The Hindu : New Delhi News : New centres in Jamia

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Jul 06, 2004

New Delhi

New Delhi

New centres in Jamia

By Our Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI, JULY 5. Aiming at innovative academic development, the Executive Council of Jamia Millia Islamia University today approved a proposal to open four new centres. Focusing on their contemporary relevance, the new centres include Centre for Study of Comparative Religions and Civilisations, Centre for Jawaharlal Nehru Studies, Centre for West Asian Studies and Centre for Spanish and Latin Studies.

The Centre for the Study of Comparative Religions and Civilisations will focus on issues such as inter-faith dialogue, unifying features of world religions, humanitarian aspects of different religions and comparative analysis of philosophy, scriptures and practices of major Indian religions.

The Centre for Jawaharlal Nehru Studies will have a public lecture-cum reading room, research and monitoring unit, economic cell, political cell and social and cultural vision cell. It will undertake research on wide range of issues from Nehruvian concept of Modern India.

The Centre for West Asian Studies would focus on contemporary West Asian Societies - the Arab world, Turkey, Iran and Afghanistan. The emphasis here would be on developing language skills.

Yet another interesting addition is a new programme "Litterateur in Residence'' which has been conceived to give an impetus to creative arts. For the moment, noted scholars S.M. Mahdi and Ashok Bajpai, would join Jamia as Litterateur in Residence.

Strengthening its teaching and research programmes, eminent academics, social activists and distinguished civil servants have been invited to join the University. The Dr. Zakir Husain Chair has been offered to former JMI Vice-Chancellor S.M. Mahdi, and the Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan Chair would be held by distinguished academician Aijaz Ahmed.

Noted sociologists like T.K. Oomen, Harsh Mander, Anita Inder Singh, Radha Kumar and Wajahat Habibullah have been offered visiting professorships to strengthen the Centre for Peace and Conflict Resolution and Department of Sociology.

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