Role of Satellite Communication and Remote Sensing in Rural Development

The advances in Satellite Communication and Remote sensing has led to the development of solutions for various national development programs like National Natural Resource Management (NNRMS), disaster management, tele-education and e-Health care using telemedicine. The advances in sensor technologies and image processing have resulted in sensors with increased spatial, spectral and radiometric resolutions and provide images with rich details for remote sensing applications. India is a vast country with 29 states and 6 union territories with more than 1 billion population, which is predominantly rural and distributed at distant geographical locations apart from the high-density urban areas. Ensuring basic minimum health care to masses living in remote rural areas is a top priority for any government. Tele-medicine using the satellite communication as well as Fiber Optic communications is playing an important role to address health care requirements of people living in remote areas, rural areas, soldiers in battlefields etc. The Image processing techniques and advances in Database management of images and text made it possible to create 3D virtual images of human organs by using imaging techniques from MRI, CT Ultrasound. The universalisation of education has become the top priority, especially for the developing countries. But the extension of quality education to remote and rural regions becomes a Herculean task for a large country like India with multi-lingual and multi-cultural population separated by vast geographical distances, and, in many instances, inaccessible terrain. Satellites can establish the connectivity between urban educational institutions with adequate infrastructure imparting quality education and the large number of rural and semi-urban educational institutions that lack the necessary infrastructure. This paper describes utilization of Satellite Communication and Remote sensing with advanced techniques in providing solutions to areas of primary importance in rural development such as harnessing of natural resources, education and healthcare.