Message from Vice—Chancellor
Canada – A Partner Country
India’s first Prime Minister visited Canada on Oct 22-26, 1949 and on Dec 2223, 1956. Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru had excellent relations with Mr. Louis St.
Laurent , Mr. John Diefenbaker and Mr. Lester B. Pearson, the Prime Ministers of
Canada during 1948 -57, 57-63 and 63-68 respectively.
At the Vibrant Gujarat Global Investor Summits of 2011 and 2013, Canada was a
Partner country. In 2011, a large delegation of Canadians from various fields had
come to Gujarat. Since there were many persons from Higher Education in the
delegation, GTU invited the Canadian delegation so that they could meet GTU’s
Deans and Principals.
Earlier the undersigned had met the President of University of Alberta (UoA) on
November 11, 2010 in Mumbai. Thereafter from 17th June to 30th July 2011, 34
GTU students led by a Faculty member visited UoA for a summer camp at its
School of Business Studies. Mr Paul Miller of GeoGlobal Resources, Calgary had
underwritten all the expenses incurred by the School of Business Studies for the
Summer Camp. The students had a wonderful experience at UoA.
After the students returned back, Dr. Edy Wong, International Director, Center
for International Business Studies, School of Business, UoA visited GTU on 28th
July 2011. On 29th July, he delivered a talk on ‘MBA Education – a comparative
perspective from a Canadian’1 at CKSV Institute of Management, Vadodara. On
21st October 2011, GTU was able to have Prof Ed Wong on a second visit,
coordinated by Professor Bhavin Pandya. During the visit, the undersigned asked
Dr. Wong about the feasibility of sending UoA’ s students to GTU for a semester,
wherein they could study Gandhian Ethics, Asian Businesses etc. Dr Wong said
he could send some under graduate students to India, since students of UoA’a
Post-graduate programme did not visit other countries. Dr. Wong also said that
UOA students might visit I.I.Sc. Bangalore and GTU to study some industries in
India. Prof. Bhavin Pandya agreed to coordinate the activity on behalf of GTU
while Dr. Wong said he will discuss the issues with Dean of School of Business
and revert with further progress.
On 1st December 2011, Professor Joan White, the Associate Dean at the School
of Business, UoA visited GTU. On Thursday, 26th April 2012, at Delhi, Professor
Ed Wong discussed with the undersigned about the possibility of a Memorandum
of Understanding (MoU) between GTU UoA.
On 11th October 2012, an MoU between UoA and GTU was signed during the visit
of Dr. Indira Samarasekera, President & Vice Chancellor of UoA. An IndoCanadian Study Center was also inaugurated on the same day by Dr.
Samarasekera, in the presence of many businessmen and industrialists from
Indo—Canadian enterprises of Gujarat and Mr Jagat Shah, Chairman Indo
Canadian Business Chamber and Mr. Vishal Acharya.
Dr. Kalpdrum Passi, Department of Mathematics & Computer Science of
Laurentian University (LU), Canada worked with the GTU team to facilitate the
visit of 111 GTU students and two faculty members for a Summer Study Camp
during 2012. Dr. Ramesh Subramanian, Director of the Bharati School of
Engineering at LU and Dr. Vasu Apanna, Dean – Faculty of Science and
Engineering, visited GTU on Feb 18-19, 2013 for discussions with the Deans at
GTU. Dr. Passi visited GTU on 11th December 2012 and on 18th May 2013 for
facilitating the visit of GTU students to LU in 2013.
In addition to all these exchanges, some of the doctoral students at GTU are
being Co-Supervised by some distinguished Professors from Canada.
As a part of GTU’s Global MBA program, during the academic year 2012-13, 105
students studied and prepared Reports on Canada as a part of the curriculum on
Country Studies. When on 6th February 2013, Mr. Greg Selinger, the Premier of
Manitoba, a province of Canada, visited Gujarat, members of his delegation were
very pleased to inter-act with the students at GTU.
His team members Dr. Digvir S. Jayas, Mr. Terry Duguid, Ms. Janice Y.
Lederman, Ms. Cheryl Prokopanko5 visited GTU on both 6th and on 7th for
discussions about collaborations between GTU and the Higher Educational and
research institutions in Manitoba. 1
The Indo-Canadian Study Center of the GTU’s School of Global Studies is a
result of the exchanges, described above. Now the Center should work to
intensify and catalyze collaborations between GTU and Canada. GTU’s School of
Global Business Studies has been established recently. As we build our activities
and our research work, it may be useful to look at a snapshot of activities of a
similar Centre at another University:
Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada has been publishing excellent research work
on India. Besides during 2011, the Canada-India Center at Carleton University
has done the following activities:

Organization of a roundtable discussion on the growth of India with Canadian
Business Leaders; Mr. Anand Sharma, Indias Minister of Commerce and
Industry was present.
Hosting of delegations from Gujarat, Indias nuclear power and geospatial
commissions.
Visits of Dr. Sukhadeo Thorat, the then Chairman of UGC and Dr. Rajagopala
Chidambaram,
Principal Scientific Advisor to the Government of India.
Signing partnership agreements with nearly a dozen Indian Universities.
Establishing formal relationships with Indian businesses and organizations like
Tata Institute of Fundamental Research.
In collaboration with Shastri Indo-Canadian Institute, DFAIT3, AUCC4 and the
Government of India, holding a Canada-India Innovation Summit with ISTP
Canada2 (June 20-22 2011) with Mr Sam Pitroda and many other distinguished
persons from India and a Canada-India Education Summit (June 17-18 2011),
with about 20 Vice-Chancellors from Indian Universities.
GTU is a large University. When its 11,265 students of MBA and about 750
faculty members devote themselves to studies and research, the world will start
looking at the example of GTU’s work and its Global MBA program will start
attracting excellent stu-dents and scholars from across the globe. As the School
of Global Studies builds up its research, it will be able to host and inter-act with
scholars, business leaders and policy-makers from the governments of Canada
and the whole of the world.
Dr. Akshai Aggarwal
Saturday, 1st June 2013