Australian fellowships

Updated on: Monday, June 14, 2010

The Australia-India Council (AIC) has announced the winners of Australian Studies Fellowships for 2010 and one of the winners will study the “Perceptions of safety and the acculturation experience among Indian students in Australia: A pilot study of North Indian and Punjabi students in Melbourne and Sydney.”

The study assumes significance in view of the alleged racist attacks on students and the media attention in India. The study is likely to bring out the positive aspects of Australian education and life.

The Australian High Commissioner to India, Peter Varghese, said that five fellowships were awarded, two in the senior category (for university faculty) and three in the junior (for research scholars). The AIC fellowships provide an opportunity for awardees to extend their knowledge of Australia and Australian studies, and to develop collaborations with scholars in Australia.

Since the introduction of the fellowships in 2003, 17 senior and 18 junior fellows have undertaken the 6-10 week visit to Australia, spending time at the participating universities. Many of the awardees have continued their strong interest in Australia and several have become champions of Australian studies at their home institutions.

Awardees for 2010 include Priyankar Upadhyaya, Malaviya Centre for Peace, Banaras Hindu University, who will conduct a research on “Managing diversities peacefully: Learning experiences from multicultural cities in India & Australia.” The topic for Nidhi Singh, Department of English, University of Rajasthan at Jaipur, is “Making connections: South Asian immigrant's search for cultural co-existence.”

Arindam Das, Heritage Institute of Technology, Kolkata, will work on the theme “Indo-Australian dialogue: Indian diasporic presence and the rethinking of culture, economy and politics” while Parmod Kumar, Dept. of English, IGNOU, will examine “Writings from the fringe: A comparative study of Australian Aboriginal and Indian Aborigines (dalits) through their autobiographies, memoirs et al.”

Lovepreen Kaur, Department of Mental Health, Max Health Care, will do the study on perceptions of safety.

Australian fellowships

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