Alonso Dezcallar officially welcomed the Leaders at Palacio de Santa Cruz to initiate the Indian Leaders Programme 2014. At the meeting, the Secretary General of the Spain India Council Foundation welcomed the participants and gave an overview of the Programme’s agenda and the activities to be carried out throughout the week, planned with a view to strengthening ties between Spain and India.
Dezcallar held this meeting at Salón de Embajadores (Ambassadors’ Hall) and took the chance to introduce the Council Foundation’s mission, based on the premise that “Spain and India don’t know enough about each other and neither do their peoples.” “Therefore, our goal is for you to be glad you got to know our country better by the end of the week,” he explained. He also asked for the Leaders’ active participation in the Programme, designed not only to teach but also to share points of view and “work together to benefit the two countries.”
The Leaders, in turn, thanked him for the invitation to Spain and shared their expectations for the Programme. Vidya Yeravdekar, Principal Director of Symbiosis Society, said she hoped to remedy the fact that “Spanish and Indian universities haven’t really worked together recently,” which in her opinion does happen with other European institutions. Ayesha Banerjee, Education Editor at Hindustan Times, expressed an interest in “getting to know stories of Indian students in Spain and find out what education in this country offers them.”
All the participants were extremely interested in finding out first-hand the reason why Spanish is among the top foreign languages in India and what is being done about this in Spain. They therefore inquired about the way Spanish private companies approach education and about innovation in the industry.
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III Edition Activity summary
