IGNOU to roll out a certificate course in 'Bharat Bodh'

Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) has decided to roll out a new certificate programme in 'Bharat Bodh.'

Vice chancellor Ravindra Kumar announced the varsity's decision at an event organised on its premises in association with the RSS-affiliate Bharat Shikshan Mandal (BSM) recently.

Sources told DH that the open varsity has decided to launch the said certificate course on a suggestion from the BSM.

“The University shall soon launch a new formal academic programme called certificate course in Bharat Bodh. This will talk about the cultural wealth of India and will also take a critical look at it. We will not take everything for granted and critically examine it and whatever is valuable we will retain it,” the vice chancellor said.

He was speaking at the launch of a lecture series on the topic, “Bharat Bodh,” on Monday.

Human Resource Development (HRD) Minister Prakash Javadekar inaugurated the lecture series. Prime Minister Narendra Modi's yoga coach and chancellor of Shri Vivekananda Yoga Anusandhana Samsthana (S-Vyasa) University, Bengaluru, HR Nagendra also attended the event.

“It will be an interactive series where we will invite people to raise questions, issues and debates from all over India with the help of our regional centres having a nationwide presence. A lot of traditional wisdom is available in our country which is untapped. We have to make a syllabus which is India centric,” Ignou vice chancellor said.

The HRD Minister suggested Ignou to organise the lecture series “all over India.”

“Bharat’s education system became such that we kept on forgetting Bharat’s culture and insisted on remembering the rest of the world’s. It is necessary to know and remember the world but this does not imply that we can forget Bharat. It is necessary to understand the Bharat and its glorious past. We should know the true identity of our own country,” the Minister said.

This was second-second such event that the Ignou has organised on its premises joining hands with the RSS affiliate. Earlier in February, the BMS organised a three-day international conference on “Bharat Bodh” at the Ignou campus here to "rekindle the eternal basic postulates that constitute Bharat."