Modi government aims to connect Indian researchers with diaspora

• Shubham
• 01 September, 2021

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By: Shubham Ghosh

THE Narendra Modi government has a determined plan to connect Indian researchers with the diaspora, one of its top officials have said recently.

Science and technology secretary professor Ashutosh Sharma said during an interaction with several Indian-American presidents of US universities last week, “Given the constraints and cultural differences in research ambience of two countries, we can work through mutual collaborations with the help of government initiatives such as VAJRA, SPARC, etc., particularly in futuristic technologies like cyber-physical system, quantum, hydrogen, electric mobility, in which several Indian scientists are also doing substantial work.”

India’s science and technology ministry aims to connect the Indian diaspora with the country’s researchers and the department of science and technology (DST) has had several dialogues with the National Science Foundation and the US energy department on the development of bilateral scientific cooperation, Sharma said.

The secretary has been periodically meeting with people of Indian origin in the fields of science, technology, engineering, mathematics and medicine. On August 20, he spoke with 11 presidents/chancellors of American universities along with India’s University Grants Commission chairman professor D P Singh. India’s ambassador to the US Taranjeet Singh Sandhu was also present there, Indo-Asian News Service agency added.

DST chief, international cooperation, SK Varshney said that in STEM areas, the first significant step taken was organising the Vaishwik Bharatiya Vaigyanik summit last year. Now, an online portal called Pravasi Bharatiya Academic and Scientific Sampark has also been launched to connect the Indian diaspora with the country’s academic and research institutes.

The Indian diaspora suggested upgrading of the healthcare system and promoting medical sciences along with technical education to develop cooperation in certain focus areas like healthcare, artificial intelligence machine learning, etc, the agency added.