Solution To COVID Hurdles For International Education & Research Stressed

New Delhi: Sustainable solutions to come over the hurdles faced at international education and research spheres due to third wave of COVID-19 need to be hammered out, said speakers at a virtual international conference.

The three-day conference, organised by the Asiatic Society for Social Science Research (ASSSR), New Delhi in the first week of 2022, focused on the ways to dismantle intellectual freeze due to the pandemic, particularly in the wake of threat from a new variant of the COVID-19 virus, Omicron.

International educational spheres and research work for the betterment of humankind are facing tremendous hurdles, the speakers at the conference said.

“Lack of scope for knowledge dissemination and increasing discontinuation in higher studies are leading towards a catastrophic result for the future. No doubt, we need to find further sustainable solutions as soon as possible to cope up with this natural disaster,” they added.

The ASSSR organised the conference in collaboration with SAARC Cultural Centre, Sri Lanka; The British Museum, UK; Iran Culture House, Embassy of I.R. Iran, New Delhi; TIIKM, Sri Lanka and INHCRF, Nashik.

Vice-president of the ASSSR Dr Pramod Kumar Ray and directors of respective collaborators including Prof Prashamthi Narangoda, Dr Mohammad Ali Rabbani, Isanka P. Gamage and Dr Riza Abbas spoke at the inaugural session.

Prof Seema Bawa, Head, Department of History, University of Delhi in her special lecture told the participants to nurture their further proceedings towards the realm of cultural studies.

Delivering the special lecture on the second day of the conference, eminent historian and Emeritus Professor Irfan Habib of Aligarh Muslim University spoke on the topic ‘Problems of Interpreting Archaeological Evidence in Reconstructing History’ while highlighting some of the loopholes inside the realm of historical facts and interpretations.

This international conference proves academic conversations are possible in time of COVID-19 pandemic, said ASSAR president Ashu J.