India, Russia to renew S&T programme

By Vladimir Radyuhin

MOSCOW, JULY 4. India and Russia have agreed to extend for another 10 years a unique bilateral cooperation programme in science and technology.

A renewed Integrated Long-Term Programme (ILTP) for Indo-Russian cooperation in science and technology would be signed during the Russian President, Mr. Vladimir Putin's visit to India in early October, official sources said after a meeting between the visiting Union Human Resource Development Minister, Dr. Murli Manohar Joshi, and the Russian Industry Minister, Mr. Alexander Dondukov, on Monday.

Dr. Joshi is on a week-long visit to Russia as part of preparations for the forthcoming Indo-Russian summit in New Delhi.

The ILTP programme, signed by the President of the erstwhile Soviet Union, Mr. Mikhail Gorbachev, and the late Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi, in Moscow in 1987, to last through the year 2000, has emerged as the world's largest bilateral project in science and technology. Dr. Joshi paid glowing tributes to the programme, describing it as ``an icon of the close cooperation in science and technology that has developed between our two countries over the last 13 years''. He said the programme had facilitated exchange visits of over 2,500 scientists and generated a close to 300 development projects in India and Russia.

Dr. Joshi and his Russian counterpart would give instructions to relevant departments of their Ministries to prepare a renewed programme laying greater emphasis on commercialisation of technologies developed by the two countries, the sources said. The two Ministers agreed to meet regularly to update the level and areas of cooperation.

During a meeting with the Russian Education Minister, Mr. Filippov, Dr. Joshi discussed with him ways to step up cooperation between education institutions of the two countries. With about 65 per cent of scientists working in education, such cooperation would boost scientific ties between India and Russia. Dr. Joshi also displayed interest in studying Russian experience in distance education.

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Section  : International
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