Indian, US industry bodies ink dozen agreements, deepen economic ties

Washington, Nov. 24 (ANI): Building blocks for deepening Indo-US economic cooperation were put in place on Monday with the signing of a dozen agreements and memoranda of understanding between different Indian and US partners in the presence of Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Dr. Montek Singh Ahluwalia and India's Ambassador to the United States Meera Shankar.

A press release issued by the U.S. Embassy here said these included eight agreements between American and Indian companies/institutions, facilitated by the Confederation of Indian Industry, which would benefit both sides.

HCL and CISCO signed an MOU to work globally in the area of homeland security to jointly deliver security and surveillance technology solutions.

Tata Communications and Tyco Electronics signed a submarine cable supply contract for a new system that is intended for construction in the Gulf area.

The collaboration will provide a boost to the telecommunication systems.

Apollo and StemCyte signed an MOU designed to provide stem cell therapies derived from umbilical cord blood to treat patients with certain malignant blood disorders, inherited disorders and immune deficiency diseases.

Jubilant Organosys and the University of Alabama at Birmingham, Southern Research Institute propose to undertake a joint venture that will focus on leveraging innovation and enabling technologies in areas of oncology, metabolic and infectious diseases and develop them in a unique US-India arbitraged and leveraged partnership accelerating affordable therapies to the patients in India and worldwide.

Infosys and Microsoft Technologies signed an enterprise agreement for fulfilling the procurement and help in use of their technologies.

Cadila Pharmaceuticals Limited and Novavax Inc. joined hands with the vision to enable production of key vaccines in India, including the most recently developed H1N1 pandemic vaccine.

The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and Santech Communications propose to work together to explore the possibility of establishing Santech CII Centre of Excellence on nano-electronics.

To promote collaboration on training of young people of different sections of the society in value based leadership, a document was signed between the Aspen Institute USA and the Aspen Institute India.

Three other important documents were signed by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry.

These were an MoU with University of Texas at Austin to expand the ongoing cooperation for commercialization of Indian innovations by including capacity building, training of incubation centers and enhancing innovation capabilities of academic research and development institutions; another with the Institute of International Education (IIE), Washington to facilitate exchange of information regarding scholarships and fund options available for cross mobility of students, researchers and faculty, etc. and the third one with Polytechnic Institute of New York University to promote Indian innovation capabilities in the US and to make available to research and development establishments in the public and private sector in India the best practice in innovation from the United States.

The Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) also facilitated a MoU between the International Institute of Information Technology (IsquareIT), Pune and Lawrence Tech University, Michigan, with the purpose of launching MS level courses in the field of automotive engineering. By Smita Prakash (ANI)