5-Apr-2023: Defence Secretary & Vice Minister of Defense for International Affairs of Japan co-chair 7th India-Japan Defence Policy Dialogue
The 7th India-Japan Defence Policy Dialogue, co-chaired by Defence Secretary Shri Giridhar Aramane and Vice Minister of Defense for International Affairs Mr. Oka Masami, was held in New Delhi on April 05, 2023. A wide range of issues, including Service-level exercises and engagements, regional security issues and cooperation in defence equipment & technology, were discussed during the meeting. The Japanese Vice Minister also presented policy updates from their recently released National Security Strategy and National Defense Strategy.
Both the countries appreciated the growing cooperation between the Services through Staff talks and exercises. They welcomed the conduct of inaugural fighter exercise ‘Veer Guardian’ between the Indian Air Force and Japanese Air Self Defence Force in January this year in Japan. The Defence Secretary emphasised that both the countries should aim to deepen collaboration between the respective defence industries. He also invited Japanese defence industries to look at investment opportunities in India under the ‘Make in India’ initiative. Both sides agreed to diversify cooperation in new and emerging domains like defence space and cyber.
India and Japan reiterated their commitment towards a strong defence partnership and agreed to find opportunities to further enhance the bilateral cooperation. Both sides also agreed to hold the next Defence Policy Dialogue at mutually convenient dates.
The Defence Policy Dialogue is an institutionalized mechanism between India and Japan to discuss bilateral defence cooperation.
3-Apr-2023: 1st Ministerial-Level Meeting of India - Netherlands Joint Working Group Held In New Delhi
The 1st Ministerial-level meeting of the Joint Working Group between India and the Netherlands was held today in New Delhi in the august presence of the Union Minister for Jal Shakti Mr. Gajendra Singh Shekhawat and the Minister of Infrastructure and Water Management, Government of Netherlands, Mr. Mark Harbers. In April 2021 during a virtual meeting between the Prime Ministers of India and the Netherlands ‘Strategic Water Partnership’ was launched. On 29th March 2022, the ‘Strategic Water Partnership’ was signed by Mr. Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, Union Minister for Jal Shakti and Mr. Mark Harbers, Minister of Infrastructure and Water Management. The Partnership provides the necessary impetus to expand the bilateral water cooperation and is a joint effort of Indian and Netherlands Governments, recognizing the importance of Sustainable Development Goals, water safety, water availability and water quality for wellbeing and sustainable development of the present and future generations.
In his opening remarks, the Union Minister for Jal Shakti Shri Gajendra Singh Shekhawat welcomed the guests and said that during the virtual summit between the Prime Ministers of India and the Netherlands in April 2021, the two leaders had a detailed review of the entire spectrum of bilateral relationship and agreed on instituting a ‘Strategic Partnership on Water’ to further deepen the Indo-Dutch cooperation in the water sector. He said that the cooperation was enhanced by the decision to upgrade the Joint Working Group (JWG) on water to the Ministerial-level. The Netherlands is engaged with various States and Municipalities including in the states of Uttar Pradesh, Delhi Gujarat, Punjab, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Maharashtra in various water resources project. “I am happy to note that both the groups – the Joint Working Group and the Bilateral Technical Group have been able to narrow down to the few areas of intervention under the collaboration which are industrial pollution abatement through multi-stakeholder platform for pollution prevention and effective waste management of textile cluster in Panipat, Haryana, Water as Leverage and Namami Gange, Water as Leverage in Chennai, Room for River Project – Flood Management project with Kerala, Pilot project in the doab of Arnair and Koratalair river and capacity development programmes,” the Union Minister said.
22-Mar-2023: Indian and Belgian astronomers highlight success of collaboration in space sciences
Experts from India and Belgium and also from United States, Canada, Poland, Sri Lanka, South Africa, Ethiopia, Kenya highlighted the advantages of scientific collaborations in stimulating activities in space sciences at the international workshop of the Belgo-Indian Network for Astronomy and astrophysics (BINA) organised by The Aryabhatta Research Institute of Observational Sciences (ARIES), an autonomous institute under the Department of Science & Technology (DST), Ministry of Science & Technology, Govt. of India.
"Belgian Science Policy Office (BELSPO) and Department of Science and Technology (DST) work together on exciting projects like cyber security, bioscience, marine science, black hole, climate change and many more and this workshop will emphasize the scientific potential of Indo-Belgian cooperation," said Mr. Didier Vanderhasselt, Belgium Ambassador to India, at the inaugural session of BINA Workshop at the Bhimtal Campus of the Graphic Era Hill University (GEHU) during 22-24 March, 2023.
Shri S K Varshney, Head International Cooperation, DST stressed that for research, networking is key. "Networking is the 1st step for collaboration to address common challenges from different prospective," he added.
”We need to attract more younger minds through various institutes,” said Prof. Dipankar Banerjee, Director, ARIES as he gave an outline about Indian and Belgium Solar Space Mission and Aditya L-1- India's first space mission to study the sun.
Dr. Peter De Cat of the Royal Observatory of Belgium (ROB; Belgian PI of BINA) elaborated on the genesis of BINA workshop and its activities while Dr. Santosh Joshi, ARIES, Indian PI of BINA, gave an overview of the scientific programs and networking activities of the 3rd BINA workshop.
The workshop is being hosted at GEHU as part of the MoU between ARIES and GEHU, Bhimtal Campus. Expressing their pleasure on this occasion, Prof. Narpinder Singh, Vice-Chancellor, Graphic Era Deemed to be University, which is among the top 100 universities in the country, and Prof. J. Kumar, Pro-Chancellor, Graphic Era Hill University discussed with the Belgium Ambassador further avenues of collaboration with top Belgian institutes.
BINA is a network that fosters collaborations in space research between Belgian and Indian institutes. The initiative for this bilateral collaboration was taken in 2014 by Dr. Santosh Joshi of ARIES (Indian PI of BINA) and Dr. Peter De Cat of the Royal Observatory of Belgium (ROB; Belgian PI of BINA). The outcome for this project can be found in the Devasthal Observatory of ARIES, Nainital, Uttarakhand, which hosts two Indo-Belgian telescopes: the 3.6-m Devasthal Optical Telescope (DOT) and the recently inaugurated 4-m International Liquid Mirror Telescope (ILMT).
The BINA collaboration has strengthened the Indo-Belgian observational facilities in India, namely the 3.6-m DOT and 4-m ILMT, the largest-sized optical telescopes in India. The output of this collaboration has been commendable in terms of both scientific publications and manpower training for the next generation.
Since 2014, the International Division, Department of Science & Technology (DST; Govt. of India) and the Belgian Science Policy Office (BELSPO, Govt. of Belgium) are continuously supporting BINA by providing funding for work visits (in both directions) and organisation of workshops. So far, two BINA workshops have taken place. The first workshop ‘Instrumentation and Science with the 3.6-m DOT and 4.0-m ILMT telescopes’ was hosted by ARIES in 2016 in Nainital. The second workshop ‘BINA as an expanding international collaboration’ was hosted by the ROB in 2018 in Belgium and the first results obtained with the observations from DOT were presented.