Special Lecture of Foreign Visiting Faculty Geospatial Technologies and Peace

Chandigarh June 13, 2022

The presentation focuses on the Geospatial Technologies which are proliferating and are constantly in use in our daily lives in one way or the other way. It also focused on the use of Geospatial Technologies, tools such as GPS, GIS and remote sensing and their advantages and disadvantages were also discussed. The key focus of this presentation was GPS (Global Positioning Systems) technology and its use. Even though GPS was invented for the US Department of Defence, GPS is now in civilian use and is constantly also used for peaceful purposes. Location and time related services are used all over and are included in day to day uses such as ATM machines. These views were expressed by Dr. Rakesh Malhotra, Associate Professor, Department of Environmental, Earth and Geospatial Sciences, NORTH CAROLINA CENTRAL UNIVERSITY, Durham, North Carolina, USA, who is on Foreign Visiting Faculty in the Department of Gandhian and Peace Studies, PU, Chandigarh. In his expository talk, Dr. Rakesh highlighted that the Location Services, GIS Data and cameras are important but also come with drawbacks such as privacy and data storage. The all kinds of ATM machines, smart phones and smart watches, drones, missiles, navigation tools and other such gadgets are working all because of the GPS system though it’s a one-way communication but it is helping many to reach their destinations.

Dr. Manish Sharma, Chairperson, Department of Gandhian and Peace studies, welcoming the participants, highlighted that PU is consistently maintaining its leadership position in higher education and research on account of vibrant academic environment with the kind of interaction on different aspects of research with the national and international faculty, which will help in developing more global and pluralistic view of the outer world and also in developing the holistic perspective to harness skills to empathize with societal and ethical ramifications. He also highlighted that PU is making earnest efforts under the guidance of Prof Raj Kumar, Vice Chancellor, Panjab University to ensure collaboration with different international universities. The lecture received enthusiastic response from different departments with the participation and interaction with the faculty members, students and researchers from other departments too.