'Himadri,' at the Arctic

India has opened a station in the Arctic. Equipped with state-of-the-art facilities for year-round scientific work, the sta­tion is at Ny-Alesund in Norway, which is the northern-most permanent human settlement, 1,200 km from the North Pole. With Himadri, India has become the 11 th country to have established a fullfledged research station here. The others are Britain, Germany, France, Italy, China, Japan, South Korea, The Netherlands, Sweden and Norway. India began its Arctic research programme in August 2007 with five scientists. The National Centre for Antarctic and Ocean Research (NCAOR), an autonomous in­stitution under the Ministry of Earth Sci­ences, based in Goa manages Himadri and has been 'coordinating India's polar research.