Antarctica Research: An Indian Perspective

Abstract

Though Indus valley civilization, Egyptian civilization, Roman civilization has a history of thousands of years, where people lived, mankind came to know about the existence of Antarctic continent just a couple centuries ago. After Amundsen reached South Pole in the beginning of 20th century, several countries tried their hand to have control on Antarctica. But, it was arctic treaty which made all claims of various countries to freeze and hence, even today, Antarctica does not belong to any one country but, belongs to entire Mankind. Further, Antarctica is being used only for scientific research, beneficial to mankind. Indian venture on Antarctica stared in the year 1981 and till this date more than 25 scientific expeditions have been successfully completed. Apart from Antarctica, the expeditions have also covered southern ocean too. Indian research on Antarctica covers an array of scientific fields such as geology, geomagnetism, Ice core studies, physics, biology, metrology etc., In last 30 years, Indian workers have gathered a large quantum of data on and analyzed some of the most intricate processes taking place in Antarctica. Present paper discusses on various aspects of Indian Antarctic expedition and its utility in Indian context.