Centre for Disaster Research to be set up at JNU

One of the premiere higher educational institute in Delhi, Jawaharlal Nehru University has inked an MoU with National Institute of Disaster Management (NIDM) in order to establish a Centre of Excellence in Disaster and Resilience Building at the university campus.

According to the official statement released, “The memorandum of understanding was signed on Thursday between Santosh Kumar, executive director, NIDM and SK Sopory, JNU vice chancellor in the presence of minister of state for home affairs Kiren Rijju.”

The collaboration is expected to provide students an option to engage themselves in emerging research areas and position themselves in administrative levels from districts to that of the higher management levels. This would help generating the new breed of disaster management professionals who would be able to replace the existing lot after they retire from service.

Financial assistance of nearly Rs. 4.14 crore would be provided by NIDM to JNU over the period of 2015-2018. Initially there would be MPhil and PhD programmes in disaster management that would be on offer at the university which would be the first time in this country. The official statement further said, “The objective of this MoU is to initiate research, teaching, capacity and manpower development within a trans-disciplinary framework which brings science to communities in a manner that it is usable and understandable to communities in fragile ecosystems.”

Under this MoU there would be legal and governance reforms, enhanced capacity for early detection and warning systems, absorptions of indigenous wisdom in administrative systems, remote sensing and GIS based mitigation efforts would be launched for overall development of the students while learning. The statement further added, “Academically the collaborative nature of this programme would bring focus down to local communities and resource conservation at the grassroot levels. NIDM will move a step forward towards its goal of becoming a deemed university with this collaboration.”