New Delhi: India is focused on research and innovation, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's vision, Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya said on Wednesday and asserted that besides manpower and brain power, the country now has the willpower to drive innovation to the next level.He made the remarks during a meeting with Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates in the national capital.The Centre is committed to a stronger and healthier future for all its citizens and will continue to strive for health innovations to achieve the goal, Mandaviya said."India sees itself as a natural partner to other countries in need and is committed to strengthening partnerships with the Gates Foundation and other interested organisations," he added.Before the meeting, gates was shown India's BHISHM - Cube of Project Arogya Maitri, a state-of-the-art mobile hospital.Mandaviya noted that BHISHM was conceptualised and developed to harness India's expertise in areas such as digital technologies, pharmaceutical commodities, medical devices and design."The aim was to come up with a solution that can provide quality health care to people living in difficult settings and affected by conflict, health emergencies and other challenges," he noted.BHISHM was also showcased at a G20 Health Ministers' meeting last August."While we wish for the world to be free of conflict and suffering, a solution like BHISHM can help provide relief to people living in these difficult settings, including global hotspots in the Middle East and Europe (that are) currently affected by conflict," Mandaviya said."India, led by the prime minister's vision, is focused on research and  innovation and national capabilities are only increasing. It is blessed with manpower and brain power and, now, also has the added support of willpower, which will help Indian innovation get to the next level," he added.The minister also felicitated Gates with a model of BHISHM.Gates said his foundation has been privileged to have a strong partnership with the Union Ministry of Health, working on a range of health priorities.India has long been a global innovator, contributing valuable solutions to global health problems, starting with the role of India's vaccines sector in providing high-quality and cost-effective vaccines for a variety of conditions that are helping save millions of lives across the world, he said."India was also a very big source of Covid vaccines for the world...," Gates added.During the G20 Summit, the government of India shared with the world all the digital innovations that India has pioneered, including in digital health, and the global initiative for digital health is well set up to share India's lessons with other countries, he said."It was great to see the innovative thought that has gone into the BHISHM Cube, which brings together a range of important health solutions in a convenient form factor that lends itself to use in different settings across the world," the Microsoft co-founder noted."Our foundation is interested in applications of this approach to helping solve critical problems related to maternal and child health and this solution could be important not just for India but also the world," he added.According to Gates, it was interesting to hear about the research work to come up with lower-cost solutions for rare diseases."While our foundation does not work on rare diseases, the sickle cell condition is certainly of interest," he said.While India has a sizable disease burden, it is an even bigger challenge in Africa, he added.The tech mogul said available therapies are unaffordable even for high-income countries such as the US and it might be an area for a partnership between the foundation and the government of India, working with the Indian private sector to come up with a cost-effective therapy for sickle cell anaemia for the whole world."I am convinced Indian innovation will play an even bigger role in helping solve global health issues in the future. I met with some innovative companies in the field of diagnostics earlier on my trip and I think there is a lot of potential for Indian solutions to be a game-changer for important public health priorities, especially TB (tuberculosis). A low-cost, reliable TB diagnostic would be essential for India to reach its TB control and elimination goals," he said.Another area that is a priority for the Indian government and the Gates Foundation is maternal anaemia, he noted.The government has scaled up its efforts to address anaemia and "we believe there are impact solutions" that can help address anaemia in pregnant women. There are other solutions and Indian innovation will be key to drive affordable products that can benefit the world, Gates stated.It has been very impressive to see India's progress on many key health indicators, he noted and added that the country is now on the verge of eliminating kala azar (visceral leishmaniasis)."We have had a very productive partnership with the (Union) Ministry of Health under our existing MoU and look forward to extending the partnership by also including new areas of work in discussion with the  ministry," he stated.