The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : Indo-U.S. forum to set up `pre-commercial' R&D centres

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Sunday, Apr 24, 2005

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

Indo-U.S. forum to set up `pre-commercial' R&D centres

Ramya Kannan

CHENNAI: The Indo-U.S. Science and Technology Forum will set up `pre-commercial' research and development centres in various sectors including design engineering, energy, eco-infomatics, very large systems integration and weather and climate change, A. Mitra, executive director, said.

Among the academic institutions to be involved in this project are the Indian Institutes of Technology, Kanpur, Delhi, Chennai and Karaghpur and the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, apart from universities in the United States and private industries. This collaborative research would aim at developing solutions and products to handle problems common to both countries, with the centres being physically located in India.

The forum is a bilateral body established under an agreement between the Governments of India and the U.S. nearly 40 years ago, to facilitate and promote co-operation in science and technology through interaction among the Government, the academia and industry.

"We will act as a forum that will bring various institutions together on a common platform. The modalities of research and issues of Intellectual Property Rights will be worked out by these agencies themselves," Dr. Mitra told The Hindu .

Research inputs

Each institution will provide research inputs in areas they are perceived to be strong in: for instance, IIT Kanpur is taking the lead in establishing an Indo-U.S. manufacturing centre, while the Delhi IIT will focus on climate and weather change and the Karaghpur IIT on very large systems integration.

Under this project, an eco-bioinfomatics centre has already been established in Bangalore to collect and provide data. The centres would be physically located in India, because research can be conducted at one-tenth of the cost in the U.S., Dr. Mitra said.

In Chennai to attend the second Indo-U.S. workshop on Diabetic Foot Complication, organised jointly by the M.V. Hospital for Diabetes and Diabetes Research Centre and the forum, Dr. Mitra said: "Health and Disease Control is one of the common science and technology perspectives of both countries."

The forum sponsored several workshops on health-related issues, more recently one on complementary systems of Indian medicine which led to development of half-a-dozen joint projects between Indian and U.S. doctors.

Other successful events have been conferences on minimal access surgery and infectious disease control.

Dr. Mitra is hopeful that a collaborative effort on diabetes control will emerge, providing possible joint research facilities in certain sectors, including diabetic neuropathy, nephropathy and Islet Cell transplantation.

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