Google Earth has never been given access to GOI (Government Of India) data, so its usefulness for South Asian studies has been somewhat impaired, although Google has welcomed local user generated content as highlighted in its Maplandia site which makes it somewhat more useful, for example, to orient study abroad students. The Indian government's system, Bhuvan, was released in fall of 2009 and offers many of the same functionality as Google Earth but with emphasis on the subcontinent and with some government data built in --
