Indian President to visit Federal Institutes of Technology in Lausanne and Zurich
Bern, 17.05.2005 - Prior to his state visit to Switzerland, the President of the Republic of India, Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, will visit the Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL) and the Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETHZ) on 26 May. He will be accompanied by Federal Councillor Pascal Couchepin.
The President of India, Dr. Avul Pakir Jainulabdeen Kalam, and his delegation will be welcomed by the President of the ETH Board, Alexander Zehnder, and the President of the EPFL, Patrick Aebischer. In the course of his visit, the Indian Head of State will attend presentations on the themes of micro-nanotechnologies and neuroscience. To conclude the morning’s proceedings, he will give a speech. The event is evidence of the growing significance of relations between the EPFL and Indian science and technology institutes.
From Lausanne, President Kalam and Pascal Couchepin will go to the ETH Zurich, where they will be welcomed by ETH President Olaf Kübler. There President Kalam will visit a research team that is exploring a completely new area of physics with its work on ultracold atoms. These experiments are opening up a quantum world that is set to play an increasingly important role in technological fields where dimensions are shrinking dramatically. After meeting the research team, President Kalam will listen to a report on the forthcoming Science City project and will make a further speech.
Relations between Switzerland and India in the scientific field go back a long way. In 1966 the two countries signed an agreement on scientific and technological cooperation. In 1999, this collaboration was compounded by a project in the field of biotechnology conducted by the ETH Lausanne. Since Pascal Couchepin’s visit to India in 2003, both Federal Institutes of Technology have been working with the leading Indian institutes of science and technology in Mumbai, New Delhi, Kanpur, Madras and Bangalore. And at the start of this year, new agreements were signed giving the EPFL overall responsibility for scientific exchanges with India and the ETHZ responsibility for relations with China.
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