NEW DELHI: India’s meteorological advancement has not only built the country’s disaster management capacity but also benefited the world with India always standing up to help nations hit by natural calamities, including those in its neighbourhood, PM Narendra Modi said on Tuesday.
Indicating how it further expanded the country’s soft power and “enhanced its image globally as a ‘Vishwa Vandhu'”, PM Modi, while addressing the 150th foundation day celebration of the India Meteorological Department (IMD) here, said this is not 150 years of journey of only the Met department, but also a “glorious journey of India’s modern science and technology”.
Citing the country’s ‘flash flood guidance system’, he noted that it helps neighbouring nations such as Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka by sharing information, and commended IMD scientists for their significant contributions to these achievements.
PM launches ‘Mission Mausam’ to make India ‘climate-smart’ nation
Referring to the substantial progress made in the weather information dissemination system in the past decade, Modi pointed out that only 10% of farmers and livestock owners used weather-related advice 10 years ago, but this number has now increased to over 50%.
The PM on the occasion launched ‘Mission Mausam’ with the goal of making the country a ‘weather-ready, climate-smart’ nation, and released the ‘IMD Vision 2047‘ document that spells out the next 22 years journey of the Met department for making India a global leader in weather forecast system, climate modelling and export of meteorological instruments.
‘Mission Mausam’ aims at achieving the goal by deploying cutting-edge weather surveillance technologies and systems, implementing high-resolution atmospheric observations, next-generation radars and satellites, and high-performance computers in the coming years.
Encouraging scientists, research scholars and institutions like IMD to work towards new breakthroughs, Modi highlighted the need to work with future requirements in mind, including developing early warning systems for natural disasters like earthquakes.
Underlining India’s rich history of meteorological expertise, the PM pointed out that the country’s traditional knowledge was well documented, refined and deeply studied in ancient texts like the Vedas, Samhitas, and Surya Siddhanta, and called for greater exploration and integration of this knowledge with contemporary scientific practices.
“There is a need to research more in this direction and explore how to link substantiated (traditional) knowledge with modern science,” said Modi after citing numerous examples of ancient texts carrying information on meteorology.
He also referred to how significant works such as ‘Krishi Parashar’ and ‘Brihat Samhita’ studied cloud formation and types, and the mathematical work on planetary positions at the time where there were no scientific instruments available to study those phenomena.
Lauding the IMD’s efforts towards accuracy of its forecast, the PM spoke how his visit to Sonamarg in J&K to inaugurate a 6.5-km tunnel on Monday was planned on the basis of the Met department’s advance prediction of a clear weather day in the snow-clad region.
Established on Jan 15 in 1875, IMD has been at the forefront of providing critical weather and climate services, playing a vital role in disaster management, agriculture, aviation, and public safety. Its overall forecast accuracy witnessed a 40% improvement in 2023 as compared to 2014.
Addressing the gathering, Union minister of earth sciences Jitendra Singh pointed to the rise in the accuracy of weather forecasts in the last 10 years.
