Contact Professor Leela Prasad: leela@duke.edu

Hyderabad, India gives Duke students the opportunity to understand in-depth and first-hand some of the workings of the world's largest democracy which has great challenges and great potential, and critical relevance to issues facing the world. DIG-Hyderabad partners with two top-ranked universities in India-the University of Hyderabad, and the International Institute of Information Technology-Hyderabad.

In addition to immersion, travel, and the opportunities to meet new people, the aim of the program is to foster a sense of inter-relatedness between the there and the here, the global and the local. Through this, a student can develop a much-required transformative awareness of the world.

Study Program
Fall 2011: 4 credits required (no substitutions allowed)
HINDI 1: Intensive first year language (FL-2 credits)
REL 167: Ethics in South Asia: India Focus (CCI, EI, ALP, CZ -1cc)
REL 196S: Gandhi: Image & Reflection (ALP, EI, CCI -1cc)

Students begin the semester at Duke, and end it in Hyderabad. At the start, University of