INDIAN students already have classes beamed via an Indian satellite. Now they can talk back to their teachers via a new link. If a 10-day experiment of a satellite-based continuing education programme of the Institute of Electronics and Telecommunication (IET) and the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) takes off, a teacher in say Delhi or Bombay can instruct and interact with students in remote towns.

The programme involves instructors from the Delhi and Kharagpur campuses of the Indian Institute of Technology, the Institute of Science in Bangalore and ISRO units in Bangalore and Ahmedabad, and more than 1,000 students. The programme differs from television classroom in broadcast mode because it offers two-way communication in interactive mode. Each day, there are two lectures of 30 minutes each, followed by a half-hour question-answer session.

The facility for talk-back was made possible by INSAT 2-A, India's indigenously built, multi-purpose satellite, and a two-way talk-back terminal, developed by ISRO.