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Higher Education Institutes Including IITs Set To Launch Courses On 'India's Glorious Past'

Following a nudge from the Narendra Modi government.
Photo used for representative purpose only.
Hindustan Times via Getty Images
Photo used for representative purpose only.

Days after the Minister of Human Resource Development Prakash Javadekar announced that the National Council of Education Research and Training (NCERT) would work upon certain courses about history of India's tradition and culture, a number of higher educational institutes in the country have already planned on adding courses focusing on the country's "glorious past".

Among the institutes that have already decided on the courses are-- the Delhi-based Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) which is launching a certificate course on India's cultural heritage, titled "Bharat Bodh" and IIT Bhubaneswar which plans to add courses on Indian heritage and Vedic science for its BTech students.

Last year, the HRD Ministry with Smriti Irani at its helm had sent an advisory to all IITs to consider the idea of offering the ancient language as an elective course to their students. It had suggested the setting up of Sanskrit cells in all IITs, NITs, IISERs and central universities "in order to facilitate the student of science and technology in Sanskrit literature and inter-disciplinary study of various modern subjects and its corresponding subjects in Sanskrit literature".

A professor from IIT Bhubaneswar told The Telegraphthat the institute have discussed the possible new elective courses for its BTech programme. A final decision would be taken at a later meeting.

Inaugurating a lecture series on Bharat Bodh (Idea of India) at IGNOU, Javadekar had said, "It is necessary to know and remember the world but this does not imply that we can forget Bharat. It is necessary to understand the Bharat and its glorious past."

The higher educational institutes in the country are now clearly following Javadekar's instructions on that.

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This article exists as part of the online archive for HuffPost India, which closed in 2020. Some features are no longer enabled. If you have questions or concerns about this article, please contact indiasupport@huffpost.com.