence in the field of education, research and capability building so that we are better prepared for the 21st century."
The commission was set up in June 2005 with a time of three years October 2005-October 2008. As a high-level policy making body under the prime minister, it has been given a mandate to guide policy and direct reforms, focusing on certain key areas such as education, science and technology, agriculture, industry, e-governance etc.
Easy access to knowledge, creation and preservation of knowledge systems, dissemination of knowledge and better knowledge services are core concerns of the commission.
The IBP is one of those objectives that Dr Pitroda's body would have helped achieve and something that might find a mention when he launches the information portal coming Monday in Bangalore.
Source -
http://indiatoday.digitaltoday.in/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=22473§ionid=4&issueid=83&Itemid=1
Naresh Kadyan, Representative of OIPA in India
e-mail:
kadyan.ipfa@gmail.com
Homepage:
http://www.pfaharyana.in