On 5th of July 2011, Vietnam Institute of Indian and Southwest Asian Studies is officially established under Decision No.1063/QD-TTg – a new member unit of Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences.
Vietnam Institute of Indian and Southwest Asian Studies has legal status, seal and separate account based on the regulation, operating from the state budget; is a budget member unit of Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences.
The headquarter of Vietnam Institute of Indian and Southwest Asian Studies is located at Hanoi (7th floor, No. 1, Lieu Giai, Ba Dinh, Hanoi). Its English name is Vietnam Institute of Indian and Southwest Asian Studies (VIISAS).
Until now, the Institute has 5 specialized researching departments (Department of Political and Security Studies, Department of Economy and Integration Studies, Department of Historical and Cultural Studies, Department of Environment and Sustainable Development, Department of International Relations) and 3 function departments (Administration Office, Office of Sciences and Training Management and International Cooperation, Department of Library - Information). Beside that, Vietnam Review of Indian & Asian Studies also established since August 2012, and has 5 numbers (every two months).
Started from only few members at the beginning, today the Institute’s staff is step-by-step growing and developing. Most of them are young and good at their research fields, have the potential of great contribution to the development of social sciences for our country.
Being a scientific research member of VASS, VIISAS has the function of researching basic theoretical and practical issues of India and Southwest Asia; to provide the scientific arguments for the formation of pathways, strategies, and policies of the Party and State; to do the advisory and teaching work on basic matters of the region; to develop the scientific research and teaching on India and Southwest Asia; to promote the scientific cooperative relations and other fields with India and Southwest Asia.
Even though still a young member but the contributions of the Institute are noticed as following:
1. About scientific research and international cooperation
Being a newly member of VASS but Vietnam Institute of Indian and Southwest Asian Studies has actively implemented the scientific research tasks as well as international cooperation and achieved several positive results such as:
- Successfully holding an International Conference on Promoting the Vietnam-India relationship under the circumstances of new world on the 40th year anniversary of comprehensive diplomacy relationship between Vietnam and India (7/01/1972 - 7/01/2012). Moreover, the Institute also published a Proceeding of the conference including 25 articles and scientific thesis by foreign and domestic scholars.
- Actively participating in the activities of 40th year anniversary of diplomacy relationship and 5th year of strategic partnership between Vietnam and India held by Embassy of India and Vietnam - India Friendship Association (To participate in the painting gallery of Indian and Vietnamese artists at Van Ho Exhibition and Viet Phu Thanh Chuong; the introducing ceremony of Traces of Indian Culture in Vietnam book by Geetesh Sharma at the Embassy of India, joined in the international conference on strategic partnership of Vietnam-India held by the Embassy of India in collaboration with The Diplomatic Academy of Vietnam and India Council for Foreign at Melia Hotel, Hanoi…).
- To sign a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Maulana Abul Kalam Azad Institute of Asian Studies, Kolkata, India on 14th of February 2012.
- The leaders of the Institute joined in the special group of government leading by Vice Prime Minister Nguyen Thien Nhan to officially visit India from 25/03 to 02/04/2012. In this occasion, the leaders of VIISAS participated in discussing and signing the joint programs on scientific research and training with University of Jawaharlal Nehru and University of Delhi, India.
-To invite foreign speakers to talk on specialized topics on India and Southwest Asia such as Prof. Armajiva Lochan for The commercial ways between India and Southeast Asia on 8th June 2012; Dr. Sreeradha Dutta for Promoting Vietnam-India relationship under the circumstances of increasing integration in Asia-Pacific on 20th July 2012, Prof. Mathew Chandrankunnel for India and Indian religious on 7th September 2012; Dr. Ranvijay Sinha for The dilemma of foreign policy for India on 10th October 2012.
- To send researchers and scholars of the VIISAS to take part in international conferences, for instance, Conference on Vietnam-India Relationship in Delhi, India on February 2012; Conference on Rabindranath Tagore in Perth, Australia on May 2012; Conference on climate change in Hue City on June 2012; Conference on Cham civilization in Da Nang on June 2012, Conference on Civilized Conversation between India and ASEAN in Patna, India on July 2012; Confernce on Mahatma Gandhi in New Delhi, India on August.
- To send staff to participate in Congress and the 3rd Committee of Vietnam- India Friendship Association (2012 – 2017).
