'India, U.S. Have Started Addressing Challenges Through Science'

NEW DELHI: India and the U.S. have started addressing "grand challenges" through sciences and the two sides are already working together in areas of health, biomedical science, clean energy, water management and weather forecasting, Union Minister Harsh Vardhan said.

He highlighted the need to collaborate in the field of renewable energy to develop cost-effective and efficient products that will have wider access and minimum carbon footprint. "India and the U.S. have started to address grand challenges through science.

"The two countries are already working together in the areas of health and biomedical sciences, food security, clean energy, integrated water management and weather forecasting. New collaborative R&D programs on low-cost diagnostics, next- generation vaccines, brain research, cancer research, high energy physics, and emerging materials were on the anvil," he said.

Vardhan, Minister of Science and Technology and Earth Sciences, was speaking at the India-U.S. Technology Summit being organized by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India and the U.S. Department of State.

"There is a need to collaborate in the field of renewable energy to develop cost-effective and efficient products that will have wider access and minimum carbon footprint. It is important to develop an innovative clean technology development fund using a consortia approach and PPP model," he said.

The minister said the government is expected to invest in renewable energy projects in a major way over the next five years alone and invited the U.S. companies to take advantage of this opportunity.

In his address, K Vijay Raghavan, Secretary, Department of Biotechnology highlighted the need for increasing the speed at which R&D was converted into applications. He said there is a need to work quickly to take advantage of the demographic dividend in India.

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