Dr. Roopa Dhatt, Executive Director of Women in Global Health, and two scientists who have developed COVID-19 vaccines – Professor Sarah Gilbert of Oxford University and Dr. Özlem Türeci of German company BioNTech, one of the vaccine pioneers – were guest speakers at the bi-weekly briefing by the World Health Organization (WHO) held on Monday, International Women’s Day.
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the pandemic has disproportionately affected women, who have faced challenges ranging from rising violence, to higher levels of unemployment. And although women make up the majority of health workers globally, or 70 per cent, they only account for a quarter of those in leadership roles.
Last month, the UN agency launched the Gender Equal Health Initiative whose objectives include boosting the proportion of women health leaders, promoting equal pay, and ensuring safe and decent working conditions for health workers, which includes having access to personal protective equipment (PPE) and vaccines.
Dr. Dhatt, a physician in the United States, spoke of her “rollercoaster” year treating COVID-19 patients while also working to expand her organization and manage duties at home.
She warned that the fundamental flaws and inequalities which the pandemic has exposed must be resolved urgently before the next global crisis.
“The extraordinary work done by women in the health and care workforce in this pandemic has not earned them an equal seat at the decision-making table, and as a result, we have all lost out on their talent and expertise”, she said.
Although proud of her contributions, Dr. Dhatt said like many health professionals, she felt furious that richer nations were not prepared for the pandemic “even though it was not unexpected”.
She was also angry that her sickest patients tend to be black or Latina “and this is not new”, she said, adding “COVID-19 does not discriminate, but societies do.”
Pandemic hits career prospects
Professor Gilbert from Oxford University in the United Kingdom previously worked on vaccines for influenza, Ebola and MERS, which was also caused by a coronavirus.
She acknowledged women’s “enormous contribution” during COVID-19, including in comprising two-thirds of the team that developed the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine.
“However, of the senior positions in the team, only one-third are women”, she said, emphasizing that more needs to be done so that women can progress in the field and other disciplines.
“There are concerns that the pandemic has had more of an effect on the careers and livelihood of women than men, and as we begin to make our plans for recovery, we must not neglect this,” she stated.
Professor Gilbert reported on the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine’s effectiveness in protecting older populations, but pointed to the work ahead in assessing its ability against COVID-19 variants. Preparations are being made to update the vaccine, if necessary.
Increase vaccine partnerships
“As vaccinations are rolled out around the world, with the most vulnerable being protected first, we need to continue to monitor virus transmission and apply all available measures to reduce it to protect those not yet vaccinated and reduce the chances of new variants arising”, she recommended.
“And to increase the amount of vaccine doses that can be delivered across the world, I encourage vaccine manufacturers to form new partnerships in diverse geographical locations to manufacture, fill and distribute vaccines that are already approved.”
As a self-described “wanderer between three worlds” – medicine, immunology and entrepreneurship, Dr. Türeci has witnessed lack of gender equality “every day”.
‘Making the seemingly impossible, possible’
But things are different at BioNTech, the company she co-founded with her husband, Professor Uğur Şahin, as women make up 54 per cent of employees and nearly half of the top management.
“We like to think that being a gender-balanced team has been critical for making the seemingly impossible possible: to develop the COVID-19 vaccine within 11 months without shortcuts,” she said.
The BioNTech vaccine, developed with pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, was the first-ever authorized for use. Together with the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine, it is part of the UN-backed COVAX initiative that is working to make inoculation accessible to all people everywhere.
As more vaccines come on stream, Dr. Türeci underscored the goal of achieving herd immunity, or widescale population protection, through equitable rollout worldwide.
“’Mission Herd Immunity’ means that no one will be safe until everyone is safe: across genders, ethnicities, economies and nations”, she said, outlining the need for collective action in areas such as ramping up vaccine production, improving supply chains and securing funding.
The European Commission was “surprised” that Belgium extended a ban on non-essential travel to other European Union (EU) countries until mid-April, said a spokesperson on Monday.
Belgium announced on Friday the extension of its travel restriction measure, originally to be lifted on April 1, for another 17 days until April 18. The country, along with some other EU members, has forbidden its residents to travel abroad except for “imperative reasons” as a COVID-19 containment measure.
The European Commission deemed the measure contrary to EU law, which guarantees free movement for its residents and citizens within the Schengen area.
