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: For a while now, the best known Pakistani scientist in this country has been a rogue nuclear scientist named Abdul Qadeer Khan. Mention cross-border training in the context of neighbourly relations and you could be forgiven for conjuring up visions of ‘evil-doers’ secure in occupied Kashmir. But a new, positive dimension to historically estranged bilateral ties has presented itself, courtesy an FE report last Thursday. India and Pakistan are set to join hands in the biotechnology sector. Specifically, two Hyderabad-based companies have signed MoUs with a Pakistani company for the supply of vaccines. Another corporate has tied up with Pakistan’s National Commission of Biotechnology to train their scientists at our laboratories. The fourth tie-up — between an Indian industry association and a Pakistani standing committee on scientific and technological cooperation — is also aimed at promoting the academia-industry interface. To be sure, eyebrows will be raised in certain Indian quarters regarding this desire to sleep with the enemy. But let there be no doubt: This process of bilateral cooperation in a high-technology field, probably the first of its kind, is to mutual advantage and must be unequivocally welcomed. Business collaborations in the fields of industrial products, diagnostic kits, pharmaceutical drugs, vaccine research, genetically modified crops and traditional knowledge all suggest themselves immediately.
For Indian firms, prospects arise of newer markets while for their Pakistani counterparts, the attraction is of better-trained manpower as well as access to improved technologies and superior products. But commercial benefits aside, such ties can also lead to improved social sector outcomes in both countries. For instance, medicines currently cost six to seven times more in Pakistan than in India. With access to cheaper drugs, Pakistan would gain immeasurably from a public health standpoint. Given that the nature of challenges facing the sub-continent in the agriculture, health and scientific domains are common, should one really limit oneself to hard math? The benefits arising from exchange of scientific information and research output and the forging of institutional linkages in the public domain merit more than a cold-blooded cost-benefit or monetary calculus. Interestingly, these formal linkages — which are mostly outcomes of contacts established at multilateral fora — are testament to the benefits of greater people-to-people contact. The two governments must now recognise this reality and ease the visa regime to encourage cross-border movement of academia and industry. We also hope that these ties — coming on the heels of...
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