India can now peep into Pak homes with space tech

India is now capable of even peeping into Pakistani homes through its Integrated Comprehensive Border Managment System (CIBMS), currently on a pilot in Jammu and Punjab.

This declaration of India’s tech-driven prowess came from Union Minister of State for Space Department, Jitendra Singh.

At the launch of Isro’s Unnati project here on Thursday, Singh said the system allows India to look into the verandahs and rooms of people’s houses across the border in Pakistan.

In the wake of the Pathankot attack, the Centre had green-signalled CIBMS to stop infiltration along the 2,900-km Indo-Pak border.

The plan was this: Anyone attempting to enter India from Gujarat to Jammu & Kashmir could be tracked through multiple technologies.

The system incorporates round-the-clock surveillance, thermal imaging, night-
vision devices, battlefield
surveillance radars and underground monitoring sensors.

Isro has announced that a satellite will be launched exclusively for the Home Ministry to help it further strengthen frontiers with Pakistan and Bangladesh.

A task force had recommended the use of space technology to boost border management.

Jitendra Singh made a link with space technology and the grounded need for toilets, by recalling a question actor Amitabh Bachchan posed to him years ago: Can space tech be used to map toilets? The matinee idol would often get stuck in traffic, and was forced to go to strangers’ houses in search of a toilet.

The minister said, under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Space department had received more attention than ever before.

Isro was out of sight, and Sriharikota was a ‘godforsaken’ place. “But now, we are using space tech in infrastructure, construction of roads, manning of railway crossings and MGNREGS,” the miniswter noted.

Neil Armstrong, Singh reminded, had landed on Moon in 1969 with that famous statement about a small step for man, but a giant leap for mankind. Yet, he could not see water.

On Chandrayaan

“But Chandrayaan, our unmanned mission from India, found what the man could not,” the minister pointed out.

Dubbing India as a frontline nation in the field of space technology, he said the country had surpassed many others with its Gaganyaan project.