002. India’s Undersea Cables – Where Bandwidth Meets Backbone 🌐
Digital Infrastructure, Science & Tech, Economy, GS3
By IAS Monk / April 4, 2025
📡 What Are Undersea Cables?
- Fibre-optic lines laid on ocean floors to transmit international internet traffic
- Enable 90% of global data and 80% of global trade
- Example: SEA-ME-WE, 2Africa Pearls, i2i, Tata Global Network
- India’s key hubs: Mumbai & Chennai
🚀 Why the 2Africa Pearls Matters
- Backed by Meta (formerly Facebook)
- Adds 100 Tbps capacity to India’s bandwidth
- Strengthens connectivity with Africa, Middle East, Europe, Asia
⚠️ Challenges
| Area | Concern |
|---|---|
| Regulatory | Delays due to permissions from multiple departments |
| Repair Capabilities | India depends on foreign ships for cable repair |
| Vulnerability | Cables exposed to damage in chokepoints like Bab-el-Mandeb |
| Capacity Lag | Only 1% share in global landing stations; 3% in cable systems |
🔧 What India Needs
- One-window regulatory clearance
- Domestic repair ships & equipment
- Distributed landing hubs beyond Mumbai & Chennai
- Investment in redundancy and data rerouting infrastructure
🌍 Relevance for UPSC
- GS3: Infrastructure, Science & Tech, Security
- Essay: “A country’s growth is only as fast as its cables allow.”
✨ Closing Whisper
“Beneath the waves run the lines of our lives —
fragile, glowing threads that keep India breathing data.”
🔥 A Thought Spark – by IAS Monk
They say the internet is wireless.
But it begins as a whisper beneath oceans —
Where steel and light carry dreams faster than sound.
