Wits centre to boost SA-India relations
Thématique :
inde,
sud afrique
Monday, 12 May 2008 - South africa Good news
Wits University is establishing a Centre for Indian Studies in Africa (CISA), the first of its kind on the African continent. CISA will support research, teaching and public debate about India and its growing presence across the African continent.
The Centre has been set up in an effort to boost ties between India and South Africa as trade and investment between the two countries records significant upward growth.
According to the Acting Director of CISA Prof Stephen Gelb, total bilateral trade between South Africa and India amounts to over US$4 billion today and has grown by 22% annually since 2001.
"Around 40 major corporations from each country now operate in the other, including many familiar corporate names: Tata, Ranbaxy, Bajaj, ICICI, Anglo American, Sasol, Sanlam and Shoprite. Others such as Infosys and Standard Bank are known to be considering entry," he says.
CISA plans to expand applied research collaborations between Wits and Indian universities. It also plans to promote staff and student exchanges and to initiate joint projects with Indian scholars about common problems such as social divisions of caste, community and race, the rise of the middle class, rural-urban migration and issues in constitutional law.
"We want to help change South Africans' mental map of the world away from one where the orientation is North-South with Europe and the US dominating, to South-South, with Africa and Asia as the main reference points," says Gelb.
The Centre will run high-profile conferences and public lectures. Visitors this year will include historian and travel writer William Dalrymple and celebrated Indian author Nayantara Sahgal, whose fiction deals with gender and class issues in India.
In recognising the establishment of CISA, Indian Consul-General Navdeep Suri presented Wits University with a gift of several hundred books from the Government of India, at a ceremony held at the university last week.
Wits University is establishing a Centre for Indian Studies in Africa (CISA), the first of its kind on the African continent. CISA will support research, teaching and public debate about India and its growing presence across the African continent.
The Centre has been set up in an effort to boost ties between India and South Africa as trade and investment between the two countries records significant upward growth.
According to the Acting Director of CISA Prof Stephen Gelb, total bilateral trade between South Africa and India amounts to over US$4 billion today and has grown by 22% annually since 2001.
"Around 40 major corporations from each country now operate in the other, including many familiar corporate names: Tata, Ranbaxy, Bajaj, ICICI, Anglo American, Sasol, Sanlam and Shoprite. Others such as Infosys and Standard Bank are known to be considering entry," he says.
CISA plans to expand applied research collaborations between Wits and Indian universities. It also plans to promote staff and student exchanges and to initiate joint projects with Indian scholars about common problems such as social divisions of caste, community and race, the rise of the middle class, rural-urban migration and issues in constitutional law.
"We want to help change South Africans' mental map of the world away from one where the orientation is North-South with Europe and the US dominating, to South-South, with Africa and Asia as the main reference points," says Gelb.
The Centre will run high-profile conferences and public lectures. Visitors this year will include historian and travel writer William Dalrymple and celebrated Indian author Nayantara Sahgal, whose fiction deals with gender and class issues in India.
In recognising the establishment of CISA, Indian Consul-General Navdeep Suri presented Wits University with a gift of several hundred books from the Government of India, at a ceremony held at the university last week.
