The Indian Council for Cultural Relations is launching an India Alumni Portal on Saturday at the ICCR headquarters as a platform to connect with foreign students around the world who have studied in India. Minister of external affairs S Jaishankar will address the event with a video message, while his junior minister Meenakshi Lekhi will launch the portal in the presence of ICCR president Dr Vinay Sahasrabuddhe.
Many students who have studied in India are in senior positions in their countries or in influential global roles and are contributing to spreading positive messages about India and adding to the nation’s soft power globally. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in fact, recently emphasised on creating an effective ICCR India alumni network to engage them and keep them connected and updated on a dynamic India.
It is in line with PM Modi’s vision that ICCR has developed the India Alumni Portal (www.iccr.almaconnect.com) with the aim to connect all foreign scholars who have studied in India including ICCR scholars who can be India’s best ambassadors, offering invaluable soft projection across their personal and professional lives.
The portal is to be a single platform for all past and present foreign scholars to register, interact, maintain their Indian linkages, and remain anchored in India. It will also facilitate continuity and re-connecting with many past scholars and offer a single platform for all past and present scholars to register, interact, share conversations and make contributions. Indian missions abroad will also harness these contacts in various ways.
As part of the development of the portal and to engage the alumni in the best possible ways, the Indian missions overseas will form alumni associations in the countries of their accreditation and celebrate an alumni day. Other activities will include inviting alumni association members to meet the Indian dignitaries visiting that country and providing information with regard to the ICCR scholarship facility through the alumni.
ICCR has been offering scholarships to foreign students for the past 40 years and now, through the portal, the organisation hopes to create an important platform for cultural ambassadors of India. It is estimated that the ICCR alumni are nearly 30,000 strong and the portal will, therefore, also facilitate reconnecting with past scholars.
In the run-up to the launch of the Alumni Portal, ICCR conducted a contest to design a logo for the portal. It was open to Indian as well as foreign students studying in India. The winning logo will be put up on the portal along with ICCR’s logo.
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