IIT - M to closely observe China

Updated on: Thursday, September 16, 2010

India has evidently decided to take close look at its strategic global competitors to chart out adaptive foreign policies. And it will do this through its best centres of excellence â€” the Indian Institutes of Technology.

Each IIT, which is free to pick the country it wants to study, will establish an observatory and study the developments of nations strategic to India.

IIT-Madras, which mooted the proposal, is setting up a centre that will follow China â€” right from Mao Tse Tung's revolution and Deng Xioping's reforms to every step that the dragon takes today. The idea was approved by Union human resource development minister Kapil Sibal.

Sharing a note, the HRD Minister, Sibal said "Each IIT may concentrate on a particular country. As in the US, such centres will be able to advise the government, especially in terms of strategic negotiations... Such centres will necessarily have advisory boards of former foreign secretaries and ambassadors."

The idea of such centres is borrowed from the West. Asia's upward surge recently saw several American and British universities starting observatories that most commonly watched India and China.

And experts say that observatories are as much international watchdogs as they are vehicles for turbocharging bilateral relations.

In its pitch, IIT-Madras stated: "China is important in geo-political terms. China and India also compete on the world stage. An engaged study of policy would provide a sound basis for creating an interpretative framework within which China may be understood."

IIT - M to closely observe China

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