DHAKA: India is likely to sign a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Bangladesh within February this year to “carry out joint work” on oceanic research in each other's Exclusive Economic Zones.
Press Trust of India (PTI) reported, quoting Dr Syed Wajih Ahmad Naqvi, director of National Institute of Oceanography (NIO) of India, on Thursday.
NIO and Dhaka University of Bangladesh are likely to sign the MoU on behalf of their respective sides.
PTI, quoting Naqvi, said the prevailing relationship between Indian and Bangladesh is favorable to launch a major program.
"We are now launching a major program with Bangladesh this year (2015). In another couple of months, we will sign MoU with them (Bangladesh)," said the director.
“We will soon sign a MoU with Bangladesh to explore and sample the Indian Ocean area in their economic zone because a lot of fresh water and material are washed into the ocean by the Brahmaputra river and we want to know what happens to it," Naqvi said as quoted by Times of India.
Naqvi was talking to reporters in presence of Union Science and Technology and Earth Sciences Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan.
A delegation from DU is going to visit India soon to work on details of the MoU whereas a workshop will be held in Bangladesh from February 10 to 12 to brainstorm and chalk out the modalities of the research, Naqvi said.
The director, however, did not tell anything about when the delegation is likely to visit India.
Naqvi said they have already identified programs like climate, material brought by rivers and number of others, expressing the need for researchers in the region to work in unison.
"Unless we have regional collaboration we are not going to come up with complete understanding of what is happening," he said.
"There are a lot of things that happen here. Along the coast of Goa, for example, some years you get a lot of fish.
It's related to the changes in the ocean. Those changes may be driven by the processes as far as Indonesian coast and because we are not working in unison and since we do not work we don't have that kind of networking," added the director.
Naqvi rued the scientific processes are not developed may be due to political or economic reasons.
"There is something that is lagging so far. We don't have complete understanding of what is happening here. If you need to understand certain processes in ocean you need to cooperate with the countries in this region. The political atmosphere is just right to launch a major programme of this kind," Naqvi added.
BDST: 1053 HRS, JAN 02, 2015
