India becomes associate member of CERN

New Delhi: India and the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) signed an agreement on Monday on making India an associate member state of the research organisation that operates the largest particle physics laboratory in the world.

This follows CERN Council's adoption of the resolution to this effect on September 15, 2016, an official release issued here said. 

The agreement was signed by Sekhar Basu, Chairman, Atomic Energy Commission and Secretary, Department of Atomic Energy and CERN Director General Fabiola Gianotti in Mumbai, it said.

CERN, based in Geneva on the French-Swiss border, 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. 

In recent years, Indian scientists have been involved in all pioneering activities at CERN. 

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, it said.

The discovery of the Higgs Boson at the LHC is the most talked about scientific discovery in recent memory.

Indian scientists have played a significant role in the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiments, which is one of the two large experiments that have led to the discovery of the Higgs Boson. They have been named as part of this historic discovery. 

The CERN has 22 member states, four associate member states while observer status is given to four states and three international organisations.