We are delighted to welcome a new trustee, confirmed at our recent board
of trustees meeting hosted at the Ancient Iran and India Trust in Cambridge.
He is Professor Faisal Devji, who has written extensively on Pakistan and on
intellectual ideas to do with South Asian history and politics. He is director
of the Oxford University Asian Studies Institute and a Fellow of St Antony’s
College. Please see here for his brief bio. This bring to nine the membership of
our board.
President Trump’s decision last week to suspend almost all security aid to Pakistan, which quickly followed his accusation that Pakistan had “given us nothing but lies and deceit,” suggests that his administration is carrying out the hard-line approach that the president foreshadowed in August.
Alarmed by the rising trend of extremism in students, Pakistan’s top universities gathered in Islamabad to discuss their role in countering the threat of radicalisation and instilling peaceful ideology, writes Sana Jamal for Gulf News.
As many as 80 university vice-chancellors attended the conference on “the role of universities in advancing national narrative to counter violence, extremism and terrorism” last Monday, organised by the Islamic Research Institute of International Islamic University, in collaboration with the Higher Education Commission of Pakistan.
Please the read full article here.
Two of our Trustees were welcomed as special guests at the recent welcome gathering for
all international scholars at Cambridge University, held at the Twelvetrees Hotel, hosted
by the new vice-chancellor, Professor Stephen Toope. Dr Paul Flather, the Chair of the Vicky Noon trust and Professor Haroon Ahmed, were two special guests praised in the opening speeches for the contribution the trust made as one of the many partner bodies that works with the hugely successful Cambridge Commonwealth Trust (CCT). The VNEF is poised to renew its 25-year partnership with Cambridge in the coming months to continue to support able and successful graduates coming from Pakistan to study at the leading university. Pictured are left to right Professor Ahmed, Professor Toope, Dr Flather and Helen Pennant, the director of the CCT.
