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UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 NEW DELHI 002007 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR OES/PCI, OES/STC, OES/SAT, OES/EGC, AND SCA/INS 
STATE FOR STAS 
DOE FOR INTERNATIONAL 
INTERIOR FOR FWS RILEY 
STATE PASS TO NSF FOR INTERNATIONAL PROGRAMS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: KSCA SENV TSPL ECON SOCI IN
 
SUBJECT: India as Innovation and Technology Partner; Pondering S&T 
Endowment 
 
¶1.  SUMMARY:  Secretary of the Department of Science and Technology 
(DST) Dr. T. Ramasami September 25 reaffirmed his interest in 
increasing U.S.-India collaboration in the areas of innovation and 
technology. He cited energy efficiency - especially fuel efficient 
transportation - security technologies, solar energy, telecom, drug 
discovery, healthcare systems, and water as areas of key interest 
for India.  At the same time, Ramasami voiced concerns about how the 
parts of the strategic S&T Dialogue would fit together.  He proposed 
a scenario in which the functions of the Indo-U.S. Science and 
Technology Forum ("Forum") would be merged into the new S&T 
Endowment ("Endowment"), with the current Forum Secretariat assuming 
that role for the Endowment.  DST has not yet selected India's S&T 
Endowment Board members, and seems unlikely to be ready to announce 
them during Prime Minister Singh's U.S. visit.  The DST Americas 
Desk Officer requested a DVC with Washington to coordinate on these 
issues prior to the December Forum Board meeting.  See action 
request in paragraph 7. END SUMMARY. 
 
DST PRIORITIES AND COLLABORATION INTERESTS 
 
¶2.  DST Secretary Ramasami, the Department's senior career official, 
met September 25 with Embassy Econ/EST Counselor and S&T Officer to 
discuss priorities for S&T collaboration between the United States 
and India.  Ramasami was joined by Dr. B.K. Jain, DST Americas Desk 
Officer.  Ramasami opened the discussion by recognizing there is a 
great deal of U.S.-India interaction taking place at the 
scientist-to-scientist level.  Over the next 10-15 years he would 
like to see that migrate to more country-to-country engagement among 
scientific and research institutions.  Ramasami outlined three 
pillars for this kind of collaboration in S&T: science for a "grand 
challenge", innovation partnership, and technology partnership.  He 
said the GOI's S&T priorities are innovation and technology because 
they make economic sense.  Secretary Ramasami highlighted security 
technologies, fuel efficient transportation and energy efficient 
habitats, solar energy, telecom and wireless communications, drug 
discovery, healthcare systems, and water as areas of key interest 
for India.  Praising the U.S. innovation system as the best in the 
world, Ramasami said India most needs help with "translational 
skills" - turning knowledge into application.  He said that India in 
return can offer the U.S. an innovation investment environment at 
much lower cost, and support low financial risk/high technical risk 
projects.  Specifically, he highlighted three projects or areas that 
could be further developed for joint or coordinated research: 
 
--   Security Technology: Conceived in 2006, and spearheaded by ISC 
Bangalore, DST is working to create terahertz sensors and 
information processing/data reduction systems that will recognize 
people "with wrong intentions."   He indicated that he would be 
happy to cooperate on this research, was prepared to back it up with 
resources, and that a joint initiative on this sensor technology 
would show progress to both publics that is both visible and 
immediate. 
 
--   Clean Coal: Ramasami said that clean coal and alternative 
energy sources provided numerous opportunities for research on new 
 
NEW DELHI 00002007  002 OF 003 
 
 
applications, processes and products.   He believes India has the 
ability to exit coal-based technology but that it will take time 
because giving it up is not just a policy issue but also a cultural 
one.  He reflected that India is a multicultural country, but not 
yet a homogeneous one, and socio-cultural changes are slow to come 
even when policies are in place. 
 
--   Drug Research: Noting the current mode of drug discovery is 
excessively expensive and time consuming, Ramasami suggested end 
results of the innovation do not reach two thirds of the population 
because of cost.  DST would be interested in working with the U.S. 
to look for different models to address a key disease. 
 
