STATE TIMES NEWS
NEW DELHI: Union Minister, Dr Jitendra Singh on Tuesday announced special Fellowships for the Indian Diaspora living abroad and hailed their contribution to the overall global growth.
The Indian Diaspora is playing a key role in overall global economic growth and they are adding value to the countries and societies where they are settled, though at the same time they continue to be rooted in their motherland, Dr Jitendra said today.
Today’s India beckons them back with more opportunities and greater ease of world, he said.
At the ceremony, Dr Jitendra announced the results of the first Vaishvik Bharatiya Vaigyanik (VAIBHAV) Fellowship calls and launch of the next cycle of the VAIBHAV call.
Dr Jitendra emphasized that our Indian diaspora in Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics and Medicine (STEMM) are playing a key role in determining the direction in which our society and the world is moving by bringing technological changes and using it in innovative ways, particularly in social and developmental sectors.
Highlighting the importance of VAIBHAV, Dr Jitendra said that the VAIBHAV Fellows are from topmost institutes of Australia, Canada, Finland, Japan, Singapore, Sweden, Switzerland, UK, USA and would be engaged to Indian institutes like IITs, IISc and so on during next 3 years working on jointly identified problems. This will certainly lead the way in establishing research capability as an important avenue towards Aatmanirbhar Bharat.
“The Distinguished VAIBHAV fellows would network with Indian academic Institutions and would attempt to create a collaborative network of cutting-edge research programmes in sync with the priority areas of Government of India. The fellows would facilitate an exchange of best practices between the two countries and attempt to address the areas of concern in collaborative research between the two countries,” the Union Minister pointed out.
Prof. Abhay Karandikar, Secretary DST said that as India is a developing country, we still have many scientific areas which need to be strengthened further such as Renewable Energy, Waste to Energy, Electric Vehicles, Cyber Physical Systems, Quantum Technologies, Future Manufacturing, Blue Economy, Affordable Health Care and so on.
“We believe that the Indian diaspora working in other countries would be able to expand the horizons of Indian researchers with their knowledge and experiences. They can help and guide our Indian researchers with their unique thought process,” he stressed.