INDIA PLANS TO SET UP NRI 'KNOWLEDGE BANK'
By Arun Kumar, Washington, 30 September 2007 (IANS)

India plans to set up a 'knowledge bank' to share the expertise of NRI doctors, engineers and other professionals to provide world-class education back home, Overseas Indian Affairs Minister Vayalar Ravi said here. To this end, the Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) is preparing a project to set up an NRI university, Ravi said during an interaction with the Indian American community at the Indian embassy here Saturday.

An independent trust was also being set up in collaboration with the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) to help Indians abroad do what they want back home. Legislation has been introduced in the Indian parliament to encourage more collaboration with credible foreign universities to bring about the needed changes in the Indian system of education, Ravi said.

The proposal he said had run into political problems with some supporting parties having certain objections to it. But he personally felt that collaboration with foreign institutions would be good. Ravi agreed that India's healthcare system needed an overhaul, but in order to provide access to basic healthcare down to the district level, government and the private sector needed to work together.

There was, he said, great demand for Indian manpower abroad, particularly in the Gulf region. To facilitate and regulate this, memoranda of understanding (MOUs) have been signed with Kuwait and the UAE. Similar MOUs were in the offing with Oman, Qatar and Bahrain, Ravi said.