RAMASAMI'S PERSPECTIVE ON THE S&T ENDOWMENT 
 
¶3.  Secretary Ramasami said he is interested in using the Endowment 
to address a "grand challenge" in science.  While characterizing the 
$30 million Endowment as "not very much," he said using this funding 
merely to promote research visitation programs or develop scientific 
seminars would lack ambition.  Rather, Ramasami said, DST views the 
Endowment as a platform, and the money as a bridge to link national 
agencies and industries to support research identified by the 
Endowment.  He believes synergy between the U.S. and India could 
produce solutions that were not previously within reach, giving the 
example of creating a material that would collect both heat and 
light for solar energy.  In his view, the Endowment should focus on 
technologies for trade rather than technologies for development.  He 
acknowledged that intellectual property right issues would need to 
be addressed.  Ramasami also suggested that the Board could focus on 
one particular topic or theme each year to achieve tangible outputs 
that make the most of the Endowment's limited money.  He said this 
focused approach has worked well in India's cooperative S&T 
arrangement with the EU, in which they jointly choose a single 
project area and each side annually contributes 5 million Euros. 
 
¶4.  E/ESTCOUNS expressed appreciation for Ramasami's ambitious 
"grand challenge" idea as a focus of Endowment activities, agreeing 
that the U.S. too wants to use the Endowment to advance tangible S&T 
cooperation projects.  He cautioned that care must be taken to 
ensure the Endowment does not duplicate S&T work being funded by 
separate cooperative efforts in areas like clean and renewable 
energy.  Noting that Endowment Board constitution could be a 
deliverable for Prime Minister Singh's November visit, E/ESTCOUNS 
further queried what other S&T deliverables DST might foresee for 
the PM's visit.  Ramasami demurred on both points.  He said India 
can identify government participants for the Endowment Board, but 
has not yet determined its non-government participants.  He 
suggested that constitution of the Endowment Board would be a topic 
for bilateral discussion around the Forum Board meeting at 
NIH/Bethesda in December.  Ramasami is considering a DST panel 
discussion with 10-15 industry participants before December to 
discuss India's priorities for the S&T Endowment. He would use this 
to select the four industry Board members based on their passion, 
vision, commitment, and ability to intellectually and systematically 
absorb increased high-technology collaboration.  He said he was 
 
NEW DELHI 00002007  003 OF 003 
 
 
thinking about bringing in engineering and ICT companies 
specifically, and wants to ensure a good match with the industry 
participants on the U.S. side. Ramasami did not respond at all 
regarding other S&T deliverables for the Singh visit. 
 
¶5.  Secretary Ramasami went on to express concerns about having two 
official joint funding bodies, indicating he did not want the Forum 
and Endowment to compete with one another.  Ramasami said the 
structure of India's S&T system in practice dictates that the same 
group of government representatives serve on all three official 
venues (Forum Board, Endowment Board, and S&T Dialogue aka the JCM). 
  The GOI already has staffed the Forum Board with empowered 
representatives of India's mainline official science institutions; 
unless these representatives serve on all the boards, lower-level 
personnel  without authority to make decisions or speak for the GOI 
would become the representatives on the others. 
 
¶6.  Ramasami suggested his preference would be to dissolve the Forum 
Board and fold the Forum's funding and activities into the 
Endowment.  Both activities could be run day-to-day by the existing 
Forum Executive Secretariat. Ramasami said it would take at least a 
year and a half to legally register a separate Executive Secretariat 
for the Endowment in India. While acknowledging the organizational 
and legal factors shaping this position, E/ESTCOUNS stated that the 
USG has viewed the Forum and Endowment as separate entities with 
distinct missions. 
 
¶7.  To avoid any misunderstandings and sort all of these issues out 
well in advance of the Forum Board meeting in early December, 
Americas Desk Officer Jain requested a DVC with planners in 
Washington.  He indicated DST would like to discuss the objective of 
the Endowment, coordinate on appropriate members, and identify who, 
structurally, should be in which positions for the three parts of 
the Strategic Dialogue (Forum, Endowment, and JCM.)  Post requests 
feedback on interest and potential timings for such a DVC, and 
recommends holding it sooner rather than later so that we can also 
discuss and solidify potential S&T deliverables for Prime Minister 
Singh's visit. 
 
ROEMER