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Interesting articles on the East India Company

The current economic crisis have brought attention to look closer at the case of the East India Company – the largest at its time trully international state-backed company. SASNET recommends two excellent articles that explore this topic and analyse the company's successes and failure in a contemporary context. The first article is published in the 2011 Christmas special edition of the Economist and is entitled ”The East India Company – The Company that ruled the waves”. Read the article.
The second article, entitled ”Loot: in search of the East India Company”, was written by Nick Robins and published by OPendemocracy.net already in 2003. Read the article.

More articles recommended for reading can be found in SASNET's special page here.


Seven newly-created Central universities in April 2010 came together to hold a combined entrance exam from this year for admission of students

IndiaIn a significant step, seven newly-created Central universities in April 2010 came together to hold a combined entrance exam from this year for admission of students in about 25 courses being offered by them. These institutions are Central Universities of Jammu & Kashmir, Jharkhand, Bihar, Rajasthan, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu. The combined entrance exam is the first of its kind exercise being conducted by the Central universities in the country. At present, the IITs and IIMs are holding similar combined entrances for admission. These universities are among 16 new central universities created last year under a Central act. Some of the universities started offering courses already in 2009. More information.


A step forward towards a multi-campus South Asia University (SAU)

SAUThe idea of a multi-campus South Asia University (SAU) with its epicentre in India (Delhi) was mooted by the Indian Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh during the 13th South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) summit held at Dhaka in November 2005. The idea was accepted in principle and Prof. Gauhar Rizvi, from Bangladesh, (Professor at Harvard) was assigned the job of developing the draft of the university. The draft was approved and the Government of India have allotted 100 acres land (beside the Indira Gandhi National Open University, in Maidan Garhi, New Delhi) for establishing the campus of SAU. The foundation was laid by Indian External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee on 26 May 2008. The South Asian University will be set up on the lines of American Ivy League universities, and also induct students and recruit faculty from across the globe. The governance structure of SAU, with link campuses in Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Maldives, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan and Afghanistan, will be laid down by February 2009. Prof. Rizvi, who was entrusted with the task of preparing the university's concept note, has advised a middle path between government-funded and private education. The role of the SAARC nation governments will be confined to providing annual subsidies and grants, the concept note has recommended. More information.


India established a Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB)

In December 2008, the Union government of India approved the establishment of the Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB) through an Act of Parliament. SERB is being set up for promoting basic research in Science and Engineering in India and to provide financial assistance to scientists, academic institutions, R&D laboratories, industrial concerns and other agencies for such research. It was established nearly four years after the Prime Minister’s Science Advisory Council (SAC-PM), India’s apex science advisory body, recommended the creation of an autonomous research-funding agency free from bureaucratic controls, on the lines of the National Science Foundation (NSF) in the United States. The SERB, located in Delhi, is chaired by the Secretary to the Government of India in the Department of Science and Technology and have other senior government functionaries and eminent scientists from different fields of science and technology as members. The journalist R. Ramachandran has written a lenghty article on the creation of SERB, ”Funds aplenty”, published in Frontline 13 March 2009. Read the article.


More than 500 Indian students and scholars admitted to European universitie

For the academic session 2007–08, more than 500 Indian students and scholars from all over India secured admission to a large number of European universities spread all over the 27 EU Member States thanks to the Erasmus Mundus (EM) scholarship funded by the European Union. The European Commission and the Government of India in February 2005 signed an agreement through which 900 scholarships will be offered for Indian graduate students to study at Europe's finest universities. The EC has provided Euros 33 Million to finance the scholarship programme, that is part of the Erasmus Mundus programme, providing scholarships for graduate students from third countries to study in Europe. Graduate students can apply for a scholarship directly to the European Erasmus Mundus Degree which interests them, a number of which includes Swedish universities, see above. For the academic year of 2005/2006, 133 scholarships for Indian students under the India Window were approved. In 2006–07 this number rose to 288 and in 2007–08 to 403. In addition to this, 81 Indian students and 27 scholars received scholarships under the general EM programme in 2007–08. More information.


More of Other research news

Swedish universities are involved in at least eight out of the 36 Erasmus Mundus programmes selected by the European Commission (EC). The Erasmus Mundus programmes, providing scholarships for graduate students from third countries to study in Europe, has a budget for 230 Million Euros for the period up to 2008. In 2004 the EC selected the first 19 Erasmus Mundus masters courses, involving 82 European universities, to start at the beginning of the academic year 2004-2005, and in February 2005 the EC selected a further 17 Erasmus Mundus master’s courses, involving 69 European universities new to the scheme for courses will start at the beginning of the next academic year (2005-2006). More information on the Erasmus Mundus programmes available at Swedish universities.

An extensive web site giving environmental data, useful for researchers, has been launched by the Indian Ministry of Environment and Forests. It is called EIC, the Environmental Information Centre, and includes an integrated environmental database on India, derived from using the Geographical Information System (GIS), and also includes pollution data. The aim of the EIC is to provide high quality environmental information on India in a timely and cost-effective manner, to improve Environmental Studies and the decision-making process. Go to the EIC website!

The Indian Government on 31 January 2003 issued new guidelines to all central universities, directing them to take permission from the Ministry of Human Resources Development (HRD) for ‘‘all forms of foreign collaborations and other international academic exchange activities’’ taking place in the country – seminars, conferences, workshops, guest lectures, research, etc. The new guidelines, for the first time, give the HRD ministry full control not only over foreign exchange programmes but also over the selection and monitoring procedure for foreign scholar/students coming to India for any form of academic activity. More information in an article by Santwana Bhattacharya in Indian Express 25 March 2003. Read the article!

SciDev.Net’s Regional Gateway for South and East Asia, presents news, feature articles and Opinion texts, including Research papers, on Science, Technology, and Development. Very useful service, sponsored by Nature and Science magazines, in association with the Third World Academy of Sciences. SciDev.Net is published with financial support of the UK Department for International Development, the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, and the International Development Research Centre in Ottawa, Canada.

Experiencedevelopment.org is a British web based information resource set up independently for students looking to enter the international development sector professionally. It was set up as a non-profit enterprise, funded by five university departments and an NGO eager to help students acquire up to date information. It now acts as a central British portal bringing together comprehensive information on the many different aspects of international development, providing up to date listings and links including Jobs, UK NGOs, Research Sources, Universities, Statistics, News and Events.

UNRISD ON-LINE is the web site of UNRISD (The United Nations Research Institute for Social Development), an autonomous UN agency established in 1963 which carries out research projects on the social dimensions of contemporary problems affecting development. These projects end up in papers presented on the site. Right now selected papers from the programme on ”Democracy, Governance and Human Rights” are published, among them ”Liberalism and Its Discontents: The Politics of Gender, Rights and Development in a Global Age”, by Maxine Molyneux and Shahra Razavi.

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