The trust responsible for installing Mahatma Gandhi’s statue in Parliament Square in 2015 on Wednesday announced a fund for scholarships named after the iconic leader of India’s freedom struggle for deserving Indian students at the London School of Economics.
Meghnad Desai, member of the House of Lords and chair of the Gandhi Statue Memorial Trust, said it is donating £100,000 as an endowment towards the scholarships in keeping with its mandate to spread the message of Gandhi.
The seed money is expected to be joined by other donations so that a corpus would be built up in time, the trust said, adding that its endowment has been welcomed by the LSE director, Minouche Shafik, who is currently on a visit to India.
The number of scholarships and the year from which they would be offered are expected to be announced later.
The LSE has separately embarked upon a new LSE-India programme to advance its long-standing relationship with the country and provide new opportunities for Indian students and academics, aided by an LSE-India fund.
Gandhi delivered a well-attended lecture in LSE in 1931 during his last visit to London for the Second Round Table Conference. B R Ambedkar, another stalwart of India’s freedom struggle, was a student a LSE.
{{/usCountry}}Gandhi delivered a well-attended lecture in LSE in 1931 during his last visit to London for the Second Round Table Conference. B R Ambedkar, another stalwart of India’s freedom struggle, was a student a LSE.
{{/usCountry}}Since the Gandhi’s statue’s installation in 2015, the trust said it has supported three charity organisations in the UK working on themes close to Gandhi’s vision and legacy.