American tech giant Apple integrated its latest iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max with chips embedded with ISRO’s NavIC navigation system for its phones in India. Why iPhone embedded ISRO’s NavIC navigation system for its phones in India? This aroused curiosity.
| Indian Navigation – NavIC | World Navigations – GPS |
| NavIC: Navigation with Indian Constellation | US: Global Positioning System (GPS), Russia: Global Navigation Satellite System (GLONASS), EU: Galileo, China: BeiDou, and Japan: Quasi-Zenith Satellite System (QZSS) |
| NavIC satellites use dual frequency bands (L5-band and S-band) – relatively higher accuracy | GPS uses a single frequency band – could be lower accuracy. |
| NavIC uses 3 geostationary satellites and 4 geosynchronous satellites – all positioned in significantly higher orbits. | GPS uses 55 satellites. 24 geostationary and 31 geosynchronous satellites. All positioned in various levels of orbits. |
| NavIC is expected to deliver a position accuracy of less than 20 metres. | GPS delivers a position accuracy of 100 metres. |
| NavIC developed by ISRO – new. It works like GPS. | GPS developed by NASA – in used for decades. |
| GoI says NavIC chips are mandatory in all smartphones from 2025. | GPS mandatory in all smartphones from 2005. |
| The government can record and collect cellular communications of any person. | The government can record and collect cellular communications of any person. |
| No individual can use his phone with NavIC outside India as the seven satellites collectively cover the entire territory of India, not of the world. | GPS has world tracking system. |
In 1999, during the Kargil War, the US rejected India’s request for access to its GPS system, making it difficult for the Indian forces to identify positions of Pakistani troops. With NaviC, India no longer needs any other country’s help to track sensitive military movements. While giving credence to this Scientific Nationalism, I wonder since when the public and military begun to use the same navigation systems. I am of the opinion that military has its own navigation system.
I can see the day clearly where the movements of every citizen of India will be tracked. The days of privacy are over with NavIC being made compulsory for all phones from 2025. Freedom buried. NavIC navigation system, in the hands of the mentally deranged, is a lethal weapon.
About the Author
Dr. K. Raja Gopal Reddy is a seasoned internationally qualified Insurance professional.
What you are reading here, may not answer all the questions we have, but has the absolute power of asking unsettling questions which increase the interest in the strange world, and show the contradictory wonders lying just below the surface of the commonest things of life. Look at this disturbing but beautiful thought of Friedrich Nietzsche “God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him”.
Dr. Reddy can be reached at: raja66gopal@gmail.com
