Bangalore hawks it’s maladies

Bangalore hawks it’s maladies
Deccan Herald

Australia invites Indians to do research and cooperation in science


Bangalore’s weaknesses - poor infrastructure, booming traffic and potholed roads - were sold as “opportunities” to visiting Australian delegates at the round table meeting with Leading Australia’s Future in Asia (LAFIA) organised by the Bangalore Chamber of Industry and Commerce (BCIC) on Friday.

BCIC invited LAFIA delegates to invest in road maintenance, construction of satellite towns and traffic management solutions.

“Bangalore has developed so rapidly in the last twenty years, but its infrastructure hasn’t. Infrastructure sector can be an interesting area for collaboration between India and Australia,” said S Chandrashekhar, President of BCIC.

The conference identified specific areas of interest between the two countries, which included IT, education, tourism, pharmaceuticals and mining.

Collaboration on IT-related fields seemed to be top priority, with most delegates stressing on the growing demand of application of IT services in Australia.

“Australia is good at application of IT, using it in areas like agriculture and infrastructure. But we are looking at India to play a role in the emerging field of IT security,” said Andrew MacIntyre, Director of Asia Pacific School of Economics, Australian National University.

Inviting Indians to participate in the scientific research work being conducted in Australia, Colin Waters of the Commonwealth Department of Education, Science and Training, added that over 50 per cent of the research papers in Australia are presented in collaboration with overseas partners.

“While our biggest partner in this is China, India is still far behind. We have received only three papers by Indians in the last five years. Maybe the developments from this meeting might change that,” Waters said.