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Indian class for Yale students

Mandira Nayar

MISSION INDIA: Students from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies (from left to right) Todd Gartner, Dawn, Nadav Tanners and Kara Di Francesco

NEW DELHI: Looking east is not always about aromatic oils, yoga or chanting. While the exotic side of the country attracts most foreigners, four young people from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies have moved beyond the exotic and chosen India as a destination for education.

On a research scholarship of The Energy and Resource Institute (TERI)/Yale Collaborative on Environmental Management, they are on a mission to learn lessons from India's development process.

"India is a developing country and there are many non-government organisations that are well established here. It is much easier to work here,'' believes Nadav Tanners, who is looking at privatisation of water in India.

The first batch of students from this collaboration, this tie-up is a unique imitative.

Established with a three-year grant of 825,000 dollars, the collaborative programme on "Building capacity for environmental resource management in India'' is funded by the V. Kann Rasmussen Foundation of Boston and will emphasise on teaching, training and research in the areas of energy, climate change and carbon sequestration, environmental law and policy, joint forest and watershed management and industrial ecology.

"For me, there was a personal interest in India. There are several people from India in our University. Over 12 people from our school are in India doing research here in various fields,'' says Kara Di Francesco, in India to study low emission systems.

From privatisation of water to the use of biomass, their research will go a long way in documenting the changing world in India.

Many young researchers want to come to India to validate or refute theories.

"It gives us international exposure. The problem is that we need to find something that has not already been done and that is tough as so much good work has come out from here,'' says Todd Gartner who is comparing the development and biodiversity in East Africa and India.

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