The Indian biodiversity portal

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*LATEST NEWS*

 

*Sam Pitroda to launch India biodiversity portal*

 

*A week from now, you can check in to a one-stop warehouse of information on

India's biodiversity - generally, short for biological diversity - at the

click of a mouse: the India Biodiversity Portal (IBP) will be launched in

Bangalore on Monday by National Knowledge Commission (NKC) chairman Sam

Pitroda.

 

City ornithologist (bird specialist) M.B. Krishna told India Today that such

biodiversity portals are common in the developed nations because they are a

storehouse of information for the common public. India his home to a high

level of biodiversity; it is one of the 17 mega diverse countries and

includes four of the 34 global hotspots of biodiversity.

 

" It is a good initiative here in our country because there is no one place

where a storehouse of knowledge can be shared by others, " says Krishna, who

has a PhD in ornithology from Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. " Am

glad that some private and government institutions have come together to

launch this portal that will hopefully serve the lay public and quench their

thirst for knowledge. I hope a large number of government research

institutions and universities will farm out their studies or research for

the benefit of the masses. Knowledge has to be shared. "

 

Others say that the central government, by default, should have launched

something like this many years ago but as always it is better late than

never.

 

According to the lead agency involved in the launch of the portal, the IBP

" seeks to host information on various aspects of biodiversity in India and

is designed to harness collective knowledge, seek voluntary participation of

users and establish a participatory platform for content generation,

verification and usage. " The idea is also to mobilise a collaborative

community that will build high quality map based multimedia information on

India's biodiversity.

 

The portal has been created by a team led by conservation science research

institution Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE)

using open-source software.

 

ATREE was set up in 1996 to address, among other key issues, the degradation

and rapid loss of India's biological resources and natural ecosystems. Its

founder Professor Kamal Bawa will introduce the portal at the December 15

launch in the city.

 

Other institutions involved in the IBP plan include Agharkar Research

Institute and National Chemicals Lab in Pune, Foundation for Ecological

Security, Anand; French Institute of Pondicherry; Nature Conservation

Foundation, Mysore; and Foundation for the Revitalisation of Local Health

Traditions, National Centre for Biological Sciences, University of

Agricultural Sciences and Wildlife Conservation Society and ATREE, all based

in Bangalore.

 

Over the last few months the portal has been seeded with data collated by

the partners involved in its founding. Data are spatially referenced and

organised into layers. Maps are organized-at the national scale, some basal

maps provide the background for biodiversity; at the local level-there is

geo-referenced information, biodiversity information on local geographies.

These are just indicative layers to show the possibilities and the potential

of the portal.

 

Enjoy looking into the biological diversity of the area of your interest

within India. Join the community and provide information on the biodiversity

of your neighborhood. We are hoping that in due course we will have

sufficient information based on widespread participation to provide

information related to your neighborhoods. We hope these initial seeds will

evolve into large flowering trees and then into a diverse forest.

 

Ravi Chellam, adjunct senior fellow at ATREE and India director for Wildlife

Conservation Programme, says the IBP idea has multiple origins and it was

all brought together in discussions that were held in Bangalore a few years

ago with IISc ecologist Madhav Gadgil, University of Agricultural Sciences

professor K.N. Ganeshaiah, scientist Darshan Shankar and ATREE founder Kamal

Bawa as the main movers of this idea.

 

They decided to send a unified proposal to the National Knowledge

Commission, which after some clarifications in approved the joint proposal

in mid-2007; the inaugural national workshop was held in October 2008 by the

NKC.

 

" The IBP is an important step in aggregating and sharing high quality

map-based biodiversity data in the public domain through the internet. The

portal is designed to facilitate widespread participation in all aspects of

the design and management of the portal. The NKC endorsed initiative is

managed by multiple institutions with ATREE taking the lead in this, " says

Chellam, adding that the NKC wants this initiative to be strongly rooted in

the civil society and non-governmental space. The National Remote Sensing

Agency has also chipped in to help IBP.

 

Satyanarayan Gangaram Pitroda - better known as Sam Pitroda - holds many key

technology patents and had been a successful entrepreneur in the US until

Indira Gandhi called him in 1984 to pioneer a telecom revolution in India.

 

Rajiv Gandhi also made him the head of the telecom commission and more

recently, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, asked him to head the NKC whose key

objective is to transform India into a knowledge based society.

 

As Prime Minister Dr Singh had put it, " the time has come to create a second

wave of institution building and of excellence in the field of education,

research and capability building so that we are better prepared for the 21st

century. "

 

The commission was set up in June 2005 with a time of three years October

2005-October 2008. As a high-level policy making body under the prime

minister, it has been given a mandate to guide policy and direct reforms,

focusing on certain key areas such as education, science and technology,

agriculture, industry, e-governance etc.

 

Easy access to knowledge, creation and preservation of knowledge systems,

dissemination of knowledge and better knowledge services are core concerns

of the commission.

 

The IBP is one of those objectives that Dr Pitroda's body would have helped

achieve and something that might find a mention when he launches the

information portal coming Monday in Bangalore.*