‘Peace calendar’ with paintings by India, Pak kids to be launched today

NEW DELHI: Aaghaz-e-dosti, a joint initiative by an Indian and a Pakistani organisation to foster better bilateral relations, will on Sunday launch a “peace calendar” featuring paintings by 12 students from the two countries.

The calendar will also feature special messages from noted Indian and Pakistani activists such as filmmaker Nandita Das, Maj Gen (retired) TK Kaul, academic Happymon Jacob, Pakistani-american historian Ayesha Jalal and Amarnath Randhawa, president of the Hindu Sudhar Sabha Pakistan.

Aaghaz-e-dosti, which literally means “beginning of friendship” was launched by India’s Mission Bhartiyam and Pakistan’s Hum Sab Aik Hain, both organisations working for peace and communal harmony, in 2012.

The members are all students or young professionals.

The calendar is being launched at a time when relations between India and Pakistan are at a new low, with both sides recently trading charges about the improper treatment and harassment of their diplomats.

Why does research need multicountry collaboration?

The way we do research is changing. If we look at just the scale at which experiments are conducted, there is large infrastructure involved at great cost. This can’t always be borne by a single country, so international collaborations are important. India will soon become the world’s thirdlargest economy and it is already one of the world’s research powers.

We have seen that the quality of research produced through the collaboration between India and UK has been more impactful than other collaborations. I think this is because we have similar culture in the way research is pursued in the UK and in India, which is about the freedom to discover things.

MW: