Saturday, July 6, 2013

Nalanda University has huge potential to Integrate Asian Countries-"United Asia" !!

No one should underestimate the potential benefits of this Nalanda University revival project to Asia, or the influence it could have on Asia’s role in the world, or the revolutionary impact it could make on global higher education.

Americans are used to thinking about the rising powers of Asia — China, India, South Korea and even some of the smaller countries — primarily as formidable economic competitors. In the case of Beijing, we also recognize the potential for superpower political and military status. But there are at least two questions that are key to Asia’s future that we do not generally ask.

First, for all the talk about the rise of Asia in the “knowledge age” that we live in, are these countries ultimately constrained in their potential to be great nations by their lack of top-flight systems of higher education?

And second, is the Asian region any more than a series of nation-states obsessed with guarding their sovereignty — and do they have the ability to interact peacefully and constructively, much as the European Union is trying to do, to pool their individual strengths for the betterment of their region and the world beyond it?

The possibility of rebuilding Nalanda University goes to the heart of both those issues. Founded in 427 in northeastern India, not far from what is today the southern border of Nepal, and surviving until 1197, Nalanda was one of the first great universities in recorded history. It was devoted to Buddhist studies, but it also trained students in fine arts, medicine, mathematics, astronomy, politics and the art of war.

The university was an architectural and environmental masterpiece. It had eight separate compounds, 10 temples, meditation halls, classrooms, lakes and parks. It had a nine-story library where monks meticulously copied books and documents so that individual scholars could have their own collections. It had dormitories for students, perhaps a first for an educational institution, housing 10,000 students in the university’s heyday and providing accommodations for 2,000 professors. Nalanda was also the most global university of its time, attracting pupils and scholars from Korea, Japan, China, Tibet, Indonesia, Persia and Turkey.

The university died a slow death about the time that some of the great European universities, including those in Oxford, England, and Bologna, Italy, were just getting started, and more than half a millennium before Harvard or Yale were established. Its demise was a result of waning enthusiasm for Buddhism in India, declining financial support from successive Indian monarchs and corruption among university officials. The final straw was the burning of the buildings by Muslim invaders from what is now Afghanistan.

But Nalanda represents much of what Asia could use today — a great global university that reaches deep into the region’s underlying cultural heritage, restores many of the peaceful links among peoples and cultures that once existed, and gives Asia the kind of soft power of influence and attraction that it doesn’t have now. The West has a long tradition of rediscovering its ancient Greek and Roman roots, and is much stronger for that. Asia could and should do the same, using the Nalanda project as a springboard but creating a modern, future-oriented context for a new university.

At the Asian summit meeting next week, a consortium led by Singapore and including India, Japan and others will discuss raising the $500 million needed to build a new university in the vicinity of the old site and perhaps another $500 million to develop the roads and other infrastructure to make the institution work. The problem is that the key Asian officials are not thinking big enough. There is more talk about making Nalanda a cultural site or a center for philosophy than a first-rate modern university. The financial figures being thrown around are a fraction of the endowments of Harvard, Yale or Columbia today. A bolder vision is in order.

The rebuilt university should strive to be a great intellectual center, as the original Nalanda once was. This will be exceedingly difficult to achieve; even today, Asia’s best universities have a long way to go to be in the top tier. In a recent ranking of universities worldwide, Newsweek included only one Asian institution, the University of Tokyo, in the world’s top 25. In a similar tally by The Times of London, there are only three non-Western universities in the top 25.

The original Nalanda might have been the first to conduct rigorous entrance exams. The old university had world-class professors who did groundbreaking work in mathematical theorems and astronomy. It produced pre-eminent interpreters and translators of religious scriptures in many languages.

The new Nalanda should try to recapture the global connectedness of the old one. All of today’s great institutions of higher learning are straining to become more international in terms of their student body, their professors, their research and their course content. But Asian universities are way behind. A new Nalanda, starting as it will from scratch, could set a benchmark for mixing nationalities and cultures, for injecting energy and direction into global subjects and for developing true international leaders.

In the old days, Nalanda was a Buddhist university, but it was remarkably open to many interpretations of that religion. Today it could perform a vital role consistent with its original ethos — to be an institution devoted to religious reconciliation on a global scale.

