Peres launches project on 'second green revolution' in India

Former Israeli president Shimon Peres Friday launched a special project 'Creating a Second Green Revolution in India', a "track-2" non-governmental trilateral cooperation between India, Israel and Australia.

An Israeli embassy release said that the project is being carried out by Pratt Industries (on the Australian side), Ananta Centre (on the Indian side) and Tel Aviv University and the Peres Centre of Peace (on the Israeli side).

Speaking on the occasion, Peres said Modi was leading "the Indian revolution" in the footsteps of the "spiritual revolution" led by Mahatma Gandhi and the "pragmatic revolution" that was followed by Jawaharlal Nehru.

Peres, who met Modi Thursday, said he found in the PM "a world leader, a true partner confronting global challenges, and a friend of Israel".

He said Israel was a world leader in advanced agriculture and water solutions, which is based on high technology.

"Israel's lack of natural resources, including water and land, forced us to base our development on the only resource that we had - the human resource. Like Israel, India is also lacking clean water and land, but like Israel, not...the human resource," Peres said.

He said Israel's success story is not a miracle but rather a combination of hard work, creative thinking and courage, all of which his country was willing to share with friendly countries like India.

He said the project was aimed at introducing better technologies to the agriculture sector of India.

"Together with our partners, we will do our utmost to bring the best companies with the best technologies from the three partner countries in the field of water and food security for the benefit of Indian farmers," Peres said.

He said the next phase of agriculture and water solutions will be based on technological revolution and Israel, India and Australia were perfect partners to lead this phase in India.

India and Israel are already engaged in a bilateral cooperation in agriculture with 28 centres of excellence for the transfer of agricultural technology in more than 10 states, the release said.