Following the 5^th Indo-UK Science and Innovation Council Meeting (SIC) held at London on 15^th June 2016, Dr. Harsh Vardhan Minister for Science & Technology and Earth Sciences, Government of India informed that India and UK have agreed to work together in two major initiatives:

• As a part of commitment to the solar alliance, establish India-UK Networked Centre on Solar Energy linked to India’s renewable energy mission and UK’s Supergens Program. The research projects will focus on systems level design and development covering Solar energy generation, Storage systems and Grid integration particularly for micro-grid systems. India would be investing Rs 50 crores over  a period of five years with matching contribution from Research Council UK under Newton Bhabha program.

• Access to Indian researchers to the Neutron Scattering facility of the UK’s Science and Technology Facilities Council at Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, Oxford.  This unique facility based on the use of neutron scattering and muoun spectroscopy is a world class facility at Oxford to carry out fundamental research on the understating a wide range of matter at fundamental level. As a part of the Nano mission program of DST would be investing Rs 26.5 crores. Tthis will help to enhance Indian capability to fabricate structures at the nano scale level for creating interesting and technologically important materials through research in fundamental science.

The SIC is the apex body which oversees the entire gamut of the India-UK science, technology and innovation cooperation and meets once in two years. The today’s meeting was co-chaired by Dr Harsh Vardhan, along with Mr Jo Johnson, Minister for Universities & Science. The last meeting of the SIC was held in New Delhi in Nov. 2014 during which both countries had launched the Newton-Bhabha Program to support the bilateral S&T cooperation.

Since then the two governments have given a substantive boost to our collaborations in science, technology and innovation. The relationship has transformed into a true partnership based on mutual trust, reciprocity and parity, covering a wide gamut of basic and applied research.

Currently, the value of investment in Indo-UK research and development cooperation from multiple Indian and UK agencies exceeds 200 million pounds of co-funding. UK stands amongst the top three collaborating countries in science and technology with India.

Both nations have now agreed to address grand societal challenges on food, energy and water security; health and well-being; smart cities and rapid urbanisation with increasing access and sharing of expertise, resources and facilities. The cooperation is aimed to yield high quality and high impact research outputs targeted towards addressing societal needs and of industrial relevance.

Under the Newton-Bhabha Programme two sides also agreed on the following:

• . Collaborative program on Energy Efficiency in Built Environment as a part of the Smart Cities mission. Both the countries have agreed on common research agenda focused on, Energy efficient building envelop; Low energy cooling; and Thermal comfort as well as energy efficient technologies for city and community level.

• Augmenting the India-UK Centre of Advanced Manufacturing through DST-RCUK cooperation linked to the Make in India Program and UK’s Catapult Centre program. The projects will be designed to deliver industry relevant results that can be readily applied to current challenges in manufacturing supply chain.

• In the area of life and health sciences the Department of Biotechnology (DBT), India and the BBSRC agreed to continued support to the virtual joint centres on Agricultural Nitrogen. The two agencies are also supporting research collaboration under Global Research Partnership in Aquaculture. In the area of health sciences the focus is to address health needs of women and children. 

• Water Quality Research: Department of Science and Technology and Natural Environment Research Council will initiate a collaborative research program to improve water quality in India.  The program would address natural geogenic containments such as arsenic and fluoride in ground water and also man made pollutants (pharmaceutical and personal care products).  This program is being developed to support implementation of the goals of the National Mission for Clean Ganga.   

• The industrial R&D program was initiated in 2014 to support industry led projects aimed to develop new IP, technologies, processes and prototypes under the translation strand of the Newton Bhabha program. In addition to the five ongoing projects, five new projects were identified for support in the areas of affordable health care, clean technology, electronic design and internet of things.

• Besides the Newton Bhabha programs, two countries have been involved in promoting partnerships through the UK-India Education and Research Initiative (ULKIERI). Acknowledging the success in building new scientific partnership through R&D projects and networking the two governments concluded the implementation arrangement for the Phase III (2016-2021) of the UKIERI.

• The Ministry of Earth Sciences, India and NERC-UK are working on large observational campaign involving UK aircraft, Indian ships accompanied by surface observations primarily to address role of small scale processes to address variability of Indian monsoon leading to improved prediction of monsoon from short range to seasonal time scale. 

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National Research Development Corporation (NRDC), an Enterprise of the Department of Scientific & Industrial Research, Ministry of Science & Technology, Govt. of India, New Delhi  and M/s Chaturbhuj Pharmaceutical Co, Haridwar have entered into License Agreement for commercialization of  Ayush-82, an ayurvedic Formulation for management of  Diabetes.  Chairman & Managing Director, Dr. H. Purushotham NRDC said that Ayush-82 was developed by Central Council for Research in Ayurvedic Sciences (CCRAS), New Delhi, an Autonomous Organisation under the Ministry of AYUSH (Ayurveda, Yoga, Unani, Siddha and Homeopathy). The Licence agreement was signed by Dr. H. Purushotham , CMD , on behalf of National Research Development Corporation, New Delhi and Shri Murari Sharma, Proprietor,  Chaturbhuj Pharmaceutical Co , Haridwar.  National Research Development Corporation has so far licensed 13 Ayurvedic technologies developed by CCRAS to more than 33 companies in India.

