Minister for Science, Technology and Ocean Development in India, Kapil Sibal launched the Natural Disaster Information System (NDIS), a first of its kind pilot project aimed at alerting people about any impending natural disaster.

The project developed under private public partnership by the Technology Development Council (TDC) and Bangalore-based Geneva Software Technologies was a landmark one intended for public good. It will help in minimising the fury of natural disasters. The system will communicate to the people about any disaster in their local language over mobile phones and specially set up wireless public address system in their locality in less than one minute. The project was taken up by the National Disaster Management Authority after the tsunami on December 26, 2004. The system could be marketed internationally. The data about any impending disaster received from the Indian Meteorological Department, will be immediately processed by the server stationed at Geneva's office in Bangalore and translated into 14 Indian languages along with a dynamically generated voice. The data was secure with a 128-bit exception using dedicated leased lines. Alerts will then be sent out to mobile phones in a language specific to the location. The voice will be streamed as an outbound call and sent to the wireless public address system for direct audio alert.

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