India celebrates 60 years of independence.
We are happy once again.
A celebration for democracy and democratic values.
On the occasion, we take a look at two movements.
National Spatial Data Infrastructure and Sustainable …

US, EU agree on GPSGalileo compatibility
The United States and the European Union (EU) have announced a formal agreement to make respective global navigation satellite systems (GNSS)-GPS and Galileocompatible with one another. The European Commission (EC) said a joint working group had overcome technical challenges to design interoperable civil signals. Experts have agreed that a multiplexed binary offset carrier (MBOC) waveform will be used on both systems instead of the binary offset carrier, or BOC (1,1) waveform, as stated in a 1984 agreement between the United States and the EU. The MBOC signal was proposed by a technical working group to examine further refi nements to the design.
www.satnews.com

ISRO to launch Israeli Satellite
ISRO is planning to launch an Israeli satellite from Sriharikota which is expected to cost approximately $15 million. Israe has opted for the Indian PSLV as it is more reliable than its own Shavit rocket and also Israel’s defence ministry has laid down new orbital requirements for TechSar which Shavit could not provide.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com

Chief Surveyor of Singapore is first Asian to receive coveted spatial science award
The Department of Geomatics, University of Melbourne will be presenting its annual Thornton Smith Medal for 2007 to its fi rst Asian recipient outside of Australia. Mr Soh Kheng Peng, who is chief surveyor of Singapore, Singapore Land Authority.
The Medal commemorates Jim Thornton Smith who founded the Department of Geomatics at the University of Melbourne in 1949 and was instrumental in the formulation and introduction of the Bachelor of Surveying degree in 1948. The Medal is awarded to a graduate from the Department of Geomatics who has shown a high level of distinction and leadership in the discipline.

CEOs review the progress of EGNOS
The CEOs of the Members of the European Geostationnary Navigation Overlay Service (EGNOS) Operators and Infrastructure Group (EOIG) and of the ESSP met recently in Paris to review the progress of EGNOS. The fi rst in-fl ight operational trials conducted recently in Spain, Switzerland and France have confi rmed the capability of EGNOSbased approaches similar to existing precision approaches (Cat I) supported today by conventional navigation systems, in line with the high standard safety procedures of civil aviation.
The European Commission Communication is proposing to secure the fi nancing of EGNOS for the next six years with public funding. The CEOs of the EOIG urge the States to achieve a fi nancial resolution in October 2007, in order to guarantee the success of the launching phase of EGNOS as a new air navigation system. michel.
calvet@aviation-civile.gouv.fr

The 7th International Navigational Symposium on Marine Navigation and …

IN his opening address at ESRI’s 27th annual International User …

Airtel announces GPS navigation
Bharti Airtel, in collaboration with Sweden-based Wayfi nder Systems, launched its GPS-based Navigation Application on compatible mobile handsets. The systems is complete with detailed maps and points-of-interest of several cities across the country. It will be available on the BlackBerry 8800 and will cover information on cities including Delhi and NCR, Bangalore, Mumbai & Navi Mumbai, Thane, Pune, Chennai, Hyderabad, Kolkata, and Chandigarh. www.techtree.com

A seminar on “Geomatics for Infrastructure Management” …

Leica GMX902 GG and Leica ScanStation 2
The Leica GMX902 GG is a highperformance GPS + GLONASS receiver, specially developed to monitor sensitive structures such as bridges, mines or high rise buildings and crucial topographies such as land slides or volcanoes. Leica has also announced a major advance in the capabilities of pulsed (or “time-of-fl ight”) laser scanners for as-built and topographic surveys. The maximum speed for ‘ScanStation 2’ is 50,000 points/second, more than 10-times that of its ScanStation predecessor (4,000 points/second) and the highest in the industry for pulsed scanners. www.leica-geosystems.com