ISRO's new satellite to keep a close eye on China, Pak

New Delhi, Jan 29: In this age of technology and electronic surveillance, it is important to keep a close eye on the enemy so that right plans can be devised before it it is too late.

The Kargil misadventure by Pakistan convinced India that Islamabad could no longer be left unwatched. If India had an eye in the sky back then, then Kargil-like incursion may never have happened.

India had no clue that Pakistani Army had come well inside its territories and stood there for months. This served as the final reminder and warning to India that Pakistan must be watched over.

ISRO announced on January 17 that it will be launching a border surveillance satellite. The announcement comes six months after China and Pakistan launched a satellite that will be able to monitor the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).

India's satellite will be able to send high-resolution imagery from its borders to help the border guarding forces communicate more efficiently. India's discomfort of the friendship brewing between Pakistan and China was evident as it announced plans to launch border surveillance satellites, said a report published in Business Insider.

The Indian Space Research Organisation's (ISRO) announcement to launch a satellite that will pick up high-resolution imagery of its neighboring borders comes just six months after Pakistan launched its own remote sensing satellite.

Last year in July, China launched two satellites for Pakistan that, among other things, are meant to keep an eye on India. One of them -- the PRSS-1 -- is a remote sensing satellite built by China. The other -- PakTES-1A - is Pakistan's indigenously developed scientific experiment satellite. The two were launched this morning on Chinese rocket Long March-2C from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China.

The remote-sensing PRSS-1 satellite can carry out day and night monitoring, and it has viewing capacity even in clouded conditions.

India is way ahead of Pakistan in space technology, with over operational satellites in space. India also has the radar imaging satellites with all-weather surveillance capability. India reportedly used images gathered from its satellites for the surgical strikes it carried out in 2016.