HRD spoils SPA plans with no to foreign offer

Stay away from foreign academic collaboration. That seems to be the motto of the swadeshi-propagating HRD Ministry. Assigning no reasons, th...

Stay away from foreign academic collaboration. That seems to be the motto of the swadeshi-propagating HRD Ministry. Assigning no reasons, the Ministry scuttled a joint research proposal by the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NUST) to School of Planning and Architecture (SPA) a few months ago.

Acting on the advice of the Ministry of External Affairs, the SPA forwarded NUST’s Rs 56,15,000-worth offer in urban ecology planning to the Ministry on September 18 last year.

In his forwarding letter (to the Secretary, Higher Education), SPA director A.K. Maitra stated: ‘‘There is no financial involvement as far as the School (of Planning & Architecture) is concerned. The study will be funded by the Norwegian Council of Higher Education.’’ Nonetheless permission was not granted.

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NUST was offering ‘‘full stipend to four doctoral students and two post-doctoral students and support to research to be conducted by the School with the University.’’

‘‘We reminded them that the proposal deadline was October 1 (2002) and that we had been selected from among a number of countries. Our students would have benefited by the collaboration,’’ Maitra said.

But SPA was refused permission to go ahead in a one-line note from the Ministry on October 28. ‘‘They first refused us permission and then they refused to cite reasons why we were being denied a go-ahead for such a project after we got through all the hurdles,’’ the SPA director added.

In the proposal, SPA project coordinator and Department of Architectural Conservation head Nalini Thakur explained: ‘‘This is a purely educational dialogue. Sovereignty of the country will be respected.’’

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Refusing to comment on the issue, higher education joint secretary V.S. Pandey said: ‘‘It was just a routine administrative matter, nothing important!’’

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