The EU executive sent letters to a number of countries implementing travel bans a fortnight ago, asking them to respect the “principle of proportionality” and to replace the travel ban with “more targeted measures,” said European Commission spokesperson for justice, equality and rule of law Christian Wigand.
As of Monday, the commission has received replies from Germany, Finland and Belgium. However, the answer from the Belgian authorities did not mention the new extension.
The commission will analyze the replies received from the relevant member states and will “quickly examine all options on the table,” said Wigand.
“Free movement is a fundamental freedom. We will continue to act to ensure that the recommendations adopted by the EU Council are respected and to avoid travel bans,” tweeted EU Commissioner for Justice Didier Reynders on Monday.
BRUSSELS, March 8 (Xinhua) — European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Monday laid out the vision of turning Europe into a continent of equal opportunities for men and women.
“I know we are not there yet. I know that the playing field is not level yet,” she said at a European Parliament event marking the International Women’s Day. “I know from experience that women have to work twice as hard to get the same salary, the same recognition or the same leadership position as their male colleagues. I know the obstacles and the prejudices.”
She outlined the proposals presented by the European Commission last week to address what she described as “the two greatest injustices that women still face: the gender pay gap and the gender employment gap.”
She explained how women in Europe are paid on average 14 percent less than men, and why the Commission proposed the Directive for Pay Transparency.
The employment rate for women in Europe stands at 67 percent, while that for men is 78 percent. “This is simply not acceptable,” she said.
The second proposal aims to address this problem by targeting that 78 percent of all women must have a job by the end of the decade. She said childcare will be strengthened “because no women or men should have to choose between being a mother or father or having a career.”
Monday’s event also featured a video message from the United States Vice President Kamala Harris, who stressed how building a world that works for women was “not just an act of goodwill”, but a “show of strength.”
“If we build a world that works for women, our nations will all be safer, stronger and more prosperous,” she told members of the European Parliament.
She suggested initiatives such as ensuring women’s safety at home, access to high-quality health care, treating women with dignity at work and having the right mechanisms to enable women to both care for their families and excel in the workforce.
There are those who never do any reading unless at gunpoint or on the eve of an exam, and as little as possible at that. This way of life has become so widespread that where it was once considered embarrassing to own up to it, people now take pride in staying clear of books under the pretext of being ‘practical’ (as opposed to ‘bookish’). From university campuses – where diligent students are awarded the derogatory epithet of ‘theta’ – to life in general, book readers are dismissed as impractical fools. The impression given is that bookworms are not good at anything except reading, with the happy conclusion that reading is no good. Of course, this is nothing other than intellectual lethargy masquerading as wisdom. We all know people with this attitude, and they need not detain us any longer.
Reading is without doubt an excellent habit, but a qualification is in order: it is very easy to go overboard. Becoming a compulsive reader is not necessarily an improvement on not reading at all. With such readers it often becomes a matter of ticking off one title after the other on a never-ending reading list. This is when what ought to be a process becomes the goal itself – clearly a mistake unless it is purely recreational reading.
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Too much of reading can easily confuse a man, especially when there is no active participation from the reader. The mind needs time to assess what it reads; and if it is not allowed ample time to digest what is ceaselessly fed to it, it happily gives up the task of critical analysis. As soon as one book is finished there is the next one waiting to be read. There is no closing of the book at intervals to think about what has just been read, what it means, and whether it makes any sense. There are no flashes of inspiration, no sparks of creativity triggered. It becomes a mechanical process, adding with each new title to the hotchpotch of random ideas already there in the mind. Some of the most confused men on the planet are not those who are allergic to books; they are men who have read too much, too quickly without any sort of processing or coordination.
So how much reading is too much? And how much is enough? Like most things in life, the ideal must be somewhere in between the extremes. But where exactly? The proof of the pudding is in the eating, so this probably is not the right question to ask. For what is important is not how much one reads but what one does with whatever one reads.
Education is not the same thing as information. One could have a lot of information about something without knowing what it means or where it all fits in the grander scheme of things. It is very easy, for example, for a man to be informed of all sorts of events and titbits from history without having any idea about the philosophy of history. It is just another variant of mental laziness when the reader reads voraciously but does it with a passive mind – very much like one would watch blockbusters. It is hard work when the brain becomes an active participant, but it is precisely then that real benefit is obtained from reading, for then it is no longer one-way traffic but a creative process.
