The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and MapmyIndia, a location-based tech company, on Friday, announced a partnership that will offer an indigenous alternative to Google Maps.
The mapping portal will be a thoroughly indigenous geospatial service. According to IANS, the service will combine the power of MapmyIndia's digital maps and technologies with ISRO's catalogue of satellite imagery and earth observation data. This alternative is made with a view to counter Google Maps, by being India's very own local initiative.
In a statement published on LinkedIn, Rohan Verma, CEO & Executive Director, MapmyIndia, said, "This partnership with ISRO heralds a new dawn of Aatmanirbhar Bharat in the strategic area of maps and geospatial technologies."
He also titled an article with the headline, "You don't need Google Maps/Earth any longer", on the same social media platform.
Through the combined partnership with ISRO, MapmyIndia's end-user maps, apps and services would be a much better, more detailed and comprehensive, as well as privacy-centric, hyper-local and indigenous mapping solution for Indians, compared to foreign map apps and solutions, the company said.
Apart from that, the company also announced that the service will also help users benefit from the various map-based analytics and insights about the weather, pollution, agricultural output, land-use changes, flood and landslide disasters, among others.
MapmyIndia said its maps and APIs (application programming interfaces) will enrich ISRO's geoportals.
It will empower Indian scientists, academia, researchers and government organisations with the best of India's satellite imagery, earth observation data and digital map data and advanced geospatial technologies.
Naturally, Twitterverse found an occasion to share memes at the announcement with the hashtag #GoogleMaps! Here's what the micro-blogging website had to say:
