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Harvard’s New “Embassy” in India

Mar 22, 2018 | Announcements, India, News

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The Lakshmi Mittal South Asia Institute’s (The Mittal Institute) new India office as a part of Harvard Global Research Support Centre India, in the heart of the beautiful Lutyens-designed part of New Delhi, has officially opened, marking a new era of Harvard’s direct engagement with the region.

“Harvard would not be what it is if it was not capable of attracting the best brains from all over the world,” said Mark Elliott, Vice Provost for International Affairs and the Mark Schwartz Professor of Chinese and Inner Asian History, to the Times of India newspaper last week. “We intend to create a small embassy at the institute, which will help the students and researchers to study at Harvard.”

Professor Elliott officially inaugurated the new office on Friday, March 16, 2018. In his speech, he made it clear that a greater regional presence is vital for the university’s future scholarship:

“We believe that our Delhi office will enable us to grow our collaborations with Indian academic and cultural institutions, contribute to the development of outstanding research across the sciences, social sciences, and the arts and humanities, and further strengthen our already close ties with numerous Harvard alumni who live in India and across South Asia.”

Dozens of Harvard alumni attended the event, thanks to the Harvard Alumni Association’s tireless efforts to bring people together and maintain these valuable networks. Harvard historian and Indian Member of Parliament Professor Sugata Bose, Executive Director Meena Hewett and India Country Director Dr. Sanjay Kumar were also present.

It generated wide coverage in the Indian media, too, in major publications like the Hindustan Times, Financial Express and the aforementioned Times of India.
 
The Mittal Institute’s Faculty Director Tarun Khanna, Jorge Paulo Lemann Professor at Harvard Business School, will speak on April 5, 2018, about the institute’s commitment to studying and researching all aspects of South Asia, alongside its productive partnerships with major Indian institutions in the arts, social entrepreneurship, and life sciences.
 
“Our presence continues to grow in South Asia — with a new flagship office just opened in Delhi — as well as our strong connections to the diaspora in the US and beyond,” he said, recently. “With the infrastructure in place, we have the experience to do extraordinary inter-disciplinary research and produce valuable knowledge that will shape future scholarship in diverse fields as well as influence contemporary policy.”