IIT Madras, Queensland varsity sign MoUs

Chennai, Mar 8 (UNI) A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) and a tripartite agreement was signed by Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras and Queensland University of Technology (QUT) in the presence of Australian Prime Minister John Howard here today.

The MoU is an academic agreement that will enable transfer of students and faculty between IIT Madras and QUT, besides undertaking research activities.

The tripartite agreement was signed between IIT, QUT and Society for Electronic Transactions and Security (SETS) for doing research in Information security and cryptology.

Earlier, addressing the gathering, Mr Howard announced setting up of a 25 million dollar fund for education and scholarhsip for Indian students.

Mr Howard, describing IIT as the premier educational institution in India for technology, said this MoU would give further boost for cooperation in areas of technology. The MoU would also enhance the political dialogue between the two countries, he added.

Stating that Australia is the second largest favourite destination for Indian students abroad, Mr Howard said India had sent more number of post graduates to Australia than any other country. The rate of growth in number of students coming to Australia from India was quite remarkable, he added.

Speaking about research done by Indians in his country, Mr Howard said Indians do research in Australia in satellite, vaccine, and instrumentation technologies. ''We have seen nine Australians winning the Nobel Prize, which is not an unique thing for Asian Continent'', he added.

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