So how much reading is too much? And how much is enough? Like most things in life, the ideal must be somewhere in between the extremes. But where exactly? The proof of the pudding is in the eating, so this probably is not the right question to ask. For what is important is not how much one reads but what one does with whatever one reads.
Education has a lot to do with sifting the wheat from the chaff, and with ordering things according to their worth. This is where ‘modern’ education leaves so much to be desired. Under the so-called ‘tolerance’ movement, it encourages collecting every idea about a subject that anybody ever thought of putting to paper. Making one’s mind a compendium of all those ideas is hardly the best use of one’s intellectual capital. We have numerous encyclopaedias for that purpose. The difference between an encyclopaedia and a man is that the latter has a life to live. What good is knowledge if it does not translate into a way of life? What good is learning if it is not reflected in action? What good is reading if one remains a study in contradictions and doublethink?
While it is true that there are good books and others that are not so good, a reader can benefit from almost any book provided he actively interacts with it and seeks to place everything he reads in the appropriate boxes in his mind. That is when his reading becomes part of his believing and doing. If reading the best books does not reinforce or modify a man’s worldview – one that can be explained, defended, and lived – and if it does not spur him on to creativity, then his learning is like the ‘learning’ of a library when more philosophy tomes are added to its shelves.
The future carbon border adjustment mechanism is part of the “new own resources” for the EU budget and must be used to “combat global warming” across the world, Green MEP Yannick Jadot said on Wednesday (3 March). EURACTIV France reports.
Jadot, a French Green MEP who is in charge of the European Parliament’s report on the EU’s upcoming carbon border charge, says the levy is “not a protectionist measure” to shield Europe’s industry from competition.
To ensure the upcoming border levy is compatible with World Trade Organisation rules, he insists that part of the revenue is allocated to finance low-carbon technologies in developing countries.
Jadot’s report will be presented to the European Parliament on Monday (8 March) and voted the following day.
Part of the revenue – “between €5 and €14 billion per year” – should go to the world’s most vulnerable countries, according to the Green MEP.
As of 2023, the carbon border adjustment mechanism intends to first cover carbon emissions from “energy-intensive steel, cement and aluminium industries, the power sector and the plastics, chemicals, and fertiliser industries,” Jadot said.
According to estimates, this would correspond to 94% of Europe’s industrial emissions.
“Recycling for general environmental purposes – not for a particular sector, not directly changing the competitive environment internationally – might be just fine,” said Wolff, adding that it was “of course no problem” if those duties “go back into general revenues to support the EU in general”.
The WTO deputy director general did, however, warn that “if they come back and change the competitive equation for a particular industry or companies,” this would probably create “quite a lot of conflict.”
This fear is shared by Pascal Canfin, a French MEP who chairs the European Parliament’s environment committee. Back in December, he said that If the proceeds only go towards the EU recovery plan, “without traceability, with no environmental objectives and without any returns to certain countries, especially the poorest, I think we have to be concerned.”
“WTO compatibility is a total red line,” he added.
A number of developing countries in Africa and elsewhere have expressed concern that they will be liable to pay the levy despite having far lower carbon emissions than the EU.
But while the exact amount has not yet been fixed, Jadot said it was already clear that developing countries will benefit from a share of the revenue, in what he called a “historic position of the European parliament”.
Meanwhile, other parts of the revenue should be used to repay Europe’s public debt and the loans linked to the EU recovery plan, even if “it would be primarily to finance the green part of the recovery plan”, Canfin added.
Keynote Speech by Chief Economist Gita Gopinath At the Inaugural Dr. Hansa Mehta Lecture
It is a tremendous honor to deliver the inaugural lecture in memory of Dr. Hansa Mehta – an Indian freedom fighter, an educator, a policy maker, and above all, a champion of women’s rights. We have Dr. Mehta to thank for ensuring that the Indian constitution enshrines gender equality. We have Dr. Mehta to thank for correcting and replacing the phrase “All men are born free and equal” in the United Nation’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights with “All human beings are born free and equal.”
It therefore befits Dr. Mehta’s legacy that we are gathered virtually today at the United Nations on International Women’s Day. And as an Indian woman, I am especially grateful for the opportunity to honor Hansabehn, on whose strong shoulders I and many others stand.
