India's New Rules for Map Data Betray Its Small Farmers

Earlier this year, the Indian government issued new guidelines allowing private entities to easily use, create, and access land data instead of going through long clearance protocols. The newly available data includes location information about physical structures, boundaries, natural phenomena, weather patterns, and more, gathered through ground-based survey techniques, photogrammetry using drones, lidar, radar, and so on. On paper, this means a green light for small- and medium-sized companies to collect and use this data to build commercial applications and services related to mapping. It is also a relief to alternative or participatory mapping communities, such as counter-mapping initiatives (in which local, indigenous populations make their own maps in their own contexts), which have so far lurked in a gray area of legality. For the development and academic sectors, too, it heralds greater access to maps and related data for research.