Encyclopedia of India–China Cultural Contacts v2.c15.18

v2.c15.18

Former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s historic visit in 1988 ushered in a new era in India-China academic exchange and at the turn of 21ˢᵗ century India-China academic cooperation flourished further. There were increasingly frequent academic conferences and visits of scholars between the two countries that enriched and strengthened the research and study of each other bringing the process of continuous exploration to a new level. In June 2003, when the Prime Minister of India, Atal Bihari Vajpayee visited China, the two countries signed bilateral educational exchange programme agreement by reaching consensuses on the issues of exchange of scholars, mutual recognition of degrees, teachers training programme, exchange between institutions of higher learning and exchange of teachers of Hindi and Chinese. Indian Council for Cultural Relations had been sponsoring Chinese students to study in India and sending Indian experts to China to work on teaching and research activities for a long time and had initiated and implemented agreements of cooperation with Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Peking University, Shenzhen University, Fudan University, Jinan University, Yunnan University, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies and many other institutions of higher learning in China. Many Indian central universities such as Jawaharlal Nehru University, University of Delhi, Jamia Millia Islamia and Visva-Bharati have signed Memorandum of Understanding with scores of Chinese universities such as Peking University, Jinan University, Fudan University, Yunnan University and Shenzhen University. Their objective is to exchange faculty members and students, conduct joint research activities, participate in seminars and academic meetings, exchange academic materials and other information, organise special-short term academic programmes, exchange administrative managers and coordinators and conduct joint cultural programmes.