Tuesday, October 18 2005 10:12 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Washington: The India-US Science and Technology Umbrella Agreement will benefit both countries, and take relations between the two nations to a new level, Science and Technology Minister Kapil Sibal has said.

"The agreement will tangible benefits to both countries," Sibal told reporters in Washington yesterday (Oct 17, 2005).

"This historic agreement will take the relationship of India and the United States to a new level," Sibal said, adding he was confident it would also lead to 'collaboration far more diverse and deep and far more interactive.'

The agreement signed yesterday by Sibal and US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, aims at expanding collaboration in basic sciences, space, energy, nanotechnology, health and information technology.

"It is important that the world's oldest and largest democracies collaborate on specific issues of high-tech," he said.

The Minister said the scientific community's contribution in the fields of nano-tech and bio-tech will be particularly important.

Speaking on Intellectual Property protection, he said that it will be a shared responsibility with equitable contribution by both sides.

"In any joint programme, IPR will be shared," he said.

The new agreement for the first time establishes intellectual property right protocols and other provisions necessary to conduct active collaborative research.

Pointing to areas of collaboration, Sibal said it was important that both countries work together in the area of life sciences, especially in diseases afflicting the poor, and in curing diseases associated with natural calamities.

"The world community is already moving in that direction. Energy and environment are also big issues," Sibal said.

Sibal also spoke on the agreement India has signed with the US National Institutes of Health for collaboration on expanding research into vision and called it 'important'.

Sibal said India has made great advances despite the meagre resources put into research and development in the country, but added 'the time has come to invest more'.

"In India, we will be putting more emphasis on investments in the research and development in the areas of science and technology because we need those investments to generate an 8 per cent growth of the Gross Domestic Product," the minister said.

The latest agreement also complements the activity of the Indo-US Science and Technology Forum established in 2000 by facilitating follow-on technical collaborations.

From the US, Sibal leaves for Iceland, which has a strong programme on study of earthquakes. Iceland is an earthquake-prone country.