Today, Nalanda’s opportunity is to exploit what is lacking in so many institutions of higher education. That includes great medical schools that focus on delivering health care to the poor, law schools that emphasize international law, business schools that focus on the billions of people who live on two dollars a day but who have the potential to become tomorrow’s middle class, and schools that focus intensely on global environmental issues. Can Asia pull this off? Financially, it should be easy. China’s foreign exchange reserves just broke all global records and reached $1 trillion. And Japan’s mountain of cash isn’t that far behind.

But the bigger issue is imagination and willpower. It is not clear that the Asian nations are prepared to unite behind anything concrete except trade agreements, either for their benefit or the world’s. It appears doubtful that with all their economic prowess, and their large armies, they understand that real power also comes from great ideas and from people who generate them, and that truly great universities are some of their strongest potential assets. I would like to be proved wrong in these judgments. How Asia approaches the resurrection of Nalanda will be a good test.
Read more: http://goo.gl/VBHgy

A 21st century plan for ancient Nalanda University !!

An ancient Buddhist centre of study in India founded in the fifth century is looking forward to a new lease of life.The Nalanda University near Patna, the capital of Bihar state, was hailed "one of the first great universities in recorded history". It provided training in fine arts, science, medicine and other disciplines during its heyday before it was destroyed in 1197.

NUS is part of an international consortium headed by Singapore to revive the university. A group of architecture undergraduates have drafted a masterplan for the old learning centre earmarked for rebuilding in the next few years.

The team met with researchers, academics and diplomats at the Nalanda-Siriwijaya Centre in NUS recently to present and discuss "The Nalanda University: A Mother Plan for the 21st Century Campus". Their design concept of the 180-hectare site is a balance between the old and the new, based on self-sustainability. It focuses on farming for food while embracing the contribution of the neighbouring community, as what existed in the old campus.

The project group comprises 14 participants in their second and fourth year, including two exchange students from the Nanjing Southeast University of China. Their mentor, Adjunct Professor Tay Kheng Soon, is an internationally renowned Singapore architect involved in educational and community projects throughout Southeast Asia.

Team representative Quek See Hong said they joined the Nalanda studio because the brief stood out as "an unprecedented opportunity to study, debate and design for many of the real and current issues that challenge Asia and the world today."

The project is being driven by concerted efforts from the Indian and global community, which injected the students with a sense of purpose to uncover Nalanda University's ancient wisdom and shape new perspectives for its restoration. They went on a study trip to India early this year before starting their assignment. (See video clip.)

"We met the planning committee members of the Nalanda University in Bihar, various scholars and academics in Santiniketan and Kolkata, as well as interested Indian students and professionals that came forward to be a part of the process," said See Hong. With the regular exchange, the students are opened up to fresh perspectives and contemporary concerns of the new Nalanda that they incorporated into their design.
Read more: http://goo.gl/eumRX

India's ancient Nalanda university returns to life !!

It was an eminent centre of learning long before Oxford, Cambridge and Europe's oldest university Bologna were founded.

Nalanda University in northern India drew scholars from all over Asia, surviving for hundreds of years before being destroyed by invaders in 1193.

The idea of Nalanda as an international centre of learning is being revived by a group of statesmen and scholars led by the Nobel prize winning economist, Amartya Sen,

The group wants to establish a new world-class residential university with top students and researchers from around the world, on a site close to ruins of the ancient Buddhist institution in the Indian state of Bihar.

The new Nalanda International University will focus on the humanities, economics and management, Asian integration, sustainable development and oriental languages.
Old foundations

But building a top university from scratch, let alone one in a poor under-developed part of India, is a tall order.

Some doubt that an international university can flourish in such an under-developed area.

"Are top students and faculty going to be attracted to rural Bihar?" says Philip Altbach, director of the Centre for International Higher Education at Boston College in the United States.

Amartya Sen, the university's chancellor, is undaunted.

"Our job is to get the new Nalanda University going and establish the teaching. This is just the beginning - the old Nalanda took 200 years to come to a flourishing state. We may not take 200 years but it will take some decades."

"After Nalanda was destroyed in the 1190s it lingered on for a while - from time to time some people noticed that there was some teaching going on in the following couple of hundred years, but it wasn't anything like the university it had been. There is now absolutely nothing. We have to start from scratch."

