Satellite historical imagery of India has disappeared from Google Earth over the past two decades. This has been noted by many scholars and researchers who rely on the service to track changes in topography, forest cover, urbanization and history.
From 2020 satellite imagery is only available for locations in India. The difference is clear when satellite historical imagery of Amritsar has been cleaned up, whereas Lahore, Pakistan – which is about 50 km away – has historical imagery available over the past few decades.
“We are reprocessing some of our historical imagery into the Google Earth Pro 7 historical image database, and plan to make the imagery available again later this year,” Google said when contacted by this reporter. a spokesperson said. However, the question whether the disappearance of the data is linked to policy norms or a Government of India decree was unanswered.
“It looks like it’s just India – the historical imagery is still in Pakistan. I was planning to work on my research this summer, and comparing year-by-year imagery allowed me to see the details that helps that you would never see moving around at a specific time. Imagining specific years – with comparisons available sometime before 2020 – said Robert Simpkins, professor of anthropology at Porterville College who has done extensive research on the history of Hyderabad. I get much better.
Historical satellite imagery has become an important resource because it helps track changes in the landscape. disappearance of lakes, encroachment on water bodies and even civic projects like Secretariat in Hyderabad or due to change in New Delhi new parliament building can be seen in sharp relief in the historical data.
“High-resolution images used to be available in my area from the year 2000 until now. Now, they’re all gone. If they’re trying to ‘remaster’ them for better clarity, that’s fine. But if they have removed it completely because of some government order or because of some old images which the government does not want us to see then it is not fair,” said another user of the free online mapping service.
The Union Cabinet approved a ‘National Geospatial Policy-2022’, noting: “Geospatial data is now widely accepted as a critical national infrastructure and information resource, with proven social There are economic, and environmental values that enable government systems and services, and sustainable national development initiatives, to be integrated using ‘place’ as a common and foundational reference frame.
The policy goals include ‘building an enabling ecosystem for Indian companies that will enable them to be self-reliant in the generation and use of their own geospatial data/information as well as compete with foreign companies in the global space’ ‘.