'Special Day For Education Sector...': PM Modi To Inaugurate New Campus of Nalanda University Today

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will inaugurate the new campus of Nalanda University in Bihar’s Rajgir on Wednesday. The event will be attended by External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and ambassadors of 17 nations.

Calling it a special day for the education sector, PM Modi said that the new campus will be inaugurated at around 10:30 am on Wednesday and the university will go a long way to cater to the educational needs of the youth.

“It’s a very special day for our education sector. At around 10:30 AM today, the new campus of Nalanda University will be inaugurated at Rajgir. Nalanda has a strong connection with our glorious part. This university will surely go a long way in catering to the educational needs of the youth,” PM Modi wrote on X.

The new campus of the university is close to the site of the ancient ruins of Nalanda. This university was established through the Nalanda University Act, of 2010. The Act provided for implementing a decision arrived at the second East Asia Summit held in the Philippines in 2007 to establish the university.

This university, apart from India, has participation from 17 other nations — Australia, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Laos, Mauritius, Myanmar, New Zealand, Portugal, Singapore, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Vietnam. These countries have signed MoUs in support of the university.

The university offers 137 scholarships to international students. The new university started functioning in 2014 from a makeshift location with 14 students. Construction work on the university started in 2017.

The university has six schools including the School of Buddhist Studies, Philosophy & Comparative Religions; the School of Historical Studies; the School of Ecology and Environmental Studies; and the School of Sustainable Development and Management.

The international students enrolled in the Post Graduate programmes for the academic years 2022-24, 2023-25 and PhD programme in 2023-27 include students from Argentina, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, Ghana, Indonesia, Kenya, Laos, Liberia, Myanmar, Mozambique, Nepal, Nigeria, Republic of Congo, South Sudan, Sri Lanka, Serbia, Sierra Leone, Thailand, Turkiye, Uganda, USA, Vietnam and Zimbabwe.

Nalanda University was established in the fifth century which attracted students from all over the world. The ancient university flourished for 800 years before it was destroyed by invaders in the 12th century, according to experts.