The Hindu : National : India, Italy sign eight MoUs

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Wednesday, Feb 16, 2005

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National

India, Italy sign eight MoUs

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, FEB. 15. India and Italy today signed a set of eight memorandums of understanding for cooperation in various areas of science and technology, including early warning of disasters and land-mapping for agriculture.

Speaking to reporters after the signing ceremony, the Science and Technology (S&T) Minister, Kapil Sibal, said: "This is a historic event. Though S&T cooperation between the two countries during the past 10 years has been good, this marks a quantum jump''. The MoUs envisage, among other things, development of web-enabled technologies for small and medium scale enterprises, establishment of research hubs on bioinformatics, neuroinformatics, and grid technologies, and setting up of a joint laboratory on micro-electronic-mechanical systems.

The Italian Minister for Education, Universities and Research, Ilizi Moratti, said the aim would be to create intellectual property that could be shared between the two countries and put to commercial use. The MoUs would also help India have access to funding from the European Union.

The Indian institutions that would be involved in the joint programmes under the MoUs include the Indian Space Research Organisation, the Department of Atomic Energy, the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing, the National Brain Research Institute, the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, the Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Chennai, the B.M. Birla Science Centre, Hyderabad, and the Pune University.

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