India and Israel held their 16th round of Foreign Office Consultations through video-conference on Monday. Talks revolved around the core areas of defence, agriculture, science and technology, education, and homeland security.
Senior MEA diplomat Sanjay Bhattacharyya and Alon Ushpiz, Director General of Israel’s, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, reviewed the progress of the ongoing cooperation, especially in the strategic fields of defense and security, counter-terrorism, cybersecurity, said a news release.
They also discussed cooperation in water and agriculture, S&T, innovation and startups, energy and academic collaboration.
The success stories of the jointly developed Centres of Excellence in Agriculture, a pilot project on water conservation in the Bundelkhand region, and close collaboration between the Ahmedabad-based International Centre for Entrepreneurship and Technology (iCreate) and Israel’s Startup Nations Central (SNC) to provide incubation support for co-development of niche technologies also came up.
Both sides noted the role of the India-Israel Industrial R&D and Technological Innovation Fund (I4F) and the University Grants Commission (UGC)-Israel Science Foundation (ISF) Fund in facilitating joint academic and scientific research work. — TNS
INDIA ISRAEL TIES
Military and strategic ties between the two nations extend to intelligence sharing on terrorist groups and joint military training. As of 2014, India is the third-largest Asian trade partner of Israel, and tenth-largest trade partner overall. In 2014, bilateral trade, excluding military sales, stood at US$4.52 billion.
