 "Indian, Japanese bodies partner on waste management, environment research")
The Kolkata-based International Society of Waste Management, Air and Water (ISWMAW) and the Kyoto Beyond SDGs consortium of Japan have inked an agreement on academic, research and industry collaboration between the two Asian countries on various environmental issues.
ISWMAW president Sadhan Kumar Ghosh said twenty students from India and 20 others from Japan will also visit each other's country as part of an exchange programme.
He said 47 educational institutes are involved in the exercise - 40 in West Bengal and seven in Japan.
The MoU was signed for establishing partnerships focussing on sustainable development goals to develop human resource exchanges and information exchange and research collaboration among the industry, academia and government.
"Apart from visiting different academic institutions and places of interest and participating in different programmes, every visiting student will be put up at the house of a Japanese friend of his age as part of the initiative to know each other's way of living, customs and culture," Ghosh added.
The students' visit will take place in January and September-October next year.
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The students will be taken from classes 8 to 12 for Indian schools and middle-higher level for Japanese schools.
They will also exchange views about ways of waste management, sustainable economic growth and how to safeguard the environment, he said.
Ghosh said a 21-member team consisting of Japanese students, academics and industry experts is currently visiting Kolkata and has interacted with students of various schools in Kolkata.
Chairman of Kyoto Beyond SDGs Misuzu Asari said, "It was amazing to see how the students interacted. The Indian children were very forthcoming and showed lots of curiosity to know the culture of their counterparts and what they studied."
Ghosh said educational institutions like Jadavpur University have expressed interest in signing an MoU with Kyoto University on possible joint areas of collaboration.