Summers Extends A Hand To India

Enjoying a respite from the relentless scrutiny of his rocky tenure at Harvard’s helm, University President Lawrence H. Summers—in the midst of a week-long sojourn to South Asia—offered the local media a glimpse of his plans to deepen ties with India in his last months in office.

In an interview with The Times of India—one of the country’s leading English-language dailies—Summers suggested that the University would increase its exchange programs with the world’s second most populous country.

“I want to start programs whereby students from Harvard can study in Indian universities and vice versa,” Summers told the Times. “I also want to start exchange programs between business and public health experts in U.S. and India.”

The outgoing president also said that the University would beef up its India-related academic offerings.

“We are working hard towards building a program especially on India, the subcontinent and South Asia studies,” Summers said, according to the newspaper. “Like people study political science, culture, public health, economics, law and medicine, students in Harvard will now study India as a subject.”

In an interview yesterday, Sanskrit and Indian Studies Department Chair Leonard Van Der Kuijp—who is also affiliated with the University’s South Asia Initiative—said he did not know what specifically Summers was referring to in the interview.

“We are looking forward to learning more about the plans of the University to develop South Asian studies and as a department we are ready to do whatever needs to be done,” he said.

University officials said they did not know what Summers was referring to in his interview, and his spokesman was unavailable for comment yesterday evening.

During his visit, Summers is also scheduled to help launch a new Mumbai office of the Initiative.

In a separate speech to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences yesterday, the outgoing president said the University “is beginning to take some steps” in the formation of a Harvard institute dedicated to developing methods of evaluating and improving the performance of government, non-profit, and private-sector global health initiatives.

School of Public Health officials were unavailable for comment yesterday.

According to a copy of his prepared remarks released to The Crimson, Summers said he looks forward to a “mutually valuable partnership with a substantial two-way flow of students, faculty, and ideas” with India through the School of Public Health.

“The Harvard School of Public Health cannot have the leverage it wishes without strengthening its Indian ties,” he said, according to the remarks.

In his speech, Summers said the 21st century would be remembered as the “century of global health.”

He said that two trends of this era—the revolution in life sciences and globalization—will be remembered “more than any particular event, or terrorist attack, or war.”

Summers said that the solution to HIV crisis in India—where the United Nations documented five million cases in 2003—will ultimately come from vaccine research, and to a lesser extent from public education.

In the speech, Summers made reference to Harvard School of Public Health Dean Barry R. Bloom’s pioneering efforts in the study of immunology in India. Twenty-five years ago, Summers said, Bloom traveled to India to teach the country’s first immunology course to a modest 28 students. In 1996, that number had grown to more than 3000 registered immunologists in the country, according to Summers.

—Staff writer Javier C. Hernandez can be reached at jhernand@fas.harvard.edu.