By Surender Bhutani, IANS
Vilnius : Students and staff of Lithuania's premier university here have tremendous curiosity about India and want to know more about the country and its people.
A new chair of Indian studies has been created there now with the help of the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR). Proper teaching of Indian history, politics and sociology along with Hindi will be taken up from September with the help of a resident professor based in Kaunas city.
On behalf of the Indian ministry of external affairs, India's Ambassador to Poland and Lithuania, Anil Wadhwa, has donated $7,700 to Vilnius University for the publication of the first Lithuanian-Hindi dictionary.
Earlier, during a visit to Lithuania, a country of 3.5 million people in eastern Europe, in March 2007, Minister of State for External Affairs Anand Sharma had granted the university money to set up a Hindi room.
When the outgoing ambassador called on Lithuanian President Valdas Adamkus as part of his farewell calls, the latter thanked the Indian government for the promotion of Indian studies in his country.
Adamkus expressed his satisfaction over India's high profile. He hoped that both India and Lithuania would strive to promote trade and commerce.
"The rise of the IT sector in India is a role model for us and we will look forward to more cooperation in this field. We expect Indian companies will find Lithuania an interesting destination for their investment," he said.