Ayush-82; an anti diabetic drug developed by CCRAS is a combination of known and tested hypoglycemic drugs. Its clinical studies have been done extensively. Diabetes mellitus is a group of metabolic diseases marked by high level of blood glucose resulting from defects in insulin production, insulin action or both. Diabetes may lead to serious complications in multiple organ systems. The use of this cost effective drug would help millions of people suffering from  Diabetes.

The Ministry of Science and Technology, Government of India and the Science and Technology in Society (STS) forum, Japan organized a workshop on Monday to discuss and strengthen ongoing collaboration between the two countries in various research areas. Mechanisms to improve the partnership in the areas of infrastructure, manufacturing and high technology, including solar power generation, space, biotechnology and advanced materials were discussed at the day-long workshop. The role of innovation and research for Prime Minister Modi's 'Smart City' initiative were also discussed.

"India and Japan share a common vision of a sustainable future. The scintillating discussions today will help bridge the communication gap between different sectors and improve proficiency. The Government of India is committed to transforming India into a knowledge-based society and such collaborations will be instrumental in achieving the same," said Prof Ashutosh Sharma, Secretary, Department of Science and Technology, Ministry of Science and Technology.

It is important that R&D and business leaders exchange more information concerning mutual benefit areas of cooperation, establish joint research programs, and accelerate communication between younger scientists. The most promising areas of collaboration, effective ways to achieve the maximum potential from a product and prospective roles adopted by different sectors were among the prominent topics discussed.

Mr. Koji Omi, Founder and Chairman, STS forum, Japan said, "The Indian government has shown a keen interest in improving the country's research and development capacities. Innovation and research have proven time and again to be the driver of social and economic growth of a country. India has immense potential in the various research fields and we intend to work together to create sustainable solutions for the future."

In the past, Japan Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has expressed his intention to support India's efforts by sharing its advanced skills and technologies and through active mobilization of Japanese public and private sector involvement. Mr. Abe has earlier commended Prime Minister Modi's 'Smart City' initiative, which requires high technologies, like Information and Communication Technology (ICT), intelligent communication system, renewable energy sources and its management, etc. A panel session was held to discuss the areas for innovation to be mobilized for realizing 'Smart Cities' and the role to be played by the public and private sectors.

"Japan and India have significantly strengthened bilateral scientific cooperation in the biological, chemical, physical and earth sciences over the years and meetings like the one organized today are the perfect setting for cross-pollination of ideas for the progress and development of both our countries' people," said  Dr. K. Vijay Raghavan, Secretary, Department of Biotechnology, Ministry of Science and Technology.

The event was supported by the Japan External Trade Organization, the Confederation of Indian Industry and the Embassy of Japan. 

Source: PRNewswire

Govt. to set up science & technology incubators applying hub & spoke model: Y.S. Chowdary

Science & Technology Ministry working on ‘five year rolling plan’ to measure plans & their implementation

The union government will soon launch a hub and spoke model to set up science cities and science centres to encourage science and technology (S&T) incubators and create an enabling environment, minister of state for science & technology and earth sciences, Mr Y.S. Chowdary said at an ASSOCHAM event held in New Delhi today.

“The entire country can be divided in five zones so that each zone can have a science city, so that number of science centres can be there whereby rural population and youngsters can have a lot of access,” said Mr Chowdary while inaugurating an ASSOCHAM Summit on ‘India: Entrepreneurial, Creative & Innovative.’

“In addition to that if we create a proper ecosystem like bird migration we can definitely attract many scientists from foreign countries because of environmental conditions,” he added.

“Our country gives them very good weather conditions as there are many countries where we do not have productivity more than 4-5 months, at the most six months, so that is one area where we are seriously thinking,” further said Mr Chowdary.

He also informed that Ministry of Science & Technology and Earth Sciences was working on a system called ‘five year rolling plan,’ to measure the plans and their implementation for both politicians and the bureaucrats.

“One of my observation, particularly for the past 18 months having been in the government, we keep doing planning but we do not have any proper tools to measure whether we have achieved or not,” said Mr Chowdary.

“So if we can introduce a rolling plan for five years, the successor can always refer what has happened, what was being planned, to what extent one has achieved and what are the things to be achieved,” he said.

Highlighting that is not difficult to address supply side related issues using information technology (IT) tools, the minister said that both the government and the industry need to look towards improving the consumption side by creating a proper ecosystem.

“There is a need for us to spend more time on blueprint rather than on trying to execute, particularly from government’s point of view, as once blueprint is prepared properly with all kinds of IT tools the execution can be done perfectly,” said the minister.

He also stressed upon the need to focus on preventive healthcare so as to bring all resources together whether it is infrastructure, human resources, finance and others to prevent maintenance of warm bodies.

“If we spend Rs 100 on preventive health, I think Rs 2,000 in financial terms can be saved, in addition to this productivity goes up and when that happens a person will think of earning by himself rather than looking at the government for freebies, then happiness index will definitely go up,” further said Mr Chowdary.

Source: assocham