Calcutta: The Calcutta chapter of the inaugural Indo-ASEAN car rally took off early Thursday morning from Science City with a convoy of 19 vehicles starting off towards Guwahati, from where the rally proper kicks off a couple of days later. The vehicles included cruisers, 4x4 SUVs, ambulances, technical support vehicles and more. It will be a rally that will be run with rather high-tech features.

When the 8,000-odd km rally convoy traverses eight countries after leaving India, each movement of the vehicles will be digitally recorded by transceivers set in the cars and tracked through the Inmersat satellite.

Not only would this enable the rally organisers, the Federation of Motor Sports Clubs of India, to keep a close watch on the vehicles, it would also allow a military junta government, like that of Myanmar ? the rally?s first passage country ? to allow the safety military escort vehicles keep the security vigil tight.

With the Indian complement ready, each participating country has now sent three rallying vehicles, the maximum quota allowed. Only Malaysia has been able to send in one car. The full quota countries are Myanmar, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Singapore and Indonesia. All countries gather in Guwahati, from where the rally will be officially flagged off. There will be another official flagging off, in Vientian, Laos, where all ASEAN heads of state will be meeting at the November 30 summit. There, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is also to deliver his speech. The Indian PM is scheduled to flag off the second leg of the rally from there.

The high-tech tracking devices have become essential because the participation is rather high-profile and because the external and internal affairs ministries of India and other participating nations are worrying sick over security. The hostile terrain in Myanmar ? where the Shan group?s insurgent activity is coming out of a tentative peace treaty ? is especially in focus. The treaty is so fragile, it can break any day.

Hong Kong-headquartered company Sparta Matrix (with research base in Brisbane), now with a months-old presence in Calcutta via the BPO route, will provide the GPS tracking technology that its chairman Philip H. Wainwright claims is ?smarter than many other such technology by other companies around the world.?

Sparta Matrix is a euro 1.2 billion revenue company that has established presence worldwide. The company?s core competency includes asset tracking, packing and shipping, and Radio Frequency Identification Device (RFID).

?We provide tracking in real time,? Wainwright, now in Calcutta, told The Telegraph here Thursday.

?We are able to take data and video feed from the cars in motion and uplink to the satellite for country security organisations and for television broadcast. And since this is being done in real time, any car can be spotted at any point of time.? All the data will be on screen ? ?24x7? as Wainwright says ? at a Singapore office and even in the lead vehicle, provided with all equipment.

There is a problem, though. Even high-tech GPS services require a map of the area for comparison. ?Not many Myanmar maps were available, so we make do with what the government has given us and whatever topographical maps are available and allowed by the Myanmarese government,? Wainwright said.