In 2006, India, China, Singapore, Japan and Thailand announced the plan to revive the university based on the vision of the old Nalanda. And it was backed by the East Asia Summit which also includes South East Asian countries, Australia, New Zealand, Russia and the US.
International staff

The new university will be built in Rajgir, 10 kilometres from the ancient site with buildings planned on old Buddhist principles.

For now temporary premises have been secured and the postgraduate university has already published invitations to research fellows and scholars from around the world.

The first two faculties will be history and ecology and the environment with the first intake of students due next year.

Prof Sen says there will be active co-operation with Yale's school of forestry studies, Bangkok's Chulalongkorn University department of history, Seoul University in South Korea and Peking University in China.

This international outlook could boost India's higher education sector which is seen as inward looking and less internationalised than other countries in Asia, including China.

The new Nalanda will be "Asian in inspiration, Asian in motivation but it is not Asian in terms of its knowledge or the range or expertise or personal involvement. If the knowledge works in Asia, it ought to work in Africa or Latin America as well," said Prof Sen.

If all goes well, it will do Nalanda's ancient reputation proud despite the intervening 800 years.

'Soaring into the clouds'

Founded around the 5th Century, Nalanda once had over 10,000 students, mostly Buddhist monks, many of them from China, Japan, Korea and countries across south-east, central and western Asia.

The Chinese monk Xuanzang, who studied there in the 7th Century, left behind an eye-popping account of the thriving, wealthy university, describing a nine-storey library "soaring into the clouds."

Shanghai-based author Mishi Saran followed Xuanzang's route across Asia in her book Chasing the Monk's Shadow.

"Xuanzang was looking to study with the people who knew the (Buddhist) texts best. Nalanda was already reaching the heights of its power and prestige. It was known in Korea and Japan - its reputation had spread through the Asian trade routes," she said.

"When Xuanzang was at Nalanda, it was a vibrant place, packed with scholars, with seminars, teaching and debate. It was a kind of Buddhist Ivy League institution - all the deepest ideas about Buddhism were explored and dissected at Nalanda," said Ms Saran.

The influence of those scholars has survived to this day. While at the Jaipur literary festival in Rajasthan in January, the Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama said "the source of all the [Buddhist] knowledge we have, has come from Nalanda."

The new Nalanda hopes to match the intellectual rigour, but will not be a religious institution.

"Nalanda was not only interested in Buddhism. Even at that time it took from universal principles. It had secular studies, public health, it was interested in logic, astrology and mathematics and languages," said George Yeo, a former Singaporean Foreign Minister and head of the Nalanda international advisory panel.

Nonetheless, the "spirit of Nalanda" is part of the attraction. Nearby, the Buddha achieved enlightenment under the Bodhi tree at Bodh Gaya.

'Severe doubts'

But Prof Altbach, an expert on world-class universities, has "severe doubts" about the location.

"The site of an academic institution is important," he said. Nalanda "may attract a certain number of big thinkers, but academics like to be where the infrastructure is. They want culture and amenities and coffee shops, and a wider community of intellectuals than that on campus".

Yet Bihar, has also emerged as India's fastest growing state with economic growth of 12% last year.

"The countryside looked arid and impoverished. Today there are lush fields. The shops are fuller, the saris have become brighter," said Mr Yeo.

The university itself will help to develop the region, working with some 60 surrounding villages to improve livelihoods in agriculture and tourism, according to Nand Kishore Singh, a member of parliament from Bihar and a member of Nalanda's governing body.

The next two faculties to be put in place will be information technology, and management and economics which will help develop job opportunities "to enable Bihar to catch up with the rest of India", said Prof Sen.

Already a huge amount of infrastructure is planned for Bihar, including roads and an international airport at Gaya, with the Bihar State government fully committed to the university project.

But "building a top-class university is extraordinarily expensive, especially in a rural and undeveloped location, even with assistance of foreign donors and the central government", said Prof Altbach.
Soft power, hard cash

While the land has been provided by the state of Bihar, the Nalanda's supporters estimate around $1bn (£650m) will be needed. Even that is seen as a modest sum compared to some of the world's major universities.

Australia is funding a dean-level chair of ecology and environment. Singapore will design, build and donate library costing up to $7m (£4.5m). Thailand will contribute $100,000 (£65,000), and China has announced $1m (£650,000) in aid for construction.

