India to conduct joint marine research with Bangladesh

New Delhi, Sept 29: In a first of its kind, India will conduct a joint marine research with Bangladesh in its Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) to understand the ecology of the Bay of Bengal that affects the climatic conditions of the region.

A team of scientists from the CSIR's National Institute of Oceanography (NIO) will head to the Bay of Bengal in October-November along with its Research Vessel (RV) Sindhu Sadhana.

Thereafter India will also train Bangladeshi scientists in the field. India is also pushing for a joint cooperation in the field of oceanography with Qatar, Kuwait, Oman, Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Indonesia.

The exercise is a result of an Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed between CSIR's National Institute of Oceanography (NIO) and the Dhaka University during Prime Minister Narendra Modi visit Bangladesh few months back.

"The Bay of Bengal has enormous inflow of fresh water and sediments along with it because of rivers Ganga and Bramhaputra.

This also leads to changes in weather, which is very important to India because of its coastline. "More importantly, for all these years we did not get the opportunity to conduct research in the EEZ of Bangladesh, which we have got now," said SWA Naqvi, the Director of NIO.

He added that India was focusing on Indian Ocean Rim countries for cooperation in marine research. "It is important to know what is happening in the marine area of other countries as changes or developments there affect not only India, but also the whole region.

Apart from Bangladesh, we have also signed an MoU with Qatar and Kuwait," Naqvi said.

Elaborating on the need for research in the Persian Gulf, Naqvi said the water salinity of the region is highest in the world.

"The fresh water flow in the Gulf is very little. We have never been able to study oceanography there as it also affects the weather in India," he said.

PTI