Building Ties in India
President Brown sees “enormous opportunity”
| From Commonwealth | By Katie Koch
BU President Robert A. Brown greets Ratan and Deepika Jindal, parents of Abhyuday Jindal (CAS’10), at the opening reception in New Delhi for the BU India 2010 Global Leadership Summit in January.
Photo by Ramesh Chand Saini
President Robert A. Brown and his wife, Beverly, traveled to India for two weeks in January as part of the University’s ongoing effort to strengthen its ties there, both with Indian alumni and with the country’s leaders of higher education. Brown stopped first in New Delhi for the BU India 2010 Global Leadership Summit, held January 8 to 10, which kicked off with a reception in the home of BU parents Steven White, a deputy chief for the U.S. Embassy in India, and his wife, Kimberly White.
The summit featured talks on BU’s future in India, India’s role in a globalizing world, and plans to deregulate the country’s higher education policy. Among the panelists were Brown, Robert A. Knox (CAS’74, GSM’75), chair of the BU Board of Trustees, Kapil Sibal, India’s minister of human resource development, and Kaushik Basu, chief economic advisor to the prime minister. On January 15, Brown visited Mumbai for an executive panel discussion with Indian industry leaders Visty Banaji, president of group corporate affairs for Godrej Industries, Vish Iyer, CFO of Tata Consultancy Services and a BU parent, and Dinesh Mirchandani (GSM’93), president of Boyden India.
BU’s 2,200 alumni in India were invited to both events to gather, network, and learn about the University’s commitment to meeting the nation’s growing need for top-quality education. As India’s economy continues to expand over the next decade, Brown says, it will require the largest English-speaking higher education system in the world. “There is enormous opportunity to contribute to this development at many levels,” he adds.
“The summit and our subsequent meetings with alumni, friends, government officials, and institutions were highly successful,” Brown says.
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