We have Dr. Mehta to thank for ensuring that the Indian constitution enshrines gender equality. We have Dr. Mehta to thank for correcting and replacing the phrase “All men are born free and equal” in the United Nation’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights with “All human beings are born free and equal.”
It therefore befits Dr. Mehta’s legacy that we are gathered virtually today at the United Nations on International Women’s Day. And as an Indian woman, I am especially grateful for the opportunity to honor Hansabehn, on whose strong shoulders I and many others stand.
We are meeting amidst a global health and economic crisis which threatens to roll back years of hard-won economic and social gains for women. Women have been affected disproportionately by the pandemic because they work predominantly in sectors such as restaurants and hospitality that have been hit hardest by the lockdowns, and as the main caregivers at home they have had to drop out of the labor market as schools closed. In developing countries, women are over-represented in the informal sector where they face lower pay, less job security and lower social protection. In these countries, girls have dropped out more from school to help in households. And further, recent reports from the United Nations highlight a disturbing fact that violence against women and girls has intensified since the outbreak of the pandemic.
These disparities worsen already-large gender gaps that persisted before the crisis. While there have been successes over the past few decades as women pushed the boundaries on educational attainment, economic and political participation, and broke through the glass ceiling to lead countries, corporations, and international organizations, there is much more than needs to be done to achieve gender equality.
Globally, only 55 percent of women are engaged in the labor market as opposed to 78 percent of men. In 72 countries, women are barred from opening bank accounts or obtaining credit. Women continue to earn about 50 percent less than men for the same type of work, and they represent only 25 percent of parliamentarians.
The moral case for gender equity is very clear. Today I will emphasize that we at the IMF have strived to make the point that the economic case for gender equity is also very clear.
As you are aware the IMF has been promoting policies to support growth and stability for more than 70 years. We assess the economic health of our member countries, provide policy advice and essential financing as the global lender of last resort. In just this pandemic we have provided financial assistance to 85 countries, in addition to debt relief for our poorest members.
With all this on our plate, why do we as an institution also care so deeply about women’s empowerment and inclusive growth? We care about it not only because it is a moral imperative, but because gender empowerment is critical for the economic wellbeing of both men and women, and for societies as a whole. Empowering women, through improving access to health, education, earning opportunities, rights and political participation, can be an economic game changer for any country. A wealth of research at the IMF, at the United Nations, other international organizations and academic institutions supports this assertion.
As countries around the world struggle to grow their economies—grappling with ageing populations, and buffeted by trade shocks, social unrest, weather-related disasters and now, the worst peacetime crisis in a century–tapping into the huge potential of women is unambiguously a win-win for both women’s empowerment and inclusive global economic growth.
I will elaborate next on how gender equity can lead to inclusive and stronger global economic growth, and the role governments, the private sector and international organizations should play in empowering women.
Third, women’s empowerment enhances economic resilience. Recent IMF staff research has made a strong case that more women leaders in finance would not only reduce existing gender employment gaps in the corporate sector, but also strengthen bank stability. This work finds that higher share of women on banks’ board of directors and banking supervision boards are associated with greater financial sector resilience, lower probability of insolvency, and greater profitability.
As women globally account for less than 20 percent of board seats in banks and banking supervision agencies, and account for fewer than 2 percent of bank CEOs, this suggests tremendous room to achieve greater financial sector resilience while also increasing banking sector profitability.
There is rigorous evidence that when women are in leadership positions it enhances the lives of other women. For example, in 1993, India started reserving a fraction of village council leadership positions for women. As a consequence, in villages with a female leader there was a significant rise in parents’ aspirations for their daughters, the gender gap in adolescent educational attainment was erased, and girls spent less time on household chores. This policy also weakened stereotypes about gender roles in the public and domestic spheres.
To summarize, the empowerment of women is an important channel by which we can obtain stronger, more inclusive, and more resilient growth. This takes me to the next question: what needs to be done? To be clear, responsibility for this must be shared by governments, the private sector, and international organizations.
A natural place to start is with governments which can use fiscal policy to assist with the advancement of women in education, health, financial inclusion and economic empowerment. Gender budgeting can ensure that tax and spending policies transparently and adequately include provisions for women’s access to opportunity in education and the workplace. IMF research has found that higher spending on childcare has contributed positively to female employment in the Czech Republic, Poland and Norway. Flexible working arrangements, such as those established in Japan, have also been shown to reduce gender gaps in labor force participation.
