India’s domestic Global Positioning System (GPS), Navigation with Indian Constellation (NavIC), built by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), has been approved by 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), an international organization that makes protocols for mobile telephony. This means manufacturers can now mass-produce the navigation device compatible with India’s own GPS NavIC. Besides, people will soon be able to use Indian GPS in their mobile. It is also possible that they will get the App of NavIC in mobile, along with GPS. NavIC is a Regional Navigation System (RPS). The position accuracy of NavIC is 5 meters, which makes it technically better than all the other GPSs as they have the position accuracy of 20-30 meters. In a meeting held in California from 16th to 20th September, 3GPP recognized NavIC as having met international standards. The organization had approved the inclusion of NavIC in Rel-16 LTE and Rel-17 5G NR specifications. Now the Telecommunication Standards Development Society of India (TSDSI) will combine these standards with national standards. After this, NavIC will start appearing on mobiles instead of American GPS. Expressing happiness over this achievement, Dr. K. Sivan, ISRO Chief, told the Times of India that he is very glad that 3GPP has given recognition to NavIC. He said, “NavIC is working perfectly. For this, our 8 satellites are deployed over India. Seven are for satellite navigation. One is for satellite messaging. Some Apps based on NavIC are already working, while some will start soon. Soon we will launch NavIC based App. So that, the common man can get the benefit of it.” People are calling it NavIC as native GPS, but it cannot be called GPS because it will work only on India. For this, ISRO has placed 8 satellites in the orbit of the earth. Their full name is – Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS) or NavIC. This will provide better navigation than GPS anywhere in India. Also, accurate positioning up to 1500 kms outside the country’s borders will be known. NavIC will exactly look like the American GPS, but its quality will be better than GPS. NavIC will provide accurate navigation data of sea, land and air. It will be useful in disaster management, vehicle tracking and fleet management, integration with mobile phones, precise timing, mapping etc. The potential of this indigenous system is being demonstrated in various application sectors, viz. vehicle tracking system, mobiles, timing & power synchronization, fisheries and surveying. For example, all commercial vehicles registered from 1st April 2019 onwards are mandated to have vehicle trackers, which are also NavIC-enabled. More than 30 companies are manufacturing Automotive Research Association of India (ARAI) or International Centre for Automotive Technology (ICAT) approved NavIC-enabled vehicle trackers in India. Through the provision of these services, the dependence on the American-owned GPS could be obviated. After this approval, Indian has joined the exclusive Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) club comprising the US, EU, China and Russia who depend on their own satellites for navigation application in their respective regions. The other countries which have their own indigenous system are Russia (GLONASS—Global Navigation Satellite System), European Union (Galileo Positioning System), Japan (Quasi-Zenith Satellite System—QZSS) and China (Beidou Navigation Satellite System—BDS). Earlier, ISRO had provided 250 NavIC Messaging Receivers (NMR) to fishermen of Kerala respectively on a trial basis. This device provides Emergency Warning Alerts such as cyclone, high waves and Tsunami and also provides information on Potential Fishing Zone and International boundary crossing based on the position information from NavIC. ISRO have taken up the responsibility of providing NavIC devices on trial basis. Around 200 devices for Tamil Nadu and 250 devices for Kerala are distributed. A few numbers, viz. 8 and 10 respectively are provided to fishermen of Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka States for trial exercises.