India, EU must deepen cooperation in blue economy, health, agri: Jitendra Singh

Singh called for reinforcing the EU-India strategic partnership and developing a shared approach at the multilateral level to address global challenges.Referring to Prime Minister Narendra Modis exhortation that the ultimate aim of all scientific endeavour is to bring Ease of Living for common man, Singh said, India-EU must deepen cooperation in the areas like blue economy, Health, Agriculture, Water, Renewable Energy, biotechnology, Electric mobility, AI, Robotics and Environment.In his remarks, Astuto called for deepening people-to-people contact, apart from focusing on areas like clean energy, Genome Sequencing, Marine protected areas in Antarctica and Collaboration on research using high performance computing.

India and the EU must deepen cooperation in areas such as blue economy, health, agriculture, water, renewable energy, biotechnology, electric mobility, artificial intelligence, robotics and environment, Union minister Jitendra Singh said on Wednesday.

Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) Science & Technology Singh welcomed an EU delegation led by Ambassador Ugo Astuto.

He noted that the European Union has recently launched ''Horizon Europe (2021-2027)'', which is a planned seven-year European Union scientific research initiative and the EU is approaching Indian scientific agencies for its participation in Horizon Europe. Singh said India is willing to participate in this programme provided some of the concerns on issues related to IPR Sharing, scope of the joint call, Signing of Model Grant Agreement and Joint Evaluation are addressed at the ''satisfaction of both the sides''. Singh called for reinforcing the EU-India strategic partnership and developing a shared approach at the multilateral level to address global challenges.

Referring to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's exhortation that the ultimate aim of all scientific endeavour is to bring ''Ease of Living" for common man, Singh said, India-EU must deepen cooperation in the areas like blue economy, Health, Agriculture, Water, Renewable Energy, biotechnology, Electric mobility, AI, Robotics and Environment.

In his remarks, Astuto called for deepening people-to-people contact, apart from focusing on areas like clean energy, Genome Sequencing, Marine protected areas in Antarctica and Collaboration on research using high performance computing. The Ambassador also called for greater student exchange programmes between India and EU and informed that 200 PhD and 80 higher scholars from India are pursuing scientific studies in the EU. Astuto informed that in the area of Innovation, a pilot project on match making between Indian and EU Start-ups is underway. He also endorsed the Indian Minister's idea of increasing cooperation in the Blue Economy as Deep Sea mining has global ramifications.

Singh said that based on the good progress achieved so far, there is a need for advancing the overall India-EU Strategic Partnership through increased efforts on research and innovation. The minister said that the COVID-19 pandemic has changed the global scenario of the economy and added that science and technology has to play a greater role to address this pandemic by bringing scientists and researchers together. He said India is closely involved in shaping up Mission Innovation 2.0 where focus will be on development of time-bound missions with clear deliverables and resource commitment. At the same time India is engaged in development of platforms for high-level engagement of countries for clean energy transition, especially in the wake of climate change challenges, he added. PTI UZM CK

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)