The Hindu : Front Page : Manmohan offers funds to Centre for India Studies

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Monday, Jan 14, 2008
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Manmohan offers funds to Centre for India Studies

Pallavi Aiyar

Prime Minister’s gesture prompted by report in The Hindu

— Photo: PTI/ Shahbaz Khan

SPECTACULAR: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Commerce Minister Kamal Nath at the Olympic Centre in Beijing on Sunday.

Beijing: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh arrived in China on Sunday morning, bearing gifts. Only a few hours after his plane touched down here, the Prime Minister met students from the Centre for India Studies at Peking University, and much to their delight announced funding to the tune of Rs. 75 lakh in support of the centre.

The centre, the only one of its kind in all China, was inaugurated almost five years ago in June 2003, by the last Prime Minister to visit the Chinese capital, Atal Bihari Vajpayee. It has so far been dependent to a large extent on a Rs. 50 lakh grant from the Indian government that was released in stages spread out over a five-year period from 2003 to 2008.

With the grant about to run out, the Centre had been hoping that Dr. Singh’s visit would lead to a renewal of financing. However, the fact that a stop at Peking University was not on his agenda had them worried.

Dr. Singh revealed that he learnt about the centre’s plight in a story carried in The Hindu (January 11, 2008). “I was unable to visit Peking University but after reading your [The Hindu’s] story I felt at least I should help out the centre,” he said.

The meeting with the students took place during Dr. Singh’s visit to Beijing’s national Olympic Stadium.

Third-year Hindi student Zhang Minyu, one of a group of 10 youngsters who interacted with the Prime Minister, described the meeting thus: “We were first told to just stand at the entrance to the Olympic exhibition centre and to say ‘namaste’ to the Prime Minister when he walked by. To our surprise, he didn’t just pass us by but stopped to talk with us. He told us that he was glad to meet us on behalf of all the young people in India.”

“We spoke to him in Hindi and said, ‘Apka Cheen main swaagat hai. Bahut khushi huyi, aap yahan ayai’.”

Professor Jiang Jinkui, vice director of the centre’s Hindi department, who was also, told The Hindu that the centre was “very very happy” with the announcement of further funding.

“We are heartened to find Dr. Singh paying such attention to the teaching of Hindi language and Indian culture in China. More and more young Chinese are interested in India and it is thus our goal to teach more and more of them,” he continued.

The professor revealed that Dr. Singh had told him that it was his hope Hindi departments in China would become much larger in size and number in the future.

Currently, the centre has around 60 full-time students, including more than a dozen Ph.Ds. It focuses on teaching the languages of the Indian subcontinent, in particular Hindi, Sanskrit, Urdu and Bengali. Courses on religion, literature, history and culture are also on offer.

Blistering winds and sub-zero temperatures greeted Dr. Singh on his arrival here earlier in the day. He spent a busy day gearing up for Monday’s official talks with his counterpart, Wen Jiabao.

In the evening he attended a private dinner hosted for him by Premier Wen at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in west Beijing.

On Monday, the Prime Minister will start the day with an address to a business summit organised by the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade. More than 400 members of China’s business and government community will attend the summit.

Dr. Singh will then travel to the Great Hall of the People, an imposing building to the west of Tiananmen Square, for formal talks with Mr. Wen. Several MoUs are expected to be signed during this interaction and a joint statement, elaborating on the “strategic and cooperative partnership” the stated goal of both countries, is also likely. Dr. Singh and Mr. Wen will later inaugurate a joint medical mission intended to commemorate the spirit of a 1938 Indian Medical Mission to China.

The 1938 mission was sent to assist the Chinese in their war against Japan and included Dr. Dwarkanath Kotnis a young doctor who died while still in China. The mission and Dr. Kotnis in particular are remembered in China as symbols of the pre-1962 friendship that the two countries enjoyed.

Dr. Singh will end his day on Monday by attending a gala banquet hosted for him at the Great Hall of the People.

On Tuesday, he will deliver an address to scholars at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences titled “India and China in the 21st Century.” Later in the afternoon he will meet the Chairman of China’s National People’s Congress, Wu Bangguo, before an interaction with President Hu Jintao.

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