"I don't see any dearth of money in the region but they are nowhere near the $1bn endowment, so far not many countries have come forward with their huge purses," said Sukh Deo Muni, a former Indian envoy to Laos and visiting professor at the Institute of South Asian Studies, National University of Singapore.

Prof Sen blames India's notorious red tape for holding up funds. But Nalanda will be built up slowly, faculty by faculty rather than having everything at once, he said.

Even its strongest critics admit the idea of a new Nalanda is a viable one. "A country like India must jump on it. It could show that India is present in Asia not only economically and militarily but also intellectually," said Prof Muni.

Others share that bigger vision that will sees Asia asserting itself on the world stage by projecting soft power.

"I'm hoping this project can bring China and India closer together, two great countries, representing two great civilisations of East Asia and South Asia," said Mr Yeo.

But even he admits resurrecting Nalanda "will be a challenge and there is no guarantee that we will succeed. The conception is grand but the implementation will be arduous".
Read more http://goo.gl/9gc9h

Indian Cabinet nod for privileges to Nalanda University

The Nalanda University in Bihar and its academic staff will soon get privileges and immunities required for efficient functioning and recruit talent from across the world.

The Union Cabinet, at a meeting chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh last evening, approved the proposal of signing of a headquarters agreement between the Ministry of External Affairs and Nalanda University.

"This agreement would confer on the University and members of its academic staff privileges and immunities considered necessary to provide an overall framework for the efficient functioning and operation of the University, and allow it to obtain talent from across the globe," Finance Minister P Chidambaram told reporters here.

The agreement would allow the host country to take necessary steps to protect the University premises against any intrusion or damage and facilitate the work of the University, to be headquartered at Nalanda.

The University, its assets, its income and other property shall be exempted from all direct taxes, customs duties and prohibitions and restrictions on imports and exports for articles imported/exported for its official use.

The agreement also exempts the Vice-Chancellor and academic staff of the University from taxation in respect of their salaries, honoraria, allowances and other emoluments.

It also includes the right to get the appropriate visa, the freedom to maintain movable and immovable property while in the employment of the University in the host country, and the right to import free of customs duties, taxes and other levies.

The University will serve as an international centre of excellence in higher learning and integrate modern, scientific and technological knowledge and skills with basic human values and promote universal friendship, peace and prosperity through the spiritual awakening of the individual and society, an official release said.

At the 4th East Asia Summit (EAS) in Thailand in 2009, leades of member states had supported the establishment of Nalanda University as a non-state, non-profit, secular and self-governing international institution with a continental focus, that would bring together the brightest and most dedicated students from all countries of Asia.
Read more: http://goo.gl/9VsjP

Grand revival of Nalanda University by Vastu Shilpa Consultants

Along-distance relationship between Gujarat and Bihar is brewing. Not many know about it yet. But, it is only some time before it promises to incite interest in one and all. The link for this alliance is architect Rajeev Kathpalia of Vastu Shilpa Consultants who is quietly studying drawings at his Sangath office, on the busy Drive In stretch in Ahmedabad, these days.


These drawings will take form as buildings at the Nalanda University (NU) campus in Bihar, a place that will buzz with knowledge and ideas to form a character par excellence.

BIG WIN, BIGGER TASK

Being chosen to design the prestigious NU lends a “sense of responsibility because someone from India (himself) has been awarded to design this project of international appeal.” Being culturally rooted has its gain, too.

“If it is for something that must celebrate Indian character, it would yield best results if planned and executed by an Indian.” “It does feel proud to see an international jury select someone local, and that gives a feeling of having achieved something,” Rajeev says.

MAKING A WORLD WITHIN

As part of the competition brief, they wanted to make a net zero campus, “where whatever energy you use, you should be able to generate; even the waste must be recycled within the campus, so you don’t end up stressing and straining the systems.”

Rajeev further adds, “The idea of a university is not just a physical entity of a closed sort of place for knowledge but a linkage of strengthening community, both economically and socially.

If you give people there the possibility of economics, the community would stay there and get stronger. We are offering several amenities within the campus — schools, laboratories, sports facilities, a library.

Everyone has something that will keep them occupied. What is more, the university will sustain villages surrounding it by being a laboratory for sustainable agricultural practices.”

NEED FOR AN OPEN CAMPUS

There is a larger agenda an institution must provide which is to take social responsibility, be it economic security, education or health care. An institute like IIM is an island of excellence but separate from the city because it is a gated community.

