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He was commissioned into
Corps of Engineers of the Indian Army in June 1977 and later
seconded to Survey of India in Oct 1979. He holds the rank
of Major General in the Indian Army. He has varied experience
in all aspects of surveying and mapping though his specialization
is Photogrammetry. He obtained his PG Diploma in Production
Photogrammetry with Distinction from ITC, the Netherlands.
His thesis ' A multi-source digital topographic data base
for India' earned him the Ph.D from Indian Institute of
Technology, Delhi.
He served in Army HQ as Director Military
Survey and has been involved in forming and implementation
of policies. Currently he is Head of NRDMS and NSDI Divisions
of Department of Science & Technology spearheading NSDI
movement. He traveled abroad widely and had opportunities
to study various national mapping organizations and Spatial
Data Infrastructure in advanced countries. He served as
a member of many expert groups as Member Secretary of the
Task Force on NSDI was primarily responsible for spear heading
the NSDI movement in India. Currently, he is the CEO of
NSDI.
He has been recipient of a number of honours
and awards. He was awarded Dolezal Prize of the International
Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ISPRS) in
the congress at Held in Vienna, Austria in 1996. He was
awarded the Tata Scholarships for Study Abroad and the Netherlands
Government Fellowship. Papers presented by him have won
prizes from the National Research and Development Corporation.
His paper on the Neighbourhood Mapping with school children,
presented at the Cambridge won the best paper prize and
the conference passed a resolution to adopt the concept
in other countries.
He takes active interest in the professional
organizations and is a fellow of Institution of Engineers,
Indian National Cartographic Association and Institution
of Surveyors besides being a senior member of Computer Society
of India, and Institution of Military Engineers.
He has been actively promoting the activities
of GIS. GPS and Remote Sensing and has evolved innovative
projects for dissemination of these technologies. He has
been on the visiting faculty of Jamia Milia, Delhi University,
BITS, Mesra, CME Pune, STI and also examiner for various
examinations. He has also been enlisted as adviser in TERI,
Geospatial Today, CSDSMS etc., During the year of scientific
awareness, he launched a project for rural school children
in three states of Punjab, AP and West Bengal for dissemination
of high technologies of GIS, GPS and Remote Sensing. Under
his editorship a lucidly written book was published in the
four languages, Telugu, Bengali and Gurumukhi besides English.
His dynamic leadership ahs taken NRDMS programme
to a new heights and the programme has increased in size,
funding and its relevance to society. There are concurrent
programmes of collaborative research with Canada, Norway,
UK and The Netherlands.
He takes active part in PCGIAP, Global Mapping,
GSDI and OGC. He is also an elected member of the OGC Board.
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