Union minister for science and technology and earth Sciences Kapil Sibal on Friday launched the first Indian scientific expedition to the Arctic region as he handed over the national flag to director of National Centre for Antarctic and Ocean Research (NCAOR) Rasik Ravindra Ravindra is slated to lead the team heading for Arctic expedition. Other members of the team are NCAOR scientist, SM Singh, deputy director of the Hyderabad-based Centre for Cellular and Microbiology (CCMB) S Shivaji, meoteorologist from Indian Institute on Tropical Meteorology, CG Deshpande, and Dhruv Sen Singh from University of Lucknow. At a formal sending off ceremony in New Delhi, the minister wished the team success in their planned scientific endeavours.
To begin with, the team will initiate the following three projects in collaboration with the Norwegian Polar Research Institute?isolation of Arctic microbes as work horses of biotechnology, measurement of atmospheric aerosols and ions in the Arctic region and collaborate in earth science studies at Svalbard.
During the first phase, Indian scientists will initiate work on the above three projects at Ny-Alesund and work for a period ranging from two weeks to four weeks during August and September 2007. In the second phase, the following four projects will be initiated in the early spring next year, commencing in February 2008, namely snowpack production of carbon monoxide and its diurnal variability, sea ice microbial communities project, carbon-cycling in the near-shore environments of Kongsfjorden and understanding the link between the Arctic and tropical Indian Ocean climatic variations. The first Indian Arctic expedition marks a beginning of long term scientific research by Indian scientists in yet another arena of global scientific collaborative research in the difficult polar regions, since the first Indian scientific expedition landed in Antarctica in 1981. Only Norway, Germany, France, Britain, Italy, Japan, South Korea and China, have their research stations in Ny-Alesund for Arctic research.