External Affairs Minister inaugurates tele-education, tele-medicine projects for African countries

External Affairs Minister (EAM) S Jaishankar on Monday inaugurated tele-education and tele-medicine project for African countries here in New Delhi.

The EAM inaugurated e-VidyaBharti and e-ArogyaBharti (tele-education and tele-medicine project) for African countries on the occasion of the 55th Anniversary of India’s flagship capacity building programme - Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation (ITEC).

During his address, he emphasised on India’s role to provide capacity building to world and historical ties with the foreign countries and said that “we need to expand foreign collaboration with regards to this type of initiatives”.”The project(s) will enable African students to access premier Indian education through the comforts of their homes and offer Indian medical expertise to African doctors and patients alike,” added Jaishankar.

Secretary (Economic Trade) TS Tirumurti, who was also present at the event, said: “ITEC has been a vehicle to share India’s vast and unique experience of growth and development through capacity building and training of more than 2,00,000 government officials and professionals from 160 partner countries of the Global South in premier institutes of our country.”

He added that ITEC offers around 12,000 scholarships every year to professionals across a wide range of expertise, including in Information Technology, Healthcare and Agriculture.

New capacity-building initiatives like e-ITEC and ITEC executive were launched during the event, which will meet the popular demand for innovative courses to cater to a wider cross-section of users and professionals.

The Programme was also attended by MOS for Defence Shripad Naik and MOS for External Affairs V Muraleedharan.