So says, the ‘Guidelines for acquiring and producing Geospatial Data and Geospatial Data Services including Maps’ released by the Government of India on Feb 15, 2021.

This has been said many times for the last so many years,

By many who relentlessly kept advocating and demanding

To unleash the potential of geospatial data for developmental purposes.

However, such arguments were nixed,

And easily nixed by the ‘security concerns’ – an arena of ‘no go’.

Unlike the earlier policy push which have been over-cautious,

The proposed guidelines are groundbreaking in several ways;

It recognizes the futility of insistence on the continuation of colonial mindset,

It fundamentally changes the approach from ‘all restricted’ to ‘all permitted’ unless stated otherwise.

Bal Krishna, Editor

bal@mycoordinates.org