India should be wise about Galileo

Galileo is the EU’s biggest space venture. This global satellite navigation system, a network of 30 orbiting satellites, can be put to various uses — from air traffic control and mobile telephony to sensor technology and police surveillance. The system is expected to rival the American global positioning system, commonly known as the GPS.

The most crucial aspect of the Galileo is its accuracy. It is so precise that it can zero in on a moving car in a remote region. India’s anxiety has to do with this accuracy. Its concerns are two-fold. One, it fears that the sharing of sensitive data may not be adequately firewalled from individuals and other nations participating in the enterprise (China, for instance, is a partner). Second, with relatively inexpensive receivers, it is going to revolutionalise the use of globally positioning systems by individual users. The Indian Government appears unsure about how to handle the implications of such widespread usage.

However, India should have thought of all these drawbacks and looked for solutions before starting negotiations on Galileo. The arguments given for not finalising the deal do not sound convincing when we try to draw parallels with other areas of technology. If India can allow the use of mobile phones in the Valley, knowing full well that it could be misused by a few, why can’t it go ahead with other technologies which have better public utility relevance and have the potential to further business opportunities? China has entered the deal happily. A security paranoid country like Israel has also evinced interest. So why is India fighting shy of it, after it was expected to invest $353 million in the project?