Thaindian News

Agartala, Oct 27 (IANS) The US and India are facing the “same challenge” of providing for the energy needs of their people while ensuring that environment is not harmed, US Consul General in Kolkata Dean R. Thompson has said.

“India and USA are working to make progress in the areas of strategic cooperation, which includes security issues, energy and climate change.

“This is an area where we face the same challenge, how do we provide for the energy needs of our populations while ensuring that we are not causing irreversible harm to our environment,” Thompson asked.

Referring to the US-India Partnership to Advance Clean Energy (PACE), a Memorandum of Understanding on energy and climate change, Thompson said: “PACE has the potential to touch all of our lives through advances in solar energy and energy-efficiency.”

“This is particularly important for the government of India’s goal to bring electricity to every Indian household. The impact of this effort on India’s social and economic development would be profound,” the US diplomat said Tuesday while addressing the Tripura University professors.

“There are already over 100,000 Indian students studying in the US,” Thomson said.

In July 2008, the US and India signed a historic agreement making India a full partner in the funding and governance of US’s flagship international educational exchange - the Fulbright Programme.

“This has enabled US to double the number of Fulbright-Nehru scholarships,” Thompson said.

The Fulbright Program has awarded over 8,200 scholarships to Indians and Americans since its inception in 1950, he said.

“America’s educational institutions would like to do more joint work in India,” Thomson added.

Citing instances of how Indians are doing well in the US, the diplomat said that last year the Nasdaq stock exchange honoured Puneet Mehta, Archana Patchirajan and Sonpreet Bhatia, the three co-founders of MyCityWay, a start-up technology company.

“The three Indians’ application has won awards in the US,” Thompson said.