New Delhi, Sep 6 (Inditop.com) The Indian Council of World Affairs (ICWA), the internal think-tank of the minstry of external affairs, is turning a corner by becoming a research body, linking up with universities and updating its treasure trove of a library. Soon it will bring issue briefs and discussion papers under the brand name ‘Sapru House Papers’.
Located at the historic Sapru House near Connaught Place, ICWA is changing direction from being just a platform of discussions and seminars to hosting its own full-fledged research faculty.
“We decided that research is a priority for ICWA. Therefore, we have recently hired six researchers,” Sudhir Tukaram Devare, director general of ICWA, told Inditop in an interview.
Recently, for the first time in its history, it hired six full-time researchers and created the position of a director of research. Vijay Sakhuja, a maritime security expert, has been roped in for the post.
Devare also plans to forge links with universities. “We are going to Hyderabad to organise a seminar with Osmania, then also linking up with the Sikkim and Calcutta universities,” said Devare, who retired as secretary (East) in the MEA in 2001.
In the newly created job for just over a month, it has been busy days for Sakhuja as he tries to build up a research faculty from scratch and hopes to soon start cranking off papers on a regular basis.
“By 2010, we plan to have a full strength faculty of 20 scholars, including visiting fellows,” he said.
The research wing, which was earlier used as a store in Sapru House, is being extensively renovated with a conference room and networked rooms for the researchers.
“Our research fellows, all of whom hold doctorates, are looking at areas like Northeast Asia, China, South Asia and West Asia. Eventually, we would also be bringing out papers on newer disciplines like climate change and non-traditional security,” said Sakhuja.
Within six months, ICWA will not just start publishing issue briefs and policy briefs but also bring out major discussion papers, calling them Sapru House Papers. “The first Sapru House paper will be on Indonesia, which should come out in mid-October,” he said.
The researchers will also have the advantage of interacting with foreign ministry officials, with plans to invite territorial desk heads to ICWA for discussions. All the research documents would be published on the website, which is also being refurbished.
Besides, the library – perhaps the largest specialised collection of books on international relations in India – is also going through a long process of bringing it into the 21st century. Among the 120,000 books, records and periodicals, the oldest tome is an account of Imperial Japan, Historia Imperii Japonica by a Swiss doctor, Johannes Casporus Scheuchzer – circa 1727.
Sapru House was named after eminent intellectual Tej Bahadur Sapru, who was founder-president of ICWA. The imposing red and white building was inaugurated in 1955 by India’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru.
Sunlight streams into the air-conditioned long reading hall of the library, which is packed with students and researchers poring over pages of their opened books. A closed side-door from the reading hall leads to the library’s major project – making a digital catalogue and tagging thousands of books with Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) chips.
Then, about one million newspaper clippings of the last 60 years of all the major newspapers, now decaying in drawers, would be scanned and digitally archived.
There are also plans to buy 30 computers and form a cyber lounge.
“We are already half way through the project and it will be soon over. We are also upgrading the maintenance of the building, with a renovated canteen and better lawns,” ICWA deputy director general A.V.S. Ramesh Chandra, a serving Indian Foreign Service officer, told Inditop.
The library membership has already swelled from 189 to over 600 members now in just about a year.
The next project would be the 380-seater auditorium, which will require the approval from the governing body which will be meeting this month.
“Within the six months, you will see a new ICWA,” he said.
