Why in news?

• The UNESCO Category 2 Centre – International Training Centre for Operational Oceanography (ITCOocean) Complex is established as a training facility at Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS), Hyderabad.

ITCOocean:

• The Ministry of Earth Sciences had established ITCOocean at INCOIS, Hyderabad to provide training to scientists/ researchers/government officers/disaster managers/decision makers, etc in 2013.
• Accordingly, it started conducting short term training programmes for wide variety of participants from India and abroad.
• Later, in order to assist UNESCO and its Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) India offered to establish the ITCOocean as a UNESCO Category 2 Centre.
• The General Conference of UNESCO approved the offer of Government of India to establish ITCOocean as a UNESCO Category 2 Centre in November 2017.

Objective:

• The mission of the Centre is to assist the Member States of IOC/UNESCO in developing oceanographic scientific base, related technology and information systems.
• It aims to create a pool of trained ocean scientists, technologists and managers to cater the growing demands of operational oceanographic services and better management of oceans.
• It will give an opportunity to the South Asian and African states bordering the Indian Ocean and the small island nations in the Pacific to benefit from the expertise and experience of INCOIS in the areas of ocean science and management.,/li>

Role of INCOIS:

• INCOIS is already playing its part as a leading operational oceanography institute in the region.
• Tsunami early warnings from the institute are delivered to 25 countries on the Indian Ocean Rim on real-time basis, since IOC/UNESCO designated the Centre as Regional Tsunami Service Provider (RTSP) in October 2012.
• Under the aegis of Regional Integrated Multi-hazard Early warning System for Africa and Asia (RIMES), INCOIS is also providing ocean state forecast and other related warnings to 5 countries (Sri Lanka, Maldives, Seychelles, Madagascar and Cameroon).

INCOIS:

• Indian National Center for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS) is an autonomous organization of the Government of India, under the Ministry of Earth Sciences.
• INCOIS is mandated to provide the best possible ocean information and advisory services to society, industry, government agencies and the scientific community through sustained ocean observations and constant improvements through systematic and focussed research.