A crucial Global Positioning System (GPS) antenna in Bangalore has been stolen — apparently for its scrap value — knocking India out of an international network of 'core' stations that provides data to geoscientists around the globe.

The station at the Indian Institute of Science was linked to the International Global Navigation Satellite Systems Service, based in Pasadena, California. The service provides scientific data such as for satellite navigation and earthquake-risk monitoring. Although India has 2 of the 336 active stations in the global network, the Bangalore station was the only one among the 40 core stations that supply data in real time.

The loss means that the “global Earth-science community will not have real-time GPS data from the Indian subcontinent”, says Sridevi Jade a geoscientist at Bangalore's Centre for Mathematical Modelling and Computer Simulation, which maintains the station. She says that it will take a year to erect a new antenna in the same location and make it operational.