Bengaluru: The new British Deputy High Commissioner in Bengaluru, Dominic McAllister, wants Bond to succeed – both the latest James Bond flick Spectre, which will hit Indian screens on Friday and which has opened to record box office collections, as well as the UK-India bilateral bond, especially the growing Science & Innovation relationship.
The British Foreign & Commonwealth Office is unique among foreign ministries in raising Science & Technology relationships with other nations to the high level of the country’s political and security relations over the past decade. Posting Mr. McAllister, who has degrees in both Chemistry and International Affairs and who, by his own admission, is hooked to both science and international politics, is perhaps a signal that the S&T relationship is poised to rise to a new level, especially in Bengaluru, India’s S&T capital across multiple sectors and disciplines.
“I am tasked with developing the relationship across multiple fields – from life sciences to aerospace to ICT to climate change. In Bengaluru, the mission’s Science & Innovation Network (SIN) concentrates on aerospace, advanced materials, life sciences and, obviously, information and communication technologies, because the city is a growing hub in these areas,” Mr McAllister, who took charge only two weeks ago, told this newspaper.
“Climate Change is something nations can’t fight alone, Britain is keen to develop partnerships and share our technologies in this area,” he said.
“In life sciences, we are looking at new concepts of doing medicine such as, for instance, building supply chains for specific drugs, such as cancer drugs, so that they become more affordable to people across the world,” he added.
Mr McAllister cited a new Newton-Bhabha Fund programme under which Bengaluru-based National Centre for Biological Sciences is working with Cambridge University on cancer as an example of the kinds of partnerships the two countries are building.
