John Kerry visits IIT

Walks out 'impressed' with students

New Delhi: "Very exciting" and "excellent" were the words used by US secretary of state John Kerry as he visited two laboratories at the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology here on Thursday and interacted with the students.

Kerry, who is here for the 5th Indo-US Strategic Dialogue, took time out of his schedule and visited the Applied Microbiology Laboratory and Bio-process lab. Professor R K Shevgaonkar, Director of the IIT, Delhi said that the American embassy had specifically mentioned the laboratories that Kerry wanted to visit. Dressed in a blue suit, Kerry interacted with the students there and asked a number of questions about the processes involved, the education fees, patent system and also if they would get a job in India or would they have to go out.

Kerry was very pleased to see a research project on bio-degradable plastic. As a student explained the project to him, Kerry said, "Very exciting. It would be a huge contribution to the world. Very exciting. Fantastic".

Kunal Gupta, who is part of the project, said he was proud that Kerry visited his institute.

"I am very proud to be part of a institute which is recognised in the US as well. They (US) have done a lot of research which is much ahead of us and Kerry's visit to the institute makes us feel very good," said Gupta.

Kerry also visited the lab which was using algae to clean water and to produce biomass.