By EuAsiaNews
Brussels : Ask about relations between India and the 27-nation European Union (EU) and you’ll hear a thrice-told tale, of the difficulties which Indian – and EU–exporters of textiles and clothing, for example, face on each other’s markets.
Now the fact is that few Europeans see India as an exporter of cheap clothing and other run-of-the-mill consumer products. That honour belongs to China.
“With its large pool of talented IT specialists and world class facilities for IT research and development, India is considered an important partner for the European Union and vice versa,” according to the EU-India Joint Action Plan.
This is the road map to create a strategic partnership, which the EU and Indian Prime Ministers adopted at their summit meeting in New Delhi last November.
“Looking at the strong enhancement of EU-India research in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), it is clear that European and Indian researchers are eager to cooperate,” according to a spokesperson for the department of the European Commission which deals with the information society.
Indian organizations working on IT projects come from both the private and public sectors. They include Tata Consultancy Services; Mahindra and Mahindra and Infranet Systems Pvt. Ltd., on the one hand and, on the other, the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing; Indian Institute of Science; Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur; Tata Institute of Fundamental Research and the Indian Space Research Organization.
The areas of research include eInclusion; ICT for networked businesses; mobile and wireless; software and services and promotion of international cooperation.
For the European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, India is an International Cooperation Partner Country (ICPC).
Indian organizations can therefore participate in the EU’s call for proposals, as members of consortia which include at least three mutually independent organizations from three different EU countries.
Indian participants are funded under the same rules which apply to EU participants, or with a “lump sum” arrangement. The coordinator of the project must be a European entity, however.
EU and India have set up a number of organizations, aimed at making international cooperation easier. The EuroIndia Research Centre, for example, is an initiative of two EU-funded ICT projects, India Mentor and Incite, supported by the ICT National Contact Points.
It covers many different activities, undertaken by academic organizations, the private sector, EU countries and the European Commission.
The Centre’s website is at http://www.euroindiaresearch.org/
Projects underway or planned include the EU-India coordinated call on computational materials science, to which the European Commission and the Indian government are each contributing five million euro* to co-fund research projects in this field.
Indian and European research consortia will submit separate but interlinked proposals to the funding agencies.
A mixed European and Indian panel will select projects to be funded, using the same evaluation criteria.
The EU is also very active in encouraging Asian countries to undertake research projects globally, using large-scale internet connections.
The EU-Asia vehicle for this is the Trans-Eurasia Information Network (TEIN).
India can now join the TEIN network, to which some 4,000 Asian research and educational institutions belong, bringing with them some 30 million end users.
TEIN is linked to the EU’s GEANT network, described by the EU as the “world’s largest multi-gigabit computer network dedicated to research.”
It uses “dark fibre,” which allows transmissions at the speed of light.
GEANT, to which India has been connected so far through other projects, makes possible ground-breaking research collaboration in fields such as climate change, radio astronomy and biotechnology.
One GEANT project links the world’s largest radio telescopes in China, Europe, South Africa and Chile to a supercomputer in the Netherlands, to produce real-time imaging.
Thanks to TIEN and GEANT, Indian research and educational institutions will be able to link up with some 60 million users in over 7,500 universities and research centres in both Asia and Europe.
Here is a tool to help raise India’s standing in the world of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) even higher.
* one euro is currently worth $1.50.