The Kolkata Chapter of Observer Research Foundation has started functioning from its own new building in New Town, Rajarhat, Kolkata. The chapter moved to the new premises on April 15, the auspicious occasion of Poila Baishakh or Bengali New Year.
The Kolkata Chapter of Observer Research Foundation has started functioning from its own new building in New Town, Rajarhat, Kolkata. The chapter moved to the new premises on April 15, the auspicious occasion of Poila Baishakh or Bengali New Year.
The Kolkata chapter, headed by ORF Distinguished Fellow Ashok Dhar, will focus on China-related subjects.
After a simple ceremony, ORF Director Sunjoy Joshi welcomed the new research team to the ORF family. Addressing the well-wishers and the staff, Mr. Joshi gave a brief account of the beginning of ORF in the backdrop of the economic crisis in 1991 and the role played by it in creating consensus on the economic reforms, bringing together centrists and leftists.
Mr. Joshi said since then ORF has become a platform to clean up the discursive space for various issues that affect the country. He pointed out that ORF partners with organizations as diverse as the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung, Germany, and the Heritage Foundation, USA, which shows the organisation’s established credibility as a non-partisan group.
Mr. Joshi said there is a need for building coalitions between India and China on various bilateral issues and interests. Also important is to understand the changing realities in the social space that is detrimental to shaping policies. He pointed out that events like the recent mass mobilisations in Tahrir Square in Egypt have shown the world the impact of social ferment ushered in by the new media technologies.
Mr. Ashok Dhar also welcomed the new team -- Dr. Rakhahari Chatterjee, Brig. Deepak Sinha, Ms Prantanshree, Ms Swagata and Mr. Mihir Bhosale -- to ORF.
Mr. Dhar said that the idea of the Kolkata chapter was based on a desire to focus on the Eastern region which is one of the busiest regions and a strategic area linking the East with the North -- within the country as well as outside, as it also happens to be the gateway to South East Asia and China.
Mr. Dhar said that with ORF being recently nominated to represent India at the Association of Think Tanks for BRICS countries, the Kolkata Chapter would be expected to give quality research inputs. He said the ORF Kolkata chapter should revive the vision of the famous saying, ’What Bengal thinks today, India thinks tomorrow.’
Mr. Dhar said it would be important to explore the avenues of integration through intellectual discourse of the North-East part of the country as well as Bihar, Orissa, Jharkhand and Chattisgarh with Kolkata, and further with Bangladesh, Myanmar, Nepal and Bhutan.
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