PoliticalNews.me - May 09,2012 - Remarks at Innovation Partnerships Event
Remarks
Hillary Rodham Clinton
Secretary of State
Indian Minister of Science and Technology Vilasrao Deshmukh
Taj Palace Hotel
New Delhi, India
MINISTER DESHMUKH: Good morning. Honorable Secretary of State and ladies and gentlemen, let me exchange a warm welcome to Secretary Clinton, for I have the first public engagement here in Delhi. I’m glad that this engagement is in the areas of science and innovation, which is our common priority. In fact, Madam Secretary, I was planning to visit U.S.A. today. (Laughter.) In view of our common interest in a joint innovation program and your visit to Delhi, I also rescheduled my plans and created this time space. Together – (applause) – we have witnessed just now a wonderful display of technology innovation. We have interacted with the powerful minds of some innovators. I’m fully convinced that our bilateral cooperation in the innovation space enjoys a bright future.
Strategic partnership between the two countries is – high technology areas has been flagged of by Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh and President Obama. This has opened a new chapter in our cooperation. The visit of President Clinton in 2000 to India was a defining moment in our science and technology cooperation agenda. Secretary Clinton, we recall with fondness that the bi-national Indo-U.S. Science and Technology Forum was founded during the visit of your husband as President. You might like to convey that the forum he seeded has grown into a full fruit-yielding tree. It is the forum which has catalyzed several of the major joint initiatives we are witnessing today.
Over the last few years, science and technology engagements between our two countries have been both substantial and exhaustive. I acknowledge the contribution of our Ministry of External Affairs and the U.S. State Department. Now, we have started to address together a grand challenge through the tools of science. We are working in the areas of health, biomedical science, food security, clean energy, water cycle, and climate research. Our cooperation in knowledge-based industry sector has assured in full spirit of innovation and entrepreneurship among our entities. In the past, we were focused on attracting people for science. Now, our cooperation includes also science, but people of both countries. Our cooperation agenda represents a new measure of mutual trust and confidence.
Today, we wish to highlight the five-point program. But first of all, I wish to recognize the ongoing outcome of our Stanford-India Biodesign program supported by the Department of Biotechnology and the Indo-U.S. Science and Technology Forum involving Stanford University, AIIMS, IIT-Delhi. Under this program, about 25 high-quality minds have been trained to identify major healthcare needs and develop cost effective solutions. I’m convinced that this program will provide deployable healthcare solution covering a wide socioeconomic spectrum. I believe that we should try to replicate and establish several such innovative programs that will not only provide affordable healthcare solutions to our people, but also nurture the young minds to become job creators and job seekers –
