Secretary DST, Dr S Chandrasekhar highlighted the importance of connecting the scientists from India and US to collaborate on emerging technologies such as AI and smart connected cities at a meeting with the US delegation led by Dr Sethuraman Panchanathan, Director, National Science Foundation (NSF).

Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government of India Professor Ajay K Sood as well as Secretaries of all scientific ministries and departments also participated in the meeting.

Dr Chakrasekhar pointed out that the Technology Innovation Hubs supported by the Department of Science and Technology (DST) are being connected with scientific agencies in USA and this has resulted in the establishment of formal collaboration with scientific groups in different institutions across USA.

“A total of 35 scientific partnerships have been identified to be supported under this framework in areas of IoT and IoE, frontier areas of data analytics, smart power, health, climate, and next-generation telecommunications; on building cyber-physical systems for computer vision, Augmented Reality, and Virtual Reality,” he added.

Dr Rajesh Gokhale, Secretary DBT explained how his department was working towards health of the nation through Agricultural and Biomedical research. He suggested evolving new partnerships in these areas.

Dr M Ravichandran, Secretary MOES elaborated about Polar research and existing India US cooperation in Antarctic research. He also proposed to have joint studies on marine resources (including deep ocean mission), extreme climate/weather events.

Dr N Kalaiselvi, DG CSIR spoke about 8 mission directorates of CSIR through which 38 CSIR laboratories are working to provide research outputs of industrial relevance.

Dr. Panchanathan underlined that the global collaborations are successful because both the nations share values and aspirations together. “Since, values are generic and nations are democratic, there is respect, reciprocity and intellectual prosperity for every citizen. Both the nations are hoping for a mutually engaging partnership,” Dr. Panchanathan explained.

Ms Particia Lacina, Charge d’Affairs, US Embassy, New Delhi also reaffirmed their continued support for joint S&T cooperative program, a commitment made by Prime Minister Modi and President Biden.