Govt plans to link educational e-network with US institutes

NEW DELHI: Collaboration between the Indian and American universities is set to get a major boost with the government planning to align countrywide online network of educational institutions with its American counterpart. This linkage is expected to help partnership research in areas such as information technology, life-sciences, biotechnology, material science and environmental science.

Linking the ERNET network under the ministry of information technology with America’s Internet-II would not only help the Indian researchers, but also help the likes of Harvard, Massachusetts and Boston to set up their independent online centres in India.

“We are in advanced stage of talks with the administrators of Internet-II and hope to finalise a tie-up by the end of the year,” an official in the IT ministry told ET. The tie-up would provide Indian institutions and universities with an opportunity to share a common platform with 209 institutions in the US.

Internet-II is a high-speed network which provides a minimum of 100MB bandwidth between member institutions. If an individual is on the network of a particular member institute and connects to another member institution’s network, the path will be along the Internet-II network. ERNET has already established connectivity with the top research network of European Union — GEANT — for partnership.

Internet-II network is managed by the member institutes in partnership with industry and the government. ERNET, an institution under the IT ministry run with funding from UNDP, creates expertise in networking and internet in the country.