The Indian subcontinent and Australia are moving away from each other. This is the result of the cracking up of the massive Indo- Australian crustal plate just south of the equator beneath the Indian Ocean. The study carried out by scientists at Columbia University!s Lamont Doherty Earth observatory, New York, US, goes on t{. say that the crack is the result of accumulated mass of the Indian subcontinent, which started some eight million years ago. Data obtained from sound images suggests that the huge Australian plate is rotating and pushing against the Indian plate in a northward counter-clockwise direction.