Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has professed encouragement in bilateral and multilateral meets for a creative international partnership. Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has personally monitored the progress and milestones for an early start. The Bihar government acquired over 500 acres and has taken steps to improve infrastructure through better roads, assured power, and modernising the nearby Gaya airport.

A mentor group was constituted under the chairmanship of Prof Amartya Sen with the broad mandate of suggesting the academic disciplines, a governance structure and financing options. Two successive East Asia Summits, one at Cebu in Philippines, and the other in Singapore this November, strongly endorsed the revival of Nalanda University.

The second meeting of the mentor group in Tokyo last week, in which I participated, built on the progress made at the Singapore meeting and the communiqué of the East Asia Summits. It recognised that Nalanda should “be a symbol of Asian Renaissance and as a secular International Centre of Excellence” and concentrate on post-graduate studies. Some of the other ideas that crystallised at the Tokyo meeting include:

• The university should be established through an inter-governmental treaty among the participating countries.

• It should have separate schools of Buddhist studies, philosophy and comparative regions; historical studies; international relations and peace studies; business management and development studies; languages and literature; and climate and environmental studies.

The mentor group had earlier constituted a broad-based advisory council of eminent scholars and though their suggestions were often at variance with each other, it helped in appreciating alternative options and approaches.

In terms of the governance structure it was felt that the university should have an international board of trustees and headed by a rector.

It was also hoped that the final two meetings of the Mentor Group could be held in China and in India.

While the Nalanda University project has made significant progress, there are some subsisting issues:

• First, what should be the framework of the inter-governmental treaty? While the treaty would provide for partnership the mutual obligations of participating countries and their role need clearer delineation. Harmonisation of treaty obligations within the framework of subsisting Indian rules and regulations with the role of all stakeholders, namely the state and central government, the international partners, and multilateral agencies, needs careful consideration.

• Second, innovative financing models would be necessary. While substantial financing from the Centre and the state government is inevitable, the prospect of co-financing from bilateral donors and multilateral agencies like the Asian Development Bank needs to be explored.

• Third, apart from the non-recurring costs, the finances for operations and maintenance as well as an emolument structure attractive enough to attract high quality academic talent needs to be evaluated. This would impact the calibration of the fee structure.

• Finally, the time frame and implementational obligations. It is expected that the mentor group will complete deliberations well before the autumn of next year, and Nalanda could figure prominently at the next East Asia Summit in Bangkok in 2008. Simultaneous action is however needed to firm up financial modalities, and more importantly, the upgradation of the infrastructure facilities to make the university attractive and viable.

Nalanda instantly evokes nostalgia. Amartya Sen mentioned that the period of destruction of Nalanda synchronised with the inauguration of Oxford. Did this symbolise a transfer of intellectual leadership from Asia to Europe? The present effort to revive the university is part of the Asian renaissance and the new resurgence must be seen both as its growing economic power and rediscovering its strong cultural and ethnic roots interrupted by many centuries. George Yeo rightly commented that “the revival of the Nalanda idea — of human beings living together in peace and harmony with nature — is both timely and necessary.”