Academic session begins in Delhi tomorrow

The long-awaited South Asian University will start its academic session from tomorrow to make it an institute of South Asian studies focusing on its issues and challenges.
Indian Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh while attending the 13th Saarc Summit held in November 2005 in Dhaka proposed to create a Centre of Excellence, in the form of a South Asian University, to provide world-class facilities to students and researchers of the region.
Manmohan Singh is expected to inaugurate the university on its temporary campus at Akbar Bhawan, New Delhi of India. He is likely to speak on the economy of South Asia, said a report of The Times of India recently.
The main campus of the university is being set up in New Delhi and it also can establish specialised and/or multi-disciplinary centres in other SAARC member countries as per its act.
The university intended to be state-of-excellence, will start functioning on the a temporary campus while its permanent campus will be set up at Maidan Garhi in South Delhi, next to Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU), by 2014, for which land is being acquired in Mehrauli in South Delhi.
The first two courses are in MA (development economics) and Masters of Computer Application (MCA). The MA course is for two years while MCA for three years.
Both the courses have got 25 students each. In development economics, 13 students are from other Saarc countries while 12 from India. In MCA, there are 16 Indians and nine from Saarc countries.
Tuition fee is fixed at US$ 440 per semester with most of the cost heavily subsidised to ensure easy access and affordability to all and scholarships offered along with earn while you learn programmes.
The university hopes to enroll after five years close to 3,000 students, 300 teachers and have 10 postgraduate facilities and a small faculty of undergraduates. The university is planning to have 7,000 students and 700 teachers.
According to the officials, engineering and medical programmes will also be introduced after a few years. The teaching staff will be mostly from Saarc countries.
On crucial visa issue, officials said that India at the Saarc summit has asserted that there will be no discrimination in visas against any student from any country, including those from Pakistan, although police reporting would be a must.
They said the Indian government assured that visas will be facilitated in a timely manner to ensure that any student who gets admission is able to join the classes without any delay.