Loading…
Union Minister Pralhad Joshi commissioned the White Rabbit Technology-based Indian Standard Time (IST) Dissemination Demonstration Network at the Regional Reference Standard Laboratory (RRSL), Bengaluru, on 16 July 2026.
Jointly developed by the Department of Consumer Affairs, CSIR-National Physical Laboratory (CSIR-NPL) and ISRO, it disseminates IST — traceable to UTC (NPLI) — using Precision Time Protocol-based White Rabbit technology with sub-nanosecond accuracy.
It has already verified secure IST transmission between RRSL Bengaluru and the National Stock Exchange (NSE) in Chennai, targeting critical sectors like banking, telecom, power and digital governance.
The network reduces India's reliance on foreign satellite-based timing services such as GPS for critical infrastructure, as part of a 'One Nation, One Time' push.
Originally developed at CERN, White Rabbit is an advanced networking protocol enabling devices on optical fibre to synchronise clocks to sub-nanosecond accuracy, by continuously monitoring and compensating for signal delay — eliminating 'time drift' across a network.
Simple Analogy: Like a team of runners constantly adjusting their pace mid-relay to stay perfectly synchronised with a master clock, rather than each runner keeping their own slightly-off watch.
Maintains India's national time standard, UTC (NPLI)
Regional metrology lab; hosted this network's commissioning
GS Paper III - Science & Technology (Indigenous infrastructure, digital security)
India's national time reference, maintained by CSIR-NPL, traceable to Coordinated Universal Time
Precision Time Protocol — a network protocol for high-accuracy clock synchronisation