Union external affairs minister S Jaishankar along with human resources development minister Ramesh Pokhriyal on Monday jointly inaugurated a programme offering 1000 integrated PhD fellowships for ASEAN students at any of the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology (IITs) in India.
Apart from the ambassadors of all ten ASEAN Member States in New Delhi, the directors/representative of the 23 IITs, chairpersons of the UGC and AICTE, NITI Aayog CEO, and a host of other dignitaries attended the fellowship programme launched at a ceremony at the Ministry of External Affairs in New Delhi.
The largest capacity building programme of the ASEAN India partnership has been set up at a total budget of Rs 300 crore.
The decision of setting up this ambitious programme was announced by prime minister Narendra Modi at the 25th Anniversary ASEAN-India Commemorative Summit in New Delhi in January last year.
IIT Delhi has been designated as the coordinating IIT for the fellowship programme.
The institute has designed a web portal for ASEAN students to apply for PhD programmes of their choice at any of the IITs.
The first batch of the ASEAN students will be admitted in January 2020.
The selected ASEAN students will be provided scholarships at par with their Indian counterparts.
Moreover, the ASEAN students will also get a yearly research grant as a part of the fellowship programme.
IITs will also make a small provision to cover living expenses of selected students from their own budgetary resources.