Indian External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Monday launched a massive fully-funded PhD fellowship programme at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) for students from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries.
Jaishankar inaugurated the programme at the Jawaharlal Nehru Bhawan in Delhi and also launched a portal for receiving requests from applicants.
The government will spend INR 300 crore on this PhD fellowship programme which will select 1,000 students in three batches in the next three years.
IIT-Delhi will be the coordinating agency for the programme with 250 students to be selected this year, 300 the year after and 450 after that, according to ministry officials.
The programme is reportedly fully funded by the Human Resource Development (HRD) ministry with the External Affairs Ministry a partner in it to popularise it through outreach to ASEAN countries.
The 10 member countries of the ASEAN are Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
