Center for the Advanced Study of India

The Center for the Advanced Study of India (CASI) is an academic research center on contemporary India at the University of Pennsylvania. The Center collaborates with other institutions in the United States, India, and elsewhere to carry out its goals of nurturing a new generation of scholars across disciplines and providing a forum for dialogue among the academic, business, and foreign policy communities. The Center also collaborates with their New Delhi counterpart research organization, University of Pennsylvania Institute for the Advanced Study of India (UPIASI), to widen CASI’s reach within India. The current director of CASI is Dr. Tariq Thachil.[1]

History

Founded in 1992 by Dr. Francine Frankel a year after historic Economic liberalization in India, CASI was the first – and even now, only – academic research centre in the United States for the study of contemporary India. Dr. Frankel has also written about Indo-US and Sino-Indian relations. The revised edition of her study, India's Political Economy, was published in 2005.

In 2006, Dr. Devesh Kapur became the centre's director.[2] Dr. Kapur has worked on issues of human capital, Dalit studies, national and international public institutions, and the ways in which local-global linkages affect political and economic change in developing countries.

The University of Pennsylvania[3] has been at the forefront of area studies since 1942 when Prof. W. Norman Brown[4] pioneered the study of modern India, a full fifteen years before area studies appeared on any other US campus. That legacy continues at the University of Pennsylvania School of Arts and Sciences through the Department of South Asian Studies and its South Asia Center, the holdings of the South Asian Studies Collection at the Van Pelt Library, and CASI.

Today, CASI is recognised[5] as a national resource, addressing the urgent need for objective knowledge of India’s rapidly changing society, politics and economy, and the forces and processes behind them. CASI expands the University of Pennsylvania’s leadership on South Asian studies through its research focus on India’s economic transition, governance and politics, security and foreign policy, human capital, and media.

Notable Research and Activities
  • Nand & Jeet Khemka Distinguished Lecture Series brings leading India experts to the Penn campus.
  • Year-round opportunities for Penn undergraduate and graduate students through paid research during the academic year.
  • Summer Travel Funds and Internships[6] for Penn undergraduates and graduate students to India.
  • Yearlong fellowship, Sobti Family Fellowship, for a recent Penn graduate to spend up to nine months in India conducting independent research.[7]
  • Visiting Scholars/Fellows Program which allows the Penn community to interact directly with academics, policymakers, journalists, and NGO leaders who are India experts to stay in residence at CASI.
  • India in Transition online publication serves as a forum for the exchange of the most innovative ideas and analyses about India today.
  • Studies on Dalit conditions and movements under former post-doctoral scholar Ramnarayan Rawat[8]

References
  1. "Tariq Thachil Named Director of CASI". Penn Arts & Sciences. The Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania. Retrieved 17 April 2020.
  2. "Kapur takes over helm of UPenn's India centre". rediff.com. Retrieved 25 October 2015.
  3. "Home | University of Pennsylvania". www.upenn.edu. Retrieved 2016-07-19.
  4. "Guide, W. Norman (William Norman) Brown Papers (UPT 50 B879), University Archives, University of Pennsylvania". upenn.edu. Retrieved 25 October 2015.
  5. "New in Print". upenn.edu. Retrieved 25 October 2015.
  6. "School of Arts & Sciences". upenn.edu. Archived from the original on 4 April 2012. Retrieved 25 October 2015.
  7. "New Fellowship Fund Will Support Recent Penn Graduate to Do Research in India | School of Arts & Sciences". www.sas.upenn.edu. Retrieved 2016-02-26.
  8. Ram Narayan Rawat - Center for the Advanced Study of India
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