Punjab University Vice-Chancellor on Thursday chaired a meeting of the PU Faculty Development Committee to review current status of the foreign PhD scholarships given to the PU faculty members and scholars by the Higher Education Commission (HEC).
The meeting was told that total 61 PhD scholarships had been awarded to PU teachers by HEC under the faculty development programme. It was told that out of 61 students 27 people had been sent to the foreign universities for doing PhDs and the other 24 faculty members and scholars have also been selected by the committee and they would leave for foreign countries during this year.
The meeting was also told that in the first phase HEC had fixed Rs 474.63 million budget out of which Rs 234 millions have been released and in the second phase Rs 466.88 millions were fixed out of which Rs 303 million grant have been released. The meeting also discussed the issues of the money exchange variation.
The VC directed the committee members to send the remaining selected people to foreign varsities as soon as possible. While Punjab University History department in collaboration with Pakistan Study Centre organised a talk of Professor Dr Carla Petievich, Professor of Asian Studies at University of Texas, Austin on the topic of "What made the Mughals Great".
She talked about the contribution of the Mughal Empire in art and architecture and their special diplomatic and military skills. She said that though Mughals came form a tribal tradition of Central Asia and they had assimilated the indigenous traditions with the Central Asian Culture. In this way, they were able to evolve a cosmopolitan court, which achieved the high watermarks in music, paintings, art and architecture.