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Director Message

Director Message

Jawaharlal Nehru Institute of Advanced Study (JNIAS), situated on the foothills of the Aravali range, is an integral part of JNU. Part of the vast and beautiful campus, JNIAS provides a pleasant environment and intellectual fellowship for research and other scholarly pursuits.

 

JNIAS aims to provide an enriching experience for both the visiting scholars and the JNU faculty and students by being a hub for academic interaction between Fellows of the institute and JNU academic community as also with Indian academy at large.

 

To this end, while JNIAS will offer all facilities to Fellows to carry on their own research and writing in a peaceful self-contained environment, it also encourages interaction with various Schools and Centres of the university and the larger academic community and provides seminar and conference space for the exploration of specific issues that interest the Fellows. Needless to say, interaction between the Fellows is also facilitated through talks and seminars.

 

JNIAS has established itself over the last decade as an institute of excellence and selects its Fellows with care so that they and their research can benefit from the time spent here and JNU too can be enriched by the experience.

 

As the Director, I welcome applications from all parts of the world from academics belonging to any discipline, and assure selected Fellows of all possible cooperation to make your stay at JNIAS profitable.

A warm welcome to the modified and updated website of the Centre for East Asian Studies. The East Asian region has been at the forefront of several path-breaking changes since 1970s beginning with the redefining the development architecture with its State-led development model besides emerging as a major region in the global politics and a key hub of the sophisticated technologies. The Centre is one of the thirteen Centres of the School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi that provides a holistic understanding of the region.

Initially, established as a Centre for Chinese and Japanese Studies, it subsequently grew to include Korean Studies as well. At present there are eight faculty members in the Centre. Several distinguished faculty who have now retired include the late Prof. Gargi Dutt, Prof. P.A.N. Murthy, Prof. G.P. Deshpande, Dr. Nranarayan Das, Prof. R.R. Krishnan and Prof. K.V. Kesavan. Besides, Dr. Madhu Bhalla served at the Centre in Chinese Studies Programme during 1994-2006. In addition, Ms. Kamlesh Jain and Dr. M. M. Kunju served the Centre as the Documentation Officers in Chinese and Japanese Studies respectively.

The academic curriculum covers both modern and contemporary facets of East Asia as each scholar specializes in an area of his/her interest in the region. The integrated course involves two semesters of classes at the M. Phil programme and a dissertation for the M. Phil and a thesis for Ph. D programme respectively. The central objective is to impart an interdisciplinary knowledge and understanding of history, foreign policy, government and politics, society and culture and political economy of the respective areas. Students can explore new and emerging themes such as East Asian regionalism, the evolving East Asian Community, the rise of China, resurgence of Japan and the prospects for reunification of the Korean peninsula. Additionally, the Centre lays great emphasis on the building of language skills. The background of scholars includes mostly from the social science disciplines; History, Political Science, Economics, Sociology, International Relations and language.

Several students of the centre have been recipients of prestigious research fellowships awarded by Japan Foundation, Mombusho (Ministry of Education, Government of Japan), Saburo Okita Memorial Fellowship, Nippon Foundation, Korea Foundation, Nehru Memorial Fellowship, and Fellowship from the Chinese and Taiwanese Governments. Besides, students from Japan receive fellowship from the Indian Council of Cultural Relations.