Health care can be focus of ties with India: Israeli envoy

Alon Ushpiz, Israeli Ambassador to India, on Monday emphasised on focusing on affordable health care and increasing the scope of co-operation between India and Israel in the areas of policing and counter-terrorism.

In an interaction with the members of the Federation of Karnataka Chambers of Commerce and Industry here, he said Israel and India shared a high level of compatibility when it came to challenges for both the nations - be it a complicated neighbourhood that both the countries have individually, or the partnerships they share in civilian trade, defence and agriculture.

Giving the lowdown on technology offered by Israel, he said Israel can offer de-salination projects at a cost of 60 cents per cubic metre, the most cost- efficient price in the world.

He said the only thing India needed to do was to adapt the technology to Indian conditions.
Ushpiz said that a new fund was being set up, which would be offered for business based on technology beyond the industrial research and development.He said currently around nine projects from India were being screened for this fund.

He said that to bridge the gap between the technology developed in the lab and the industry, the private sector in India can tie up with the best of the universities in Israel.

He showed two small instruments based on technology devised by companies in Israel. One of them is used for drip irrigation and sprays the right amount of fertiliser to the crops, with the right pressure of water.

‘Pilcam’

Another is a “pilcam” - a pill with a camera (actually a miniature version of the camera installed on an anti-tank missile). He said the patient just pops the pill and the doctor can see the inside of the patient on a screen.

On being asked if any additional precautionary measures were being taken for the safety of Israelis living in the City, he refused to comment.

 ‘I feel absolutely safe here’

“I have full faith in Indian agencies and I feel absolutely safe here,” said Israeli envoy Ushpiz, when this newspaper asked him about the recent arrest of a terror suspect in Chennai, who is believed to have said that the Israeli Consulate in Bangalore was on the hit list of terrorists.