KOLKATA: With Taliban taking control of Kabul, a Scholar and Student Exchange Programme of Rabindra Bharati University (RBU) and Kabul University has been jeopardized. It was slated to commence soon. The signing of MoU for the exchange programme was scheduled to take place this month in virtual mode in the wake of the COVID situation.
"We had already received necessary nod from the Ministry of External Affairs and the state Higher Education department for further progress in this programme," a senior RBU official said.
He added that the exchange programme was related to Fine Arts and Visual Arts faculty. Students from the Kabul University would have come here for getting trained in painting, dance, sculpture, music etc while RBU students were slated to go there for getting acquainted with their art and culture.
"Many instruments of our classical music have come through Central Asia, of which Afghanistan is an important part, so exposure to this would have surely enriched the knowledge of our university students too," Sabyasachi Basu Ray Chaudhary, vice-chancellor of RBU said. The Kabul University started courses related to Fine Arts and Visual Arts faculty a few years back and was keen to share the experience of RBU in this regard. Talks in this regard had started some 18 months back and in the beginning of 2020 before COVID reared its ugly head in India and Bengal, Afghanistan's then minister Abdul Tawab Bala Karzai along with senior officials of Embassy of India, Kabul visited the Jorasanko campus of RBU and held a long meeting with the vice-chancellor.