India-China hold talks on science and tech after 11 years

BEIJING: After a gap of 11 years, India and China held talks on Science and Technology and agreed to step up cooperation in earthquake prediction, disaster management, astronomy, traditional medicine and climate change.

An Indian delegation of top scientists headed by Dr Thirumalachari Ramasami, Secretary of the Department of Science and Technology, held the sixth dialogue on Science and Technology with their Chinese team led by Vice Minister for Science Technology Cao Jianlin here.

The talks, held during the last two days, were focussed on earthquake prediction and disaster management, astronomy, traditional medicine and climate change, officials told PTI.

The talks on earthquake predictions included exchange of notes on the movement of Indo-Tibetan plate which was stated to be the reason of a number of earthquakes in the Himalayan region, specially China's Sichuan province causing wide spread damage to life and property.

The two sides also discussed disaster management. The talks on Astronomy focussed on cooperation specially in Thirty Metre Telescope in Hawaii in which both the countries are taking part.

They discussed cooperation in areas of glaciology and climate change on which lot of work has been done by both sides.

Both countries have taken up coordinated positions on the global climate related issues in recent years.

Being ancient countries with rich history in traditional medicine, they also discussed cooperation in traditional medicine.

In order to streamline the cooperation, both sides have agreed to hold a series of workshops on all the topics involving wider participation from the two countries.

The two countries signed an agreement for cooperation in science and technology in 1998 and the last round was held 2002.