Antarctica and India

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This is a collection of articles archived for the excellence of their content.

Research stations

Arun Ram, Bharti to be 3rd Indian station in Antarctica, August 6, 2009: The Times of India

Twenty-five years after it established Dakshin Gangotri, the first permanent research station in the South Polar region, India is all set to build the third such centre in Antarctica at a cost of Rs 230 crore to take up cutting-edge research in various fields. The new station, tentatively named Bharti, is scheduled to be operational by 2012, making India a member of an elite group of nine nations that have multiple stations in the region.

Dakshin Gangotri, set up in 1984, was buried in ice and had to be abandoned in 1990, a year after India set up Maitri, the second station. The National Centre for Antarctic and Ocean Research (NCAOR), Goa, will set up the new station on Larsmann Hill, 3,000 km from Schirmacher Oasis, where Maitri stands. While Maitri was more than 100 km from the Antarctic Sea, Bharti will be on a promontory by the sea. "This will enable us to take up rare research on the marine ecology of the polar region. Antarctica is a continent spread across 13 million sqkm and we thought we shouldn't confine ourselves to just one area," NCAOR director Rasik Ravindran told.

Bharti, like Maitri, will also conduct research on seismic activity, climate change and medicine. The station will be a compact structure of 30x50 metres, accommodating 25 scientists. While living in Antarctica, where temperatures range from -89 degrees Celsius in winter to -25 degrees Celsius in summer, can be tough, constructing a permanent structure is a huge challenge. "With wind speeds crossing 40 knots, manoeuvring ships to Antartica is a challenging job. We're also considering transportation of materials on ice that could be more than 1.5 metres thick, from the ship's mooring point to the construction site, using special vehicles," said Rajasekhar, head of vessel management, National Institute of Ocean Technology (NIOT), Chennai, which handles the logistics.