India joins CERN as associate member

The Geneva-headquartered European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) has inked an an agreement with India that confirms the latter as the latest associate member state of the organisation.

CERN operates the largest particle physics laboratory in the world.

An official release of the organisation said that India's inclusion as an associate member state follows CERN Council's adoption of the resolution to this effect on September 15, 2016.

For India, Sekhar Basu, Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission and Secretary, Department of Atomic Energy signed the agreement, while Fabio Gianotti, Director General, signed it on behalf of CERN.

The signing of the agreement took place in Mumbai on Monday.

CERN is the world's largest nuclear and particle physics laboratory, where scientists and engineers are probing the fundamental structure of the Universe by using the most sophisticated scientific instruments and advanced computing systems.

India has made significant contributions to the construction of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), in the areas of design, development and supply of hardware accelerator components/systems and its commissioning and software development and deployment in the machine, the CERN said in a statement.

The CERN has 22 member states, four associate member states, four states and three international organisations with observer status.