WASHINGTON, Sept 21: India and the US have common goals and stakes that bind the two nations together, visiting Science and Technology Minister Jitendra Singh has said, urging the American scientific community and entrepreneurs to work with their Indian counterparts in areas like health, clean energy and space.
“We have common goals. So we are in a common state, which also binds us together,” Singh on Tuesday said at a reception hosted in his honour at the India House by India’s Ambassador to the US Taranjit Singh Sandhu.
India under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has provided a much more enabling environment in the field of science and technology and entrepreneurs than it was ever in the past, Singh said at the reception attended by several lawmakers, members of the scientific, academics, think tank community, and senior officials from the Biden administration.
India now has a government and the head of the government who has the capacity to think out of the box, and has the capacity to break the taboos of the past, the minister said.
Areas of health, clean energy, space, geospatial, and quantum are some of the propriety areas for both countries. “You would appreciate that after several years the Department of Space has been opened up for joint initiation, joint ventures, and public-private participation. And we will also look forward to international investments and we would rather be glad to incentivise that,” he said.
He pointed out that India has more than 60 startups in the space sector itself. The new geospatial guidelines also initiated at the behest of Modi would create a much more enabling atmosphere for future partnerships, Singh said.
Ambassador Sandhu in his welcome remarks highlighted the key pillars of the India-US relationship in the field of education, health, science, and technology, as well as, clean energy.
Sandhu said the US Congress had played a key role in strengthening the India-US relationship.
Today there are more than 200,000 Indian students in the US with one-third of them from STEM areas. US universities now want to establish a close relationship with India, the Ambassador said.
The Indian envoy during his tenure has had interactions with heads of 150 universities and academic institutions.
National Science Foundation Director Sethuraman Panchanathan in his remarks during the reception said he looked forward to a very strong partnership between the US and India.
“Any partnership between global partners is fundamentally premised on shared values and shared aspirations. In terms of shared values, we have the values of openness, transparency, reciprocity, research, integrity, and respect for intellectual property and a whole lot more,” he said.
“We share the fundamental bedrock of a foundation that clearly can build unbelievable scientific partnerships together,” Panchanathan asserted.
“On top of that, we share aspirations whether it is AI, quantum, Advanced Wireless biotechnology, advanced manufacturing, you name it, it doesn’t matter what the field is, we find that there is always a partner that you can locate in India where we can build partnerships together and set of outcomes to work on grand challenges like climate change, or in terms of industries of the future, both of that are possible because of this partnership coming together,” Panchanathan said. (PTI)
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