Ambassador of India visited UrFU

16:12, September 6, 2012

Ambassador of India visited UrFU

 - The visit of the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of India in the RF Ajai Malhotra to the Ural Federal University may be called a trully significant event, - Viktor Koksharov commented. - It will enable the university to create the Centre of Indian Culture. Besides, it will strengthen the academic cooperation between the UrFU and Indian universities.  

The Ambassador’s visit also marked the beginning of the Days of India at the university. “India is a country with unique, versatile culture”, the students of the federal university said. According to First Vice-Rector Dmitry Bugrov,  the university abounds in fans of India, so the idea of creating a centre of Indian culture was one of the main questions to be discussed by the Ambassador and the Rector. The Ambassador was really enthusiastic about this project and as a first step presented the university with some unique books on India.  

-  India is dynamically developing now. It has a big education market and as a university claiming to meet the world’s highest standards we are interested in cooperation, - the Rector says. - We offer our Indian partners a range of Master’s degree programmes such as “Russian Studies”, which is taught in English.  

Ajai Malhotra pointed out that such a programme would be interesting to Indian students as well as other forms of cooperation.   The university has a continuing cooperation agreement with the University of Delhi South Campus, signed in February, 2011, when the common principles of partnership were established: information and academic exchange, promotion of collaboration projects.  

Starting from 1 October 2012, the Experimental Physics Department, Institute of Physics and Technology, is launching a joint research project in the sphere of spectroscopy of heme proteins. Amit Kumar, an Indian post-graduate student, who won a scholarship of a German fund, will be taking part in the project to be conducted under the guidance of the chief research scientist Mikhail Oshtrakh.  

Moreover, from 15 September to 5 October,  Prof. Majeti Prasad from the University of Hyderabad will be participating in another joint research project “Physiological and biochemical mechanisms of plant resistance to technogenic pollution” at the Department of Phytophysiology and Phytochemistry, Institute of Natural Sciences.  

- Your visit will contribute to further popularization of India. It will also help to establish strong academic and scientific contacts with your country, - Viktor Koksharov told the Ambassador.   In his turn Ajai Malhotra thanked the university executives for the warm welcome and said that Indian students are evidently not afraid of the Ural climate since every year several thousands of students from India come to study not only in Moscow universities but also in Tver, Smolensk, Archangelsk, Kazan and Vladivostok.