When heavyweights speak

There are only three students at the SRM Nightingale School in West Mambalam attending the PG Diploma course in Journalism. One, a Sri Lankan, is a journalist, and another, does the layout and design for a local Tamil paper. Although there was some apprehension about starting the course with only three students, it seems to have been a good decision to kick-off the PG Diploma in Journalism course – for one, the three students have been fairly serious, and for another, almost all the faculty members, some of them distinguished in their fields, have shown interest in teaching the three. And it’s a pleasure for someone coordinating the course to have a few heavyweights address just three students.

Recently, there was Prof. V. Suryanarayan, well respected for his views on India and its neighbours and director of the Centre for South and Southeast Asian Studies. It was only two weeks since the professor had had an eye surgery, but he was gamed enough to come and talk on subjects such as the genesis of the Kashmir problem, the Sri Lankan crisis, the Northeast imbroglio, and also about how Gandhiji was against partition of India and his days in Naokhali in West Bengali during India’s Independence.

Incidentally, the Indian Centre for South Asian Studies is organising a bi-national seminar on ‘Deepening Political Crisis in Sri Lanka’ on June 18 and 19 at Hotel Savera. The seminar will see some interesting speakers, including Prof. Suryanarayan – N.N. Jha, former Indian Ambassador to Sri Lanka and Nepal; G. Parthasarathy, former Indian High Commissioner in Pakistan; and some distinguished Sri Lankans as well. The Indian Centre for South Asian Studies is a research institution that has been established recently, to study the problems facing the South Asian region and their impact on foreign policy. Jha will formally launch this organization on June 18 at the inaugural session of the seminar.

The convener of the seminar is Sukumar Nambiar (98400 33128).