Georgetown India Initiative

The India Initiative was begun in 2015 with the goal of making Georgetown University a premier hub for conversations about India and U.S.-India relations. While much remains to be done to fulfill the full scale of that ambition, we are humbled by how far we have come in just a few years. 

The initiative has helped bring over a hundred different events and speakers to campus over the past three years, and the breadth of our programming has widened. While political and policy discussions dominate, as befits our location in the capital of the United States, during the 2018-2019 academic year we also supported major cultural events featuring world-class musicians and dancers such as Carnatic vocalist T.M. Krishna, Sufi singer Zila Khan, and the ever-popular Georgetown tradition of Rangila. None of this would have been possible without the generous support of our donors or the logistical backing of our many partners on campus.

The most gratifying outcome of this collective effort on India is the engagement of our students. This year Georgetown had two Fulbright Nehru fellows in India, and, by year’s end, another two students had won this prestigious post-graduate fellowship. Three recent graduates have taken full-time positions with IDInsight, a leading research organization in New Delhi, joining other young Hoyas who are hungry for the professional opportunities today’s India offers. This flow of people and ideas from the Hilltop to India is fueled by student trips organized by the Center for Social Justice, Research and Teaching’s MAGIS program; the McDonough School of Business’s Global Business Experience program; and the Walsh School of Foreign Service’s Centennial Lab initiative. In fall 2019, Sara Rotenberg (NHS’20) and Kyra Kocis (SFS’20), both of whom have spent considerable time in India over the past two years on university-sponsored global experiences, won Rhodes and Marshall scholarships respectively. Our students and graduates are the best advertisements for the value of a Georgetown education, and this sustained, multifaceted engagement with India is being reciprocated by rising enrollment of Indian students in Georgetown’s world-renowned undergraduate, graduate, and professional programs. 

We hope you share our pride and excitement as you read about our inspiring faculty, students, and guests in this annual report. We could not – indeed, we would not – do any of this work without you, and we welcome your ideas and continued partnership to do even more. Hoya Saxa!

Sincerely,

Irfan Nooruddin,
Director, Georgetown University India Initiative
Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani Professor of Indian Politics