Current Affairs Health: A 45 million Pound partnership between Department of Bio-Technology, Government of India and Wellcome Trust, UK has been announced to support the development of innovative healthcare products at affordable costs. Two other new India-UK joint research projects – “Bridging the rural/urban divide” to provide technological solutions to improve the quality of life of rural inhabitants in both countries and multi disciplinary research partnerships to develop the next generation of environmentally friendly fuel cell technologies were also discussed when Sh. Prithviraj Chavan, Minister for Science and Technology met David Willets, Minister of State for Universities and Science, UK, in New Delhi .

Elaborating on the DBT-Wellcome Trust Initiative, Sh. Prithviraj Chavan said that this is the next phase of initiative announced two years ago wherein prestigious fellowships supporting the most promising researches were started in the Wellcome Trust-DBT alliance. Now the partnership, wherein DBT and the Wellcome Trust are contributing 22.5 million pounds each, would result in translation to projects for societal benefits. The aim is to bring together researchers from both public and private sector, largely working in India, to develop innovative devices, diagnostic medicines and vaccines that can reach the greatest number of beneficiaries at affordable cost. The focus would be on vaccines, technologies for rehabilitation and women and child care. Sh. Chavan said that affordable health is top priority for the government and use of high technology for low cost new devices would be encouraged on priority.

The Deptt. of Science & Technology and the Research Council UK have also agreed to invest three million pounds each, towards Fuel Cell research. The proposed initiative will address systems research programmes in fuel cell technologies including energy support through joint India-UK academic programmes. Sh. T. Ramasami, Secretary, Department of Science & Technology informed that Indo-UK joint workshop on fuel cell technology would be organized during September 15-17, 2010 at Centre for Fuel Cell Technology Chennai.

The aim of the other initiative “ Bridging the Rural and Urban Divide” is to provide technological solutions for making rural living an economically and technologically sustainable option. The area of research focus include robust infrastructure for sustainable energy for all, wherein solutions have the potential to be owned, modified and evolved by users. The Secretary Science & Technology informed that India and UK would be contributing six million pounds each towards this project. An Indo-UK workshop on bridging the urban and rural divide is being organized at Vardha from 19 to 21 October 2010.

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