By IANS
New Delhi : India and France Friday signed five agreements and a memorandum of understanding in the areas of defence and nuclear research
The documents were initialled in the presence of visiting French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at a joint press conference here.
The bilateral deals related to India’s participation in a nuclear research project, the Jules Horowitz Reactor, being built in Cadarache, France, protection of classified defence information, transfer of sentenced persons and establishing the office of the French development agency, Agence Française de Développement in India.
The memorandum of understanding related to setting up a international laboratory in neurosciences in collaboration between India’s National Brain Research Centre and France’s university of Paris and Institut national de la santé et de la recherche médicale.
Besides, at a separate ceremony, three important deals for cooperation in the area of education and science were announced.
Firstly, Delhi University and France’s Grenoble University had announced the setting up to two new joint masters programmes in nano sciences and nuclear engineering and sustainable development.
There was also an agreement on 60 new scholarships for Indian engineering students at over 70 French engineering institutes.
Besides, India’s Centre for Scientific and Industrial Research and its French counterpart Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) signed a pact that will bring together researchers of CNRS, University of Rennes and Indian Institue of Chemical Technology to joint explore jointly explore and develop new processes and new chemical technologies to create “bioactive products for the benefit of the environment and human health”.
At a parallel industry conference organised by India’s top business chambers, ten agreements in the area of power, railways, aviation and retails were announced by the accompanying French business delegation.