On the other hand, we are looking at Nalanda university to be an open campus which not only allows people to physically pass through it but also allows them to interact and participate in things happening within the campus.

THE BUILDING’S PHILOSOPHY

Reviving an ancient history for current times, that is how working on the NU project would appear to the world. There has to be a link established between the two. Something Rajeev has planned ahead.

“The master plan endeavours to integrate sustainable practices at every phase of the project, from site planning of the campus through creation of infrastructure, cost effective ways to both reduce consumption of natural resources as well as minimise dependency on off-site building materials.

The plan also allows for incremental growth and flexible expansion or phasing while preserving the agricultural and environmental basis of the region,” explains Rajeev.

UNIVERSITY AT HOME

Some of the projects Rajeev and his team are working on include IIT Gandhinagar housing, Smritivan — an earthquake memorial in Bhuj and Raksha Shakti University, both for the government of Gujarat, IIM Udaipur and Bhadra Plaza near Teen Darwaza, one reason why “we were dithering whether to even participate in this competition to design the master plan of NU”.

And, how interesting is work when you have an inhouse university called B V Doshi to turn to? “We share an informal relationship. We bounce off ideas to each other. When you have an inhouse critique of this stature, why wouldn’t you want to bounce off ideas and discuss?” Rajeev says of his father-in-law.

COMPARISONS NOT ALWAYS ODIOUS

For those who find it tough to visualise the vastness of the 455-acre NU, there are a few comparative scale drawings that form part of the architect’s proposal.

Like, all of Fatehpur Sikri could fit into the campus; The Forbidden City in Beijing is about the same size as the campus plan; two-thirds of Venice would fit into the 455-acre campus; the Nalanda excavations are the same as the academic blocks of the new proposed university; and, there will be 20 lakh volumes in the library where, for example, IIMA has about 1.8 lakh.

BOND WITH BIHAR BEGINS

“In the past year-and-a-half since Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar consolidated himself, there seems to be havoc in the building fraternity. Like most of us know, labour from Bihar is spread out in other parts of the country.

They will have to get people, more mechanisation, considering labour costs are going up. As a society, we are undergoing a huge transition. From rural to urban, informal economy is now catching up fast. I haven’t been to Bihar yet, but will be there day after for the first time for one of our initial meetings,” says Rajeev. The flight to Patna has just started...

  THE WINNING ENTRY

NU organised an architectural design competition to choose the master plan for the proposed university campus to be spread across 455 acres where the expert jury comprised four international architects - former chief town planner for Singapore Dr Liu Thai Ker, Japan’s Waseda University’s professor Osamu Ishiyama, Beijing’s Tsinghua University’s Professor Li Xiaodong and Ahmedabad’s CEPT University’s professor Neelkanth Chhaya.

Part of the winning design for Nalanda University by architect
Rajeev Kathpalia

There were others in the jury including Lord Meghnad Desai and Member of Parliament N K Singh. Of the 79 national and international architects/architectural firms, eight were chosen to submit their drawings and models of which Vastu Shilpa Consultants won the project.

The seven principles of study to be offered at NU are: School of Ecology and Environment Studies, School of Historical Studies, School of Information Sciences, School of Economics and Management, School of Buddhist Studies, Philosophy and Comparative Religion, School of International Relation and Peace Studies and School of Linguistics and Literature.

Now, government of China, Thailand, Japan are all contributors to the corpus of the university including faculty and students all of who are internationally selected.

  THE OLD NALANDA UNIVERSITY

One of the oldest universities of learning in India, NU located around 80 km from Patna flourished from the fourth century AD to about the 12th century. Back in those times, the university attracted scholars from China, Tibet, Greece before it was destroyed by Bakhtiyar Khilji’s army in 1193.

And while this fact may surprise you, it is believed that the library of NU was so vast that it continued to burn for close to three months after invaders destroyed and set fire to it.

It is about six years ago that countries including Japan, Singapore and China besides India proposed a plan to restore and revive the ancient site as Nalanda International University.
Read more:http://goo.gl/to202

What the ruins of the original Nalanda university tell us about an old civilization of India ?

  Our knowledge of Nalanda comes from three kinds of primary sources: archaeology, epigraphy (the study of inscriptions) and texts that surv...