ISRO and French Space Agency signed an agreement on Maritime security in India

On Wednesday, The French space agency, National Centre for Space Studies (CNES) signed an agreement with the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) to set up a maritime surveillance centre in the country.

The agreement was signed in Bengaluru by CNES President Jean-Yves Le Gall and India's space agency Chairman K. Sivan.

This agreement follows on from the broader agreement signed in March 2018 during President Emmanuel Macron's state visit to India.

French Ambassador to India Alexandre Ziegler tweeted, "In Bengaluru, strengthening Indo-French space cooperation. Signing agreement for setting up a maritime surveillance centre in India - exactly a year after French President Emmanuel Macron's state visit to India".

"The CNES-ISRO agreement intended to supply an operational system for detecting, identifying and tracking ships in the Indian Ocean and provides for a maritime surveillance centre to be set up in India in May this year, sharing of capacity to process existing satellite data and joint development of associated algorithms", the CNES statement said.

"For the next phase of the programme, studies for an orbital infrastructure to be operated jointly by the two countries are ongoing. CNES is working with its industry partners and with ISRO to devise the most appropriate technical solution",  the statement added.