Patna, (Bihar Times): The Mentor Group for the revival of Nalanda, headed by Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen, made the details of the proposed international university which will act as a bridge between East Asia and South Asia.

The Mentor Group, headed by Sen, comprises the Foreign Minister of Singapore, George Yeo, Harvard historian Sugata Bose, academic and writer Lord Meghnad Desai and scholars and experts from Japan and China.

According to the statement issued by the external affairs ministry recently the Mentor Group agreed that Nalanda University should be an international university enjoying academic autonomy. It would be a secular academic institution. The second meeting of the group was held in Tokyo last week.

The meet underlined the importance of the project in the context of ‘An Asian Renaissance’ as they concluded the details of the University. The University will be guided by “a global philosophy while maintaining local relevance.”

The University, according to the blueprint finalized by the Mentor Group, will have schools in Buddhist studies, philosophy and comparative religions, historical studies, international relations and peace studies, business management and development studies, languages and literature, and ecology and environmental studies.

The University, which is the dream project of the former President, A P J Abdul Kalam, may also consider expanding its curriculum to include some subjects like the neurosciences at the frontier of scientific research.

It needs to be mentioned that the Nalanda Mentor Group held its first meeting in Singapore in November. The Mentor Group was constituted by the external affairs ministry. The Universityn will have 46 faculty members hired from abroad. There would be 582 faculty members at the end of the 10-year project.