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Singapore Buddhist organisations have offered funds amounting to around $5-10 million for building a library at the proposed Nalanda University which will be a global centre of learning.
“The Singapore Buddhist community is making an important gesture to finance the library,” Nalanda Mentors Group Chairman and Nobel economics prize winner, Amartya Sen, told reporters here Tuesday.

He said the groups were looking at both private and public funding for the university, which is estimated to cost Rs.1,005 crore ($425 million).

Pegged as a symbol of global cooperation in education, the Nalanda University, proposed to be set up in Bihar near the same site where an ancient university flourished centuries ago, will have schools on Buddhist studies, philosophy and comparative literature, historical studies and ecology and environmental studies.

“It was one of the greatest intellectual achievements in the history of the world,” said Sen, referring to the ancient seat of learning.

The Nalanda Mentors…

The grand vision of resurrecting the ancient international glories of Nalanda University may take some time to fulfil as ambitions are being tailored to current financial limitations, admitted Amartya Sen, chairman of the Nalanda Mentor Group.

The Group concluded its two-day meeting here on Tuesday, having worked on a blueprint to set up the international venture. The first big step toward making the dream a reality is likely to be taken this week, when the Nalanda University Bill, approved by the Union Cabinet last month, is introduced in Parliament.

However, Dr. Sen admitted that the University would be starting relatively small — and the growth could be relatively slow. “The building work will begin as soon as the Bill passes…I should imagine that within a couple of years, there will be buildings and we will begin faculty appointments. You must understand that a university takes a long time to establish.”

He pointed out that it was unclear when the ancient university was started, with…

Nalanda University, an ancient seat of learning destroyed in 1193, is poised for revival.

According to The Independent, an ambitious plan to establish an international university with the same overarching vision as Nalanda - and located alongside its physical ruins - has been spearheaded by a team of international experts and leaders, among them the Nobel-winning economist Amartya Sen.

This week, legislation that will enable the building of the university to proceed is to be placed before the Indian parliament.

“At its peak, it offered an enormous number of subjects in the Buddhist tradition, in a similar way that Oxford [offered] in the Christian tradition - Sanskrit, medicine, public health and economics,” Sen said yesterday in Delhi.

“It was destroyed in a war. It was [at] just the same time that Oxford was being established. It has a fairly extraordinary history - Cambridge had not yet been born.” He added, with confidence: “Building will start as soon as the bill passes.”

The plan to …

Buddhist organizations in Singapore have committed to give almost $4 million to rebuild the famous library in Nalanda University but the UPA government is yet to pass legislation in Parliament that will give life to this project.

The Nalanda mentor group on Tuesday announced Gopa Sabharwal as the vice-chancellor-designate and hoped that the project would get underway within the next couple of years. Amartya Sen, chairman of the mentor group, said the group had crafted a plan to revive the educational institution, which had attracted students from across the world in ancient times. Sabharwal is a professor in sociology at Delhi's Lady Sri Ram College.

George Yeo, visiting Singapore foreign minister and member of the mentor group, said he hoped "that by the East Asia summit, the bill will be passed and work will begin". Nalanda University is a pet project of the Indian government as a showpiece diplomacy in Asia, resurrecting an ancient seat of Buddhist learning at its origi…

International funding will be sought for the proposed revival of the ancient Nalanda University, a global centre for learning, and Singapore Buddhist organisations have already offered donations for the construction of a world-class library.
“We will go for international fund raising,” Amartya Sen, chairman of Nalanda Mentors Group and Nobel economics prize winner, told reporters here Tuesday.

“The Singapore Buddhist community is making an important gesture to finance library,” Sen added. They have reportedly offered around $5-10 million (Singapore dollars) to finance the institution.

Sen said they were open to funding from both public and private organisations as well as religious institutions.

Pegged as a symbol of global cooperation in education, the Nalanda University, proposed to be set up in Bihar near the site where an ancient university flourished centuries ago, will have schools on Buddhist studies, philosophy and comparative literature, historical studies and ecology and environ…