Well-designed workplace regulations that protect women under the law—including parental leave policies that encourage greater parity between men and women, flexible work arrangements, access to affordable childcare and health services, as well as the equitable treatment of women in courts and protection against violence—have all been shown to significantly raise women’s participation in economic activity. Governments can also reform tax policies that penalize secondary earners—who is most often a woman—to encourage women to join the labor force. Studies have found that reforming secondary earner taxation and boosting tax incentives for part-time work has helped support female employment and raise labor force participation in countries from Korea to Norway to the United Kingdom.
Governments must also take concrete actions to level the playing field for women. In many regions of the world, a key obstacle to women’s empowerment are outdated legal, regulatory and institutional impediments—all of which are in the hands of governments to reform. In more than 100 countries, women encounter at least one legal impediment to their participating in the economy. In some countries, women do not have the legal right to open bank accounts, sign contracts, own property, or initiate legal proceedings without a husband’s consent. 75 percent of countries in Francophone Africa have regulations restricting women’s employment and 12 countries in the Spanish-speaking countries have decrees prohibiting female employment in some sectors. In half of the countries we studied, when legal impediments to women undertaking economic activities were reduced, their labor force participation rose by at least 5 percentage points in the following 5 years.
We know that it takes only a few strong but persistent voices to change these inequities – it happened in India, with Dr. Hansa Mehta, who helped pushed through the Sarda Actthat forbade child marriage, championed better educational opportunities for girls, and put in place personal law reforms.
There is a role for the private sector as well. To start with, businesses can promote gender equity by ensuring equal pay for equal work. Even where governmental regulations do not mandate it, firms can take the initiative to put in place work-life policies that support women’s labor force attachment including through mentoring and leadership opportunities, flexible schedules, travel and childcare subsidies, and zero tolerance towards workplace harassment.
It is estimated that in developing countries, 70 percent of women-owned businesses are under-served by financial institutions, as a result of which women entrepreneurs run smaller enterprises, earn less than male peers and are more likely to fail. This is a financing gap—as well as a lost business opportunity—in which the financial industry can step up to aid women’s financial inclusion.
And finally, we at the international organizations also have a role in this endeavor. The United Nations has declared gender equality among the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (“SDGs”) to achieve inclusive growth by 2030. At the IMF, we have increased our emphasis on women’s empowerment through training, technical advice, and peer-learning workshops with country authorities. I am also proud to note that we at the IMF have worked hard to diversify our leadership, successfully raising female directorship to over 30 percent, appointing the IMF’s second consecutive female Managing Director, and its first female Chief Economist. Gender equality is an aspect of the job I take very seriously and during my tenure I have increased the number of women in leadership positions in my own Department.
Let me now conclude by saying that this crisis has demonstrated the excellent contributions of women as leaders, as health professionals, as first-responders, as care givers. Yet women have been hit disproportionately hard by this crisis, and we still have a distance to go to get to gender equality. While much remains to be done, I am confident we will continue to make important progress towards the empowerment of women everywhere in the world.
Some 100 years ago this was the dream of a woman from a small town in India who we are honoring today. I hope this generation’s leaders and policymakers will take every opportunity they get to honor Dr. Hansa Mehta’s legacy through urgent and determined action for greater gender equality.
New WHO analysis shows how access to health care and financial protection deteriorated in Cyprus following health budget cuts and coverage restrictions from 2012 to 2015. Policy responses to the financial and economic crisis exacerbated existing gaps in health coverage, but reforms introduced in 2019 are closing these gaps and addressing other long-standing health system problems. Informed by evidence, the reforms are expected to reduce unmet need and financial hardship. They represent a major step towards universal health coverage.
The health system in Cyprus has always relied heavily on out-of-pocket payments, which reflects a large gap in population coverage, low levels of public spending on health, persistent budget and capacity constraints in public facilities, fragmented service delivery, and a large and underregulated market for privately provided health services.
Austerity aggravated underlying problems
Before the crisis, Cyprus was one of only two or three countries in Europe to base entitlement to publicly financed health care on income. In 2013, in response to the financial crisis, the government restricted the basis for entitlement even further, linking it to payment of social security contributions as well as income. As a result, the share of the population without public coverage rose from 15% to 25%. The government also increased user charges (co-payments) and reduced public spending on health. These policies increased waiting times, encouraged health staff to move from public to private facilities, and shifted health care costs onto households at a time of rising unemployment, poverty and income inequality. Between 2009 and 2015, the share of people experiencing unmet need for health and dental care grew and the number of households with catastrophic health spending doubled.
