Eurasian Studies

Date of Establishment of the Centre : 1971-1972 (Centre For Soviet Studies).After the disintegration of the Soviet Union the emergence of the Commonwealth of Independent States has acquired major significance in the academic circles because of its regional importance, energy resources and ethnic volatility. All the developments in that region are of great interest to India. The Centre for Central Eurasian Studies therefore has shifted its earlier focus from being exclusively Soviet/Russia centric to the periphery, taking into consideration their significance in international scene. The research activities carried out in the Centre pay special attention to various issues involved in these areas: economic and political changes, demographic situation, ethnic conflict, gender issues, human rights aspects, security and terrorism.

The academic activities in the Centre are basically oriented towards understanding the ongoing socio-economic political, cultural and ethnic problem. In the conference and seminars organized by the Center emphasis is laid also on Indo-Russian relations and Indo-Central Asian Relations. The scholars in the Centre are also paying attention to the issues like energy, security, geo-politics, ethnicity, nationality problems and geo-economics in Central Eurasia. These issues constitute the thrust area of the research, documentation and publication of the Centre for Central Eurasian Studies. The Centre promotes interdisciplinary research and teaching on social, economic, political, ethno-national and foreign policy problems of the countries of the post-Soviet space.

The Centre has been offering 4 papers at M.A. level in combination with other social sciences discipline such as Economics, Politics, History, Sociology, and Geography and mass communications. In addition, the students of the Centre have to pass a compulsory auditing course in Russian Language for social scientists. After a gap of few years in 2007-08 Centre has started teaching M.A. course in Eurasian Studies once again, when students evinced interests. The Centre proposes to offer Part-time courses of 10-15 lectures yearly on themes such as Political System in Russia, Central Asia, Comparative Political System, Social Movements, Study of Civil Society and NGOs in these countries. It would also include brief study of the economic system of transition, review of fundamentalism in neighborhood, Federalism in Russia and India and Politics in Caucasus in comparative perspective.

From the academic year 2007-08 The Centre has introduced internal faculty seminars on monthly basis. The faculty members are actively participating in this activity. The Centre has restarted biennial publication of the Newsletter of the Centre “CENTRAL EURASIAN NEWSLETTER” from the academic year 2007-08. The Centre has initiated steps to bring out occasional papers in thrust areas from the forthcoming academic session. The faculty members have started working in this direction. And often guest lectures from outside are invited to participate in the occasional paper series on themes assigned to them. The Centre organizes from time to time national / international seminars, conferences, Symposia, workshops, to generate result oriented debates and ideas and output in this area. The Centre is continuously working in the direction of diversifying the teaching and the research activities of the Centre in order to promote Central Eurasian Studies among the colleges and universities of Maharashtra. The Centre receives Grants from UGC on five yearly basis under the UGC area studies programme.