India Needs To Get Over ‘National Security' Myth, Revamp Remote Sensing Policies

In the challenging time of a COVID-19 outbreak, satellite monitoring has been playing a pivotal role in curbing the spread of the infection, mainly by helping identifying risk zones and facilitating quick response. However, there remains a huge potential to use Earth-observation (EO) data to shed new light on societal and economic changes currently taking place.

While these areas of application need to be explored, restrictions imposed on sharing of EO data also need to be worked on. India has been facing the brunt of such restrictions for a long time. However, the current government is thankfully analysing things in a new light. It thus seems safe to assume that the COVID-19 pandemic is serving as an eye opener for better remote sensing policies in India.