Prof. Dr. Siva Kumar from University of Hyderabad came to visit us

On his tour through Germany, Prof. Siva Kumar, former Indian Speaker of our Indo-German International Research Training Group „Molecular and Cellular Glyco-Sciences - MCGS“ and currently Head of the International Office of the University of Hyderabad - UoH, visited our University to negotiate an extension of the Memorandum of Understanding between our universities. Originally set up to support our collaboration in the framework of MCGS and to secure initial matching funds for the IRTG, the MoU now also includes the Departments of Philology of both universities. When Siva Kumar visited us prior to the meeting with our International Office, we first learned that the University of Hyderabad in the most recent national ranking made it to the top of the list, even outranking Delhi University, for the first time in its history. Given that India is as large as all of Europe and has more than twice the number of inhabitants, this is no small achievement, and we cordially congratulate our good friend and colleague Prof. Appa Rao Podile who is now Vice-Rector of UoH and whose leadership is responsible for the success. We also learned that UoH has recently been assigned the task to improve the scientific relations of India with Brazil - a lucky coincidence with the strong Brazilian connections of WWU Münster. In fact, the two most active international student exchanges our Faculty entertains are with UoH in India and with the University of Sao Paulo - USP in Brazil. Perhaps we can develop this into a South-North-South triangle! We are e.g. convinced that the chitosans we have developed for crop protection in India will perform equally well in South America. And already we are collaborating to this end with some of our own alumni in Brazil, like Prof. Roberta Paulert it the University of Parana in Iguacu.