Calcutta University Delegation Trip to Yangon and Dagon University, Myanmar, July 2016

Professor Hari Vasudevan was effectively the architect of the Exchange Programme that developed between Calcutta University and the Dagon University of Myanmar. The programme emerged out of a series of MoUs signed during Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit to Myanmar in 2012, and his own first visit to Myanmar on a family vacation in June 2012. In his capacity as Director of the Centre for Study of China and her Neighbourhood, he was put in charge of the implementation of the MoU between Calcutta University and Dagon University. He put in place an academic exchange programme in 2013, which brought academics from Myanmar for conferences at the Calcutta University. He also took the initiative in finding out convergences in subjects taught at Dagon University and academic specialization of scholars of Calcutta University, in order to launch a cycle of annual visits by faculty members of the latter to deliver lectures at the former that would familiarize the scholars there with advances made in research and scholarship from around the world. These photographs are from the largest of these delegations to Dagon, headed by Prof. Vasudevan, in July 2016, with four Calcutta University faculty members (Kingshuk Chatterjee, Suchandra Ghosh, Swapna Bhattacharya and Jayanta Ray) addressing the departments of Buddhist Studies, Indology, History and International Relations. Professor Vasudevan remained a regular reference point for any activities associated with the Dagon University, well after he retired in 2017.