New Delhi:-A Letter of Intent between Ministry of Earth Sciences and UNESCO was signed here in New Delhi in the presence of Dr. Harsh Vardhan,, by Dr. Shailesh Nayak ,Secretary MoES and Ms. Irina Bokova, Director General, UNESCO in the field of Reducing Disaster Risks and Capacity Building In Earth Sciences . Welcoming the agreement Dr Harsh Vardhan said it is a historic moment and will usher in opening new vista’s of cooperation in not only the Ocean related studies but other areas of cooperation in different fields of Scientific Acctivities.
Minister said as a founder member of the International Oceanographic Congress (IOC), India has always been actively associated with the major endeavors of IOC such as Global and Regional Ocean Observing and Capacity Building programs. He said some of the active areas of cooperation are as under:
• India had played a pivotal role in establishing a Regional Alliance in the Indian Ocean (GOOS-IOGOOS) as a part of the Global Ocean Observing System (GOOS). The Secretariat of IOGOOS is currently located at the Earth System Science Organization ESSO-Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (ESSO-INCOIS) Hyderabad.
• The oceanographic Data Centre located at ESSO-INCOIS, Hyderabad, has been recognized as Regional Argo Data Centre as well as Responsible National Oceanographic Data Centre (RNODC) of International Oceanographic Data and Information Exchange (IODE) of IOC. India also serves as a regional node for the Northern Indian Ocean Biogeographic Information System (IndOBIS).
• Indian National Tsunami Warning System has also been recognized as Regional Tsunami Service Provider (RTSP) for the Indian Ocean.
• In response to ‘The Ocean Call’ from Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC)/UNESCO in June 2010 to its Member States for contributions towards the IOC’s efforts on capacity building, Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES), Government of India decided to establish an International Training Centre for Operational Oceanography (ITC Ocean) at the Earth System Science Organisation-Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (ESSO-INCOIS), Hyderabad. Subsequent to singing an MOU between IOC and ESSO-INCOIS on 4thCentre for Operational Oceanography (ITCOO) at Hyderabad, India. ITC Ocean started functioning formally by conducting a two week training course on ‘Fundamentals of Ocean Climate Modeling at Global and Regional Scales’ together with CLIVAR and International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP), Italy during 5-14 August 2013. Thirty participants drawn from the Indian Ocean rim countries attended that training course taught by the faculty participated from India, USA, Australia and Italy. Subsequently, ITCO ocean conducted another four training courses, covering different aspects of operational oceanography, for the trainees from Africa and Indian Ocean rim countries.
• India has also taken responsibility for coordination of activities relating to Celebration for articles for “Indian Ocean Bubble-2” has been issued along with a newsletter to now precipitate ideas for the successful execution of IIOE-2. International and national organizing committees have been setup for celebration of IIOE-2
