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To: J Fieb who wrote (41158)	5/16/1999 9:15:00 AM
From: J Fieb	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 50808

mercurycenter.com ANALYSIS-India's Satellites Get Smarter BY Y.P. RAJESH BANGALORE, India (Reuters) - With the recent launch of the multi-purpose INSAT-2E satellite, India's satellite stable has become bigger, better and more lucrative, industry officials said. They said the satellite represented a triumph of technological development over political barriers to technology transfer and presented India with new capabilities in broadcasting, weather forecasts and Internet-related communications. ''The commissioning of the INSAT-2E provides new dimensions to our communications, broadcasting and meteorological capabilities,'' said K. Kasturirangan, chairman of the state-run Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO). ''With this, the Indian National Satellite (INSAT) system becomes the largest (state-run) domestic satellite system in the world.'' There was still a voracious hunger for satellites, experts said, and more scope to make money, Kasturirangan added. ''We have for the first time gone commercial by leasing out our transponders to INTELSAT that will bring in $10 million per year for the 10-year lease period.'' Kasturirangan said INSAT-2E marked a new phase in the country's satellite development because it could handle such things as sensitive monsoon forecasts. ''For instance, it has special meteorological capabilities that make possible detection of the amount of moisture in the clouds to more accurately predict rains,'' he said. In a nation which has long waiting lists for phone connections, INSAT-2E would boost bandwidth to quench the thirst, said Anil Kumar, chairman of the federal Telecom Commission. ''It will also increase the VSAT (very small aperture terminals) capacity of the country, make possible availability of video over the Internet and Internet via cable TV networks,'' said Amitabh Kumar, acting chairman of state-controlled Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd (VSNL), the overseas telecoms monopoly. India's two-decade-old INSAT program currently has six multi-purpose satellites including INSAT-2E launched last month. India's space program has been affected by technology denials, mainly by the United States, linked to barriers on components that could have nuclear or military applications. But ISRO officials said they had made steady progress nonetheless, and took some launch glitches in their stride. The satellites have helped reach across hundreds of thousands of villages across the country with a population of more than 950 million, and helped spawn several regional language television channels. ''Our entire public television broadcasting system exists because of INSAT,'' K.S.Sarma, a senior official in the Information and Broadcasting Ministry, told Reuters. ''Today we have over 1,025 television transmitters in the country against hardly 50 or 60 a decade ago. We have covered 87 per cent of the country's population and 69 percent of the area.'' Telecom Commission's chief Anil Kumar said the INSAT system was crucial in efforts to add four million telephone lines every year. The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) was using some 5,700 VSATS hooked to the system to link remote areas, he said. ''But there is still more potential as only half our villages are connected by phone,'' he said. ''Also, demand for VSATs is increasing from commercial users like industries, banks and business houses. We need more satellite capacity.'' The India Meteorology Department (IMD) has asked ISRO to develop an exclusive satellite for weather forecasting to aid the nation's farmers. Sixty-five percent of agricultural land directly depends on monsoon rains for irrigation. ''The INSAT system is telling us all the time what is happening everywhere around us,'' IMD's director-general R.R.Kelkar told Reuters.