India Lifts Restrictions on Mapping and Surveying To Help Local Firms (techcrunch.com) 14
India said on Monday local firms will no longer need a license or other permission to collect, generate, store and share geospatial data of the country, bringing sweeping changes to its earlier stance that it admitted hindered innovation. From a report: Until now, New Delhi required Indian firms to seek licenses and additional approvals to create and publish topographical data. India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi said today's "deregulation" step will help the country become more self-reliant and reach its $5 trillion GDP goal. "The regulations that apply to geospatial data and maps henceforth stand radically liberalised. The Department of Science and Technology is announcing sweeping changes to India's mapping policy, specifically for Indian companies. What is readily available globally does not need to be restricted in India and therefore geospatial data that used to be restricted will now be freely available in India," New Delhi said in a statement.
Did they require... (Score:1)
The results to be freely available to the Indian government?
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https://www.americanprogress.o... [americanprogress.org]
https://theconversation.com/wh... [theconversation.com]
etc.
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That particular figure of speech is called Metonymy [wikipedia.org]. As Wikipedia says in the section on placenames used as metonyms:
A place is often used as a metonym for a government or other official institutions, for example, Brussels for the institutions of the European Union, The Hague for the International Court of Justice or International Criminal Court, Nairobi for the government of Kenya, the White House and Capitol Hill for the executive and legislative branches, respectively, of the United States federal government, or Foggy Bottom for the U.S. State Department.
Should have been done 15 years ago (Score:3)
India probably have one of the most restrictive geodata gathering laws. You can get arrested for measuring the road. On top of dealing with roads with no name or buildings with no addresses. It's one of the toughest countries to get good data.
As if they could stop it, lol (Score:1)
Seriously, as if the Indian government could stop it. lol
There's no way to "hide" this because the raw material is literally under your feet.
It's like making a law against noticing the ground beneath you.
Plus, I assume India wants to keep up with the rest of the world, and that in part means mapping your country.
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They do stop it, because as soon as you start gathering and collecting the data the law enforcement authorities come after you.
China is similar: sure, you can start measuring stuff. As soon as it becomes obvious you are, or if you are trying to sell the information, then it's time for a visit from the law enforcement.
Even very small amounts of data will get you in trouble. Coca Cola got in trouble in China for trying to make a map of their customers' locations for deliveries from their bottling plants.
Autho
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They do stop it, because as soon as you start gathering and collecting the data the law enforcement authorities come after you.
And apparently that didn't work because the story was literally about them lifting restrictions on gathering location/map data.
Authoritarian regimes find it very easy to suppress surveying activities. Just try, and report back to us.
Yeah, I don't really think that's going to be a practical thing to try and stop. Maybe 30 years ago but not now. Too much technology exists for them to be able to contain it. Are you really going to stop every person with a phone and search for location data? Surprise, they all have it.
Hell, they could do aerial mapping or just drive around and scoop up location data. Once the data
Indian data for Indians only (Score:3)
This isn't useful for the world. This data is only allowed to be used by Indian companies to serve Indians (which is even worse than the situation in China, where you can at least show the map you get from one of the officially-licensed geodata providers to a non-Chinese person).
That means you can't use it to show non-Indians where your tourist attraction is, or integrate it into a global data set, or do anything with it except for Indians serving Indians.
Treating your basic geo-data as a state secret is the sign of an inward-looking country not interested in engaging with the world.
Obsession with invasion from Pakistan still controls the Indian bureaucratic mind.
Google Maps & hundreds of others.. (Score:2)
Google maps & hundreds of other companies / individuals have the data and provide it world wide, not to mention ISRO (indian space research org) sells satellite pics and there are all sorts of printed maps sold.
This removes the red tape / requirement of registering with a govt dept before doing mapping stuff on public land or providing printed/online maps.
The process wasnt very difficult. Its just that the govt wants to keep checking someone isn't showing a few small disputed border areas in china or pa