India- UK strike new nano tech and solar pacts

The Dollar Business Bureau

As part of the wider science and technology cooperation, United Kingdom and India have agreed on two areas nano technology and solar energy.

For establishing the India-UK Networked center on Solar Energy, Dr. Harsh Vardhan, Minister for Science and Technology and Earth Sciences met his UK counterpart Jo Johnson for the Fifth Indo-UK Science and Innovation Council.

Vardhan told the reporters that, “The UK is among the most important countries with whom we have a very dynamic engagement. In India, we are taking up renewable energy in a big way, and in the solar area we will have an even more active engagement with the UK now.”

He also spoke about the new solar pact which will be focused on research projects and micro grids for the remote area connectivity.

India is planning to invest Rs 50 crore over a period of five years in the network with the same contribution from the Research Council UK. They are investing under the Newton Bhabha Program.

For the Indian researchers, the council has also announced access to the Neutron Scattering facility at Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Oxford.

The minister added that this tie-up will help in the nano mission and also in the development of advanced nano materials.

Both the governments see Science and Technology (S&T) as one of the important elements in the India-UK bilateral cooperation. The Bilateral cooperation was started in 1996 by signing the inter-governmental S&T agreement.

A new orientation was given to the S&T cooperation in 2006 with the setting up of Science and Innovation Council.

The SIC is headed by the science ministers of India and UK and is a body to review the overall bilateral trade scientific cooperation. A review is held every two years on an alternate basis in India and UK.

The Newton Bhabha program was signed during the fourth SIC meeting which was held in November 2014 in Delhi.

The fifth meeting happened in London on 15 June 2016.