India’s space research agency, ISRO, has shifted its focus on earth to cash in on its first earth observation application ‘Bhuvan’ (Sanskrit for ‘earth’). The device outlines multiple spatial resolutions up to 10 meters, compared to the present 50-200 meter zoom level provided by applications like Google Earth or Visual Earth. The better visualization of Indian territories is aimed at catering to the researchers in India. Its popularity among researchers is yet to be seen, as V Jayaraman, Director of NRSA (National Remote Sensing Agency), points out that the registrations have occurred more out of curiosity for the mapping application of India than for any research program.

‘Bhuvan’ emulates features of other applications like Google Earth and Microsoft’s Virtual Earth. It features 2D and 3D image data along with thematic information on natural resources. “We have images of India up to one meter clarity, however, as a government body, we have constraints to make them online. Being a government organization, we cannot introduce features for the sake of competition,” says Jayaraman. The shift from spatial exploration to earth exploration for the project was hard-pressed under the leadership of Jayaraman.

The beta version of the earth exploration portal was introduced with expectations of a modest 50,000 users a month. However, the hype of being an answer to Google Earth facilitated Bhuvan to accrue registration of two lakh users within seven days of its launch. The popularity triggered thoughts among the founding organizations to commercialize the government-funded application. The recognition in India also unfolded revenue opportunities for the application from educational institutes and corporations.

Bhuvan’s popularity provoked brickbats from analysts due to the plug-ins, need for registration, and also for the unclear old images presumed to be six years old. Is Bhuvan India’s answer to Google Earth or MapQuest that dominate 70 percent of the mapping market? The answer could be yes, if the collaborating organizations remove the pug–ins in the next six months as expected, open source the application, and include one year old images for the different regions of the country.