- To welcome guest groups: From Maulana Abul Kalam Azad Institute of Asian Studies to visit the Institute from 31st July to 2nd August 2012: To sign a letter of agreement in researching and collaborative planning on holding international conference in 2013. To work with Indian Council of World Affairs (ICWA) on 18th July.
- The staff of VIISAS visited and worked with the Department of International Research of University of Jawaharlal Nehru, New Delhi from 22nd to 27th October 2012, to promote the signing of a MOU with the Department of International Research of University of Jawaharlal Nehru.
- To carry out the ministry level project: Some basic economic and political issues of India at the beginning of 21st century and forcasting the growing trend till 2020.
- To hold successfully an international conference on India and Southwest Asia: the relationships in past and now on 18th December 2012.
- To hold regularly scientific seminars on different topics and dimensions of Indian economy; scientific group discussion of VIISAS’s staff every week to focus on exchanging experience, researching methodology, and improving foreign language skills for better research.
- Vietnam Review of Indian & Asian Studies is established and became a forum for foreign and domestic researchers, scholars to discuss, exchange information and publish works from their research fields.
2. Other activitis
- About organizing – personnel activities: The Institute paid attention to recruit and build up a comprehensive team from many sources that basically satisfied the standards, conditions of moral quality, and professional requirements. In VIISAS, there are 17 persons among them, ten are officials and the rest are contracted labor. About the academic title, there is one professor, one doctor, and four masters. The others are fellows/doctoral students or studying master degree locally or internationally. The organizing and administrative task focused on stabilizing the organization, internal and external activities; procurement of facilities and working devices, ensuring the running expenses and financial budget as scheduled…
- About the Party and Union activities: The Institute focused on completing Party and political – socio organizations. The Union has 6 members (five are official Party members and one is for substitution), in 2012, it was awarded as “Transparent and United” Union. Other Youth Union and unions at work are established and promoting their roles in uniting and gathering people and democracy at work.
The outlook from now to 2020 of the Institute is focused on carrying out the projects, researching works which added values to scientific arguments and advisory for the Party and State on foreign policies; promoting international cooperation and other scientific activities; completing the organizational structure, building up and improving the quality of politics, ideology, ethnics, lifestyle, profession, and ability for the staffs and researchers in order to server and satisfy the tasks in industrialization, modernization, and international integration of the country.
To perform well the slogan “Quality – Harmony – Innovation and Breakthrough development”, the VIISAS is trying to maximize resources, to be determine in building the Institute as a top researching unit of India and Southwest Asia studies in the Academy and country.
Based on the general objectives above, in the future, the Institute will promote the researching and scientific activities, focusing on researching India on major dimensions. Step- by-step expanding the researching scope to other countries in Southwest Asia, Asia and global. To respond and complete the national, ministry, and Academy level projects and be able to suggest new researching directions and topics.
To improve the efficiency and quality of Vietnam Review of Indian & Asian Studies and Website to make them become important and useful forums for domestic and foreign researchers.
To promote international cooperative activities with individual and scientific organizations in and outside the country. To coordinate and collaborate the international seminars and conferences on researching fields.
To recommend and send groups and researchers to India and other researching countries and to invite foreign groups and researchers to visit Vietnam for exchanging and cooperating. To call for the scholarship, sponsorship for training courses and teaching for the staff, students on Indian Studies and could be in India as well as other Southwest Asian countries.
To plan research schedule, financial plans – using yearly budget. To recommend and call resources and budget for the office, infrastructure, working devices ensuring the stability of activities and further development for the Institute. To build up and introduce the rule of internal spending, to implement the democracy, public, and transparent of finance; to prevent the waste and corruption.
To keep up with the recruitment and contract staff; to complete the organizational structure and activities of research departments to fulfill the researching mission. To be good at preparing for the leaders, managers at different level. To focus on training for the staff and researchers on profession, theoretical politic, ethnic, lifestyle to satisfy the mission under the new circumstances and to prevent the lack of next generation of staff. To accomplish the plan of having 25 staffs for research and supporting activities until 2020.
To ensure the core leadership role of union with activities of the Institute; pay the attention to train and develop the new Party members. To collaborate with Union Committee, youth union to complete the organizational structure and activities, to facilitate them to run effectively in order to promote the democracy, savings, and following the guidance of the Party, the movement of people, contributing to the political missions of the Institute. Taking care of material and spiritual life of officers, officials and employees.
