Amid reports of his joining the corporate houses in India, former CSIR chairman Dr RA Mashelkar has joined an international health agency Global Research Alliance as its president.

Dr Mashelkar, who recently courted controversies for his report on patent laws, has formally taken over as the president of the Johannesburg-headquartered Global Research Alliance. The Alliance has nine countries as its members including India, Australia, Denmark, South Africa, Finland, Malaysia, etc.

Dr Mashelkar, who retired late last year as the chairman of the country's premier scientific body CSIR, will be heading an envious team of more than 65,000 scientists across the world. The global body will be mainly working on health-related projects for the poorer nations of the world which will be funded by different world agencies like WB, WHO, IDRC, etc.