Published by the Press, Information & Culture Wing, Embassy of India

In this Issue
(March, 1999)

South Asia Region

India's Foreign Relations

Economy & Trade

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Opinion - Arundhati Ghose

Feature: Tiger Conservation

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SAARC TO ENHANCE COOPERATION AMONG
MEMBER STATES IN BIOTECHNOLOGY

The SAARC technical committee on science and technology has identified a number of areas for collaboration in Biotechnology among SAARC members, with a detailed action plan. The areas include, plant tissue culture, preparation of inventory of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants in the region, plant biotechnology including therapeutic products, vaccines and diagnostics for human and animals, Aqua-culture and human resource development in biotechnology. It was also unanimously agreed to set up a standing group of SAARC on biotechnology. These decisions emerged at the end of a three-day meeting of the SAARC technical committee on science and technology held in New Delhi last week, the focus of which was on biotechnology. The member States were asked to finalise their views at the earliest. Based on these inputs, a consensus report would be prepared for taking it up at the meeting of the SAARC Council of Ministers at Srilanka later this month. Regarding the SAARC technology initiative also the Committee unanimously agreed on a number of projects. These include; Organisation of a workshop on application of low level lasers for the treatment of tuberculosis and wound healing, collaboration in the areas of metrology and calibration among SAARC, demonstration and training of man power in diagnostics and vaccines, development of improved agro-technologies for medicinal plants of economic importance, Phage display based epitope mapping of flagellin from Salmonella typhi, creation of a data base on technologies for rural industrialisation in the region, reception of INSAT cloud imagery and conventional meteorological data broadcast in SAARC countries and organisation of a SAARC workshop on automation in water sector. The Committee agreed to the submission of India’s proposal on "Development and popularisation of common guidelines for the protection of intellectual property rights, bio-diversity and traditional knowledge in the SAARC region", at the SAARC- IPR Forum scheduled to be held in India next month. The technology initiative was mooted by India during the SAARC Summit in Colombo in July last year. The SAARC technical committee has also agreed to project a common stand on agenda and documents to be adopted at the World Conference on Science to be held at Budapest, Hungary at the end of June this year. This world conference will discuss among other things, priorities for science, its orientation and relevance of science to the needs and expectations of the society in the next century. The Technical Committee noted in this connection the International Symposium hosted by India in January in Bangalore, as a preparatory to the world conference and its conclusion, with the adoption of a modified UNESCO Draft Declaration on Science, The Bangalore Communique and a Plan of Action.