India and South Africa to strengthen research collaboration

India and South Africa have agreed to further strengthen their research collaboration in key areas of science, including in the field of HIV vaccine research. Two countries are involve in the on-going collaboration project in key areas such as health sciences and biotechnology; astronomy & astrophysics, indigenous knowledge systems, green chemistry and the mega project in the area of ‘HIV vaccine research collaboration’ with co-funding to the tune of $ 1 million from both sides.
 
Dr Harsh Vardhan, Minister for Science, Technology and Earth Science, and South African Minister for Science, Technology, Naledi Pandor - who met during the BRICS of Science and Technology Ministerial Meeting held in Moscow – held bilateral discussions on all the on-going projects. South Africa is reportedly seeking India’s assistance in areas such as space science, agriculture, food security, and pharmaceuticals.
   
Assuring India’s collaborative assistance to South Africa in these areas, Dr Vardhan said, “The present Indian government is upgrading the educational standards in Indian systems of medicines and homoeopathy colleges in the country; strengthen existing research institutions and ensuring a time-bound research programme on identified diseases for which these systems have an effective treatment.”
 
For India- South Africa collaboration in space science, Dr Harsh Vardhan said, “India had launched the Astrosat satellite for space probe and India will be happy to provide necessary assistance to South Africa. Astrosat is India's first dedicated multi-wavelength space observatory. It was launched on a PSLV-XL on 28 September 2015. India has a number of international collaborations in earth sciences centric research and services projects and India would be happy to help South Africa too in this area.”