Contact:	Suzanne Trimel					For immediate release
		(212) 854-5573					October 28, 1997
		smt4@columbia.edu



Visiting Professorship and Lecture Series
In Indian Political Economy Established at Columbia


	A visiting professorship and an annual lecture series in Indian political 
economy have been established at Columbia University through a fundraising 
campaign led by the Southern Asian Institute and prominent Indian-Americans 
in the New York metropolitan area.
	The first in the new series of distinguished lectures will be given by P. 
Chidambaram, Finance Minister of India, who is to speak Oct. 29 at 4 P.M. on 
"The Three Revolutions in India" at the School of International and Public 
Affairs.  His predecessor, Dr. Manmohan Singh, who, together with Mr. 
Chidambaram and others initiated the immense economic reforms in India that 
began in 1991, also has agreed to lecture at Columbia at a future date.
	More than $1.5 million has been raised to date through donations by 
individuals and corporations both in the United States and India, and through a 
series of benefits, including a reading by the poet Javed Akhtar, the U.S. premiere 
of "In Custody" by Indian producer Ismail Merchant, and the U.S. premiere of 
"The Making of the Mahatma" by the noted Indian director Shyam Benegal.
	The campaign also has received support from other prominent members of 
the Indian and American business and arts community with large donations 
made by the State Bank of India, Air India, the American Express Foundation 
and The Starr Foundation.  Another 700 donors have contributed.
	A final drive is under way to reach the $2.5 million target, which will allow 
the University to establish a permanent chair in Indian Political Economy at the 
School of International and Public Affairs.
	"The endowment will be a major contribution to maintaining Columbia in a 
leadership position in Indian studies in the United States," said Jagdish 
Bhagwati, the Arthur Lehman Professor of Economics and Professor of Political 
Science at Columbia, who is chairman of the Columbia University India Chair 
Program Committee.  "This will enable greater numbers of students to be trained 
in Indian studies, helping to create ever more interest in India in the United 
States as the two nations increasingly draw together in friendship, trade and 
investment."
	Professor Bhagwati said the position of visiting professor will be filled in the 
spring 1998 semester by Asutosh Varshney, an associate professor at Harvard 
University and a leading scholar of India's political scene.  He will teach a course 
on politics and economic change in India.
	At Columbia, the campaign has been spearheaded by Professors Padma 
Desai, Ainslie Embree, John Stratton Hawley, Philip Oldenburg, E. Valentine 
Daniel, current director of the Southern Asian Institute, and Barbara Gombach, 
an assistant dean of SIPA.  Dr. Thomas Abraham and Dr. Rajendra Bansal have 
served as co-chairpersons.
	South Asian studies at Columbia is taught by a faculty core of 33 professors 
and 27 adjuncts and associate members offering 125 courses a year to 
approximately 1,500 students.  Instruction is available in 10 languages, including 
Hindi, Bengali, Nepali, Punjabi, Tibetan and Urdu.

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