US secretary of state Hillary Clinton and minister of science and technology and earth sciences Vilasrao Deshmukh’s joint meeting looked at the sharing of high technology in five key areas.
Mr Deshmukh, in his welcome speech, elaborated on these areas which include the Stanford-India Biodesign Programme, involving Stanford University, AIIMS and IIT-Delhi. In this agreement, leading doctors and scientists will be expected to come up with cost-effective solutions to deal with major healthcare challenges.
The India Innovation Growth Programme supported by the department of science and technology and Lockheed Martin Corporation is pushing for increased business exchanges between the two countries. And already, 200 business agreements have been kickstarted with a Ficci report highlighting that innovators who have lined up under this programme have already earned $70 million between 2007 and 2010.
The third programme is the US-India Endowment Fund which allows the US and India to work together in the area of commercialisation of new trends in technology. The fourth is in the area of Indo-US Joint Clean Energy Research and Development Centre, involving the ministry of science and technology with the US department of energy.
The fifth joint project is the USAID Millennium Alliance which hopes to boost creativity in order to optimise the use resources. The USAID has already contributed $7.7 million to this initiative while the Indian government will contribute $5 million.
“The Ficci hopes to scale up the fund for this alliance up to $50 million during the next twelve months,” the minister said.
“When the most powerful and large economies of the world join and develop their innovation agenda, it is bound to deliver values for global good. The world would want us to work together,” Mr Deshmukh added.
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HC reserves pilot verdict
AGE CORRESPONDENT
NEW DELHI, MAY 8
The Delhi high court on Tuesday reserved its verdict on a plea of pilots of the erstwhile domestic carrier Indian Airlines seeking parity with their counterparts in Air India in training for handling advanced aircraft.
Justice Suresh Kait reserved the order for May 11 after hearing the arguments of lawyers of Indian Commercial Pilots Association, Air India, Indian Pilots Guild, the union of Air India pilots and the ministry of civil aviation on the petition filed by ICPA.