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Canada at your doorstep
INTERNATIONAL CURRICULUM is rapidly making its foray into Indian academics. Now, Indian students no longer need fly over to Canada, Britain or the U.S. to obtain degrees from universities and colleges there. In collaboration with Indian institutes, some foreign universities offer regular as well as professional courses to students in India.
Ardee Institute of Technology and Management - AITM - in affiliation with Cambrian College of Applied Arts and Technology and UCCB, Canada, has launched International courses for Indian students in the current academic session. Benoit Profontaine, Senior Counsellor at the Canadian High Commission in India, announced the launch of the International Programmes in Engineering and Management. AITM is situated in Gopal Das Bhavan, Connaught Place, New Delhi. The courses offered are BBA, B. Tech in electrical, electronics and software engineering, and Higher National Diploma in Multimedia.
AITM claims to provide the standard Canadian education in a cost-effective manner along with placement advantages in Canada.
The Sunday bard
IF YOU happen to ask Philip McDonagh what he is, the answer obviously will concern what he is in New Delhi for - as Ambassador of Ireland to India.
But then, interestingly, he is a poet too. Known to very few, at least in this part of the world, this past week nevertheless should confirm this parallel career of his in the Indian reader's mind, with his maiden India release, "Memories of an Ionian Diplomat" published by Delhi-based Ravi Dayal. A reprint of his earlier book of poems published and well-received in Dublin, "Carraroe in Saxony", the new book contains a few additional verses he wrote on India.
Says McDonagh in his soft manner, "My first collection of poems published by Dedalus came about in Dublin last October. Since it was well received, I felt encouraged to bring it out in India in this centenary year of Bloomsday. Thanks to publisher Ravi Dayal, I could also add some verses that I wrote on India in the book." McDonagh's collection contains some poems ending in just three stanzas, others with longish verses running to up to seven pages. The book is divided into sections like India, Rome, Geneva and Copenhagen - the places he has stayed in as a diplomat.
"Ín the India section is the poem which bears the name of the book. The incident which provoked me to pen the verse was when an Irish ambassador at the time of leaving India, wrote letters to his colleagues and friends. I used this plot to go into the days of the Greek Ionic traveller Megasthenes, who represented the Macedonian generals at the Maurayan court, as the starting point for a reflection on the diplomat's role in a time of upheaval," says this alumnus of the University of Oxford. He says the geographical demarcation is to organise it.
"I had to decide on a structure to present my verses. So, I used place names to give it an order. For example, when I visited the Kalapani prison in the Andamans, I was terribly moved. The verses that came out could not be called anything else but `Kalapani'. Same was the case with the poem `Kerala'," he recalls.
Calling himself "a Sunday poet," McDonagh, however, finds it no hard task to switch from his diplomatic responsibilities to those of a versifier. "I can't be writing every time. First, you have to be convinced that you have something to say. Even if you feel something, the voice has to give life to it." Having read about historical personas like Chandragupta Maurya, Megasthenes, Amir Khushro, Ghalib and Faiz Ahmed Faiz's poetry, English translations of Kalidasa, etc., McDonagh says he has been "unsuccessfully" pursuing Sanskrit as it is similar to Latin and Greek.
Having won his first compliments for poetry at a school competition at 16, and thankful to his wife Ana for persuading him to look for a publisher for his verses, the ambassador says, "However, with this book, I almost felt like an Indian. Look at the list of works published by Ravi Dayal at the back of my book. All Indian names and herein, I surface too." Lets see how high he goes in the reckoning.
SANGEETA BAROOAH PISHAROTY
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