Chennai: On Tuesday i.e. January 4, 2011, Nobel laureate Amartya Sen said that establishment of new Nalanda University was a challenging task, but progress was being made. He said that the university is being re-started right now, and since he has the challenging task of chairing its interim governing body, he is finding out how hard it is to re-establish a university after an 800 year hiatus. As per sources, Mr. Sen said this at the 98th Indian Science Congress, which was held at SRM University in Kattankulathur.
In addition to the the above statement, Mr. Sen said that the meeting gave him an opportunity to recollect the pursuit of science in old Nalanda, which will inspire and guide their long-run efforts in new Nalanda. As per sources, Japan, China, Singapore, Thailand and India are undertaking the mission of building the new Nalanda. Mr. Sen added that Nalanda was an internationally renowned centre of higher education in India, established in the early fifth century, and ended its continuous existence of more than 700 years during the time Oxford and Cambridge universities were being founded.
As per sources, Mr. Sen also compared the university with the oldest European University at Bologna. He said that Nalanda was more than 600 years old when Bologna was born. Had their time, Nalanda University would be, by a long margin, the oldest university in the world, he added. In the end, Mr. Sen said that it was time to recollect the scientific tradition of old Nalanda, because disciplined thought was important for the entire concept of new Nalanda including the teaching of and research in humanities such as history, languages and linguistics and comparative religion, as well as the social sciences and the world of practice such as international relations, management and development and information technology.
