India was among the 164 countries that voted in favour of UN General Assembly’s Sept 4 resolution, “Correct the Map: Rebalancing Global Cartographic Representation and Promoting Equitable Representation of the World’s Regions, Particularly Africa”.MEA said the resolution’s purpose is to encourage the use of equal-area map projections that preserve the relative sizes of continental landmasses, and it neither adopts nor authenticates any particular world map, nor does it address political cartography, including international boundaries, disputed territories or place names.“India voted in favour of the resolution and also made an explanation, stressing the underlying principle of promoting equal-area cartographic representation. We also highlighted that the resolution does not constitute endorsement of any specific map, projection or depiction of national boundaries,” said Randhir Jaiswal.The resolution received abstentions from Estonia, Georgia, Lithuania, Moldova, Serbia and Ukraine, and a lone vote against it from US.
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The resolution noted that the Mercator projection remains widely used in educational, media, digital and official materials, despite the considerable distortion of landmasses to the North and South, far from the equator.It expressed concern that this distortion contributed to minimising the perceived sizes of Africa, Latin America and South Asia, and perpetuating an unbalanced view of the world. India welcomed the intention behind the resolution to promote more accurate and representative cartographic practices.
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