Tuesday, September 16, 2008
World academic leader in its time, Nalanda offers model for new global university
Which university was mankind's earliest? Two universities vie for that distinction. No, not Oxford or Cambridge.
Oxford is the oldest university in the English-speaking world.
The university of Bologna in Italy is regarded as the first university in the West.
The earliest date for the beginning of teaching at Oxford is 30 years after the Norman Conquest - 1096.
Cambridge started much later, and between the two universities a strong rivalry has existed for centuries. Cambridge will observe its 800th anniversary in 2009.
But it is the Takshasila and Nalanda universities of Vedic and Classical India that tie for the honor of being humanity's first university.
In an article entitled, ‘Really Old School,‘ Jeffrey E. Garten, Op-Ed contributor, wrote in The New York Times of December 9, 2006: "Founded in 427 in northeastern India, not far from what is today the southern border of Nepal, and surviving until 1197, Nalanda was one of the first great universities in recorded history.
To read the full article, click here..
To read the ePaper, visit: http://www.newsindia-times.com
Oxford is the oldest university in the English-speaking world.
The university of Bologna in Italy is regarded as the first university in the West.
The earliest date for the beginning of teaching at Oxford is 30 years after the Norman Conquest - 1096.
Cambridge started much later, and between the two universities a strong rivalry has existed for centuries. Cambridge will observe its 800th anniversary in 2009.
But it is the Takshasila and Nalanda universities of Vedic and Classical India that tie for the honor of being humanity's first university.
In an article entitled, ‘Really Old School,‘ Jeffrey E. Garten, Op-Ed contributor, wrote in The New York Times of December 9, 2006: "Founded in 427 in northeastern India, not far from what is today the southern border of Nepal, and surviving until 1197, Nalanda was one of the first great universities in recorded history.
To read the full article, click here..
To read the ePaper, visit: http://www.newsindia-times.com
Labels: Italy, Nalanda, Nalanda universities of Vedic and Classical India, Nepal, Oxford University, survivial, university of Bologna
Friday, July 4, 2008
Shyam Bhatia's book says Bhutto gave nuclear secrets to North Korea
Former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, on a state visit to North Korea in 1993, smuggled in critical data on uranium enrichment - a route to making a nuclear weapon - to help facilitate a missile deal with Pyongyang, according to a new book by a journalist who knew the slain politician well.The assertion is based on conversations that the author, Shyam Bhatia, had with Bhutto in 2003, in which she said she would tell him a secret "so significant that I had to promise never to reveal it, at least not during her lifetime," Bhatia writes in ‘Goodbye, Shahzadi,' which was published in India in May.
Bhutto was slain in December while campaigning to win back the prime minister's post.
The account, if verified, could advance the timeline for North Korea's interest in uranium enrichment. David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security, a research organization on nuclear weapons programs, said the assertion "makes sense," because there were signs of "funny procurements" in the late 1980s by North Korea that suggested a nascent effort to assemble an uranium enrichment project.
Pakistan - and, in particular, a nuclear smuggling ring run by Pakistani metallurgist Abdul Qadeer Khan, who was instrumental in develop ing a Pakistani nuclear bomb - has long been suspected as a source of expertise for North Korea, but such high-level government involvement always has been denied.
In 2002, after observing a series of suspect North Korean purchases, the Bush administration accused Pyongyang of having a clandestine program to produce highly enriched uranium - a charge that helped sink a Clinton-era deal that had frozen North Korea's plutonium-based reactor. North Korea insists that it had no such program, though it recently agreed to "acknowledge" U.S. concerns as part of an agreement to disable its nuclear reactor.
Nadeem Kiani, spokesman for the Pakistani Embassy, denounced Bhatia's account as "an absurd and baseless claim," adding, "It has no iota of truth and not even worth commenting."
Bhatia is a London-based investigative reporter who has written four other books, including one of the earliest accounts of India's nuclear program. Bhatia said he first met Bhutto at Oxford University in 1974 and kept contact with her until just weeks before she was killed.
George Perkovich, a nuclear expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, knows Bhatia and cited his book in Perkovich's own study of the Indian program. "He is very smart, a serious guy, and the work he did on the Indian nuclear program has held up really well," Perkovich said.
To read the full article, click here....
To read the ePaper, visit: http://www.newsindia-times.com
Labels: author, Former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, Goodbye, North Korea, nuclear weapon, Oxford University, pakistan, Shahzadi, Shyam Bhatia, Uranium
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