Why in news? ICCR to build ambassador programme among foreign students in India.

Highlights:

• The Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) is aiming to expand the country’s artistic and creative footprint globally, by tapping into the experiences of foreign students studying here.
• It hopes that more than foreign students in India will be brand ambassadors of the national heritage, tourist destinations, textiles, yoga, ayurveda and craft.
• The ICCR will start E-3 or ‘exit engagement evenings’ with foreign students, beginning three or four months before they finish their courses in various Central and State universities, institutes such as the National Institutes of Technology and agricultural colleges.
• The engagements will include visits to places of national importance and this “soft diplomacy” is meant to spread the India story when students go back to their home countries.
• Council had also launched a website, called the India Alumni Portal, as a platform to connect with the foreign students around the world who have studied in India.
• The portal is envisaged to be a single platform for all foreign scholars to register, interact, and maintain their Indian links.

About Indian Council for Cultural Relations

• The Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR), is an autonomous organisation of the Government of India, involved in India’s global cultural relations, through cultural exchange with other countries and their people.
• It was founded on 9 April 1950 by Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, the first Education Minister of independent India.
• The Council addresses its mandate of cultural diplomacy through a broad range of activities.
• In addition to organising cultural festivals in India and overseas, the ICCR financially supports a number of cultural institutions across India, and sponsors individual performers in dance, music, photography, theatre, and the visual arts.