Post-crisis reforms aim to transform the health system
After the crisis, in 2019, the government began to implement the long-debated General Health System (GHS). To shorten waiting times, improve care quality and reduce out-of-pocket payments, the GHS strengthens the role of the national purchasing agency (the Health Insurance Organization) in buying services from both public and contracted private providers.
The GHS has also introduced major improvements in coverage policy, changing the basis for entitlement from income and payment of contributions to residence, which allows all legal residents to be covered for the first time; simplifying and reducing user charges; and reinforcing protection mechanisms – there is now an annual cap on all co-payments for everyone, with a more protective cap for children, people receiving the guaranteed minimum income and pensioners with a low income.
“This is the biggest reform since independence, not only because it ensures the whole population is covered and will reduce waiting times for patients, but primarily because it minimizes out-of-pocket payments and offers significant financial protection to all beneficiaries,” said Marios Kouloumas, President of the Pancyprian Federation of Patients Associations and Friends, which represents all the patient organizations in Cyprus.
Greater public investment in health is needed to sustain progress towards universal health coverage
The 2019 reforms bolstered Cyprus’s ability to meet the health and economic challenges of COVID-19. A key test now, once again in difficult circumstances, is whether the government can continue to secure public investment in the health system and keep the reform agenda on track. Reducing fragmentation, lowering waiting times and improving access, quality and financial protection will require steady growth in public spending on health and continued effort to strengthen the purchasing of health services.
WHO supports countries to move towards universal health coverage – leaving no one behind
Financial protection is at the heart of universal health coverage, which means that everyone can use the quality health services they need without financial hardship. Linked to WHO’s General Programme of Work, the European Programme of Work places universal health coverage as one of the three priorities for the WHO Regional Office for Europe. Through the WHO Barcelona Office for Health Systems Financing, the Regional Office undertakes context-specific monitoring of financial protection in over 30 countries, including Cyprus.
The Barcelona Office also provides tailored technical assistance to countries to reduce unmet need and financial hardship by identifying and addressing gaps in coverage.
Savitribai Phule Pune University (SPPU) offers courses in Pali at advanced levels, including research and doctoral studies. (File Photo)
The Department of Pali was established in July 2006, to mark the 2550th anniversary of the Mahaparinibbana of the Lord Buddha and the 50th anniversary of Modern Buddha Dr. Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar’s historic embrace of Buddhism. Department of Pali is the only place under the jurisdiction of Savitribai Phule Pune University (SPPU) where facility for learning Buddhist Literature in Pali, Sanskrit and Tibetan is available from basic to advance level. In its short career the Department has achieved the status of being one of the leading institutions in the field.
We have taken a holistic approach in the study of Buddhist Studies by including a number of related subfields such as Comparative Linguistics, Buddhist Psychology, Comparative Philosophy: Indian and Western, Buddhist Art, Architecture and Inscriptions, Buddhist Culture and History of Buddhist Thought, Socially Engaged Buddhism in our new curriculum. The Department has developed a strong bondage with local Buddhist community and Vipassana practitioners and is also successful in attracting overseas students and scholars.
In an ambitious plan to promote India as a global hub for Buddhist heritage and tourism, the University Grants Commission (UGC) plans to create a database pertaining to Pali and Buddhist studies.
In a notification dated February 23, the UGC has sought information about current courses, research, scholars and experts, alumni along with important events, seminars and conferences organised in this field from all universities, research institutions and centres. The UGC has also asked for details on the number of courses offered, number of students pursuing studies at undergraduate, post-graduate level and above at universities.
Savitribai Phule Pune University (SPPU) offers courses in Pali at advanced levels, including research and doctoral studies. Besides, research in Buddhist studies has been offered at Deccan College Post Graduate and Research Institute for over four decades now.
The two institutions had recently inked an MoU to jointly roll out a PG diploma in Buddhist Heritage and Tourism from the next academic year.
While many Asian countries like Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Thailand, Korea and China offer select courses and have plethora of tourism-centered activities, a database with rich information on all available courses and research of this scale also aimed at long term plans, including promoting tourism, is a one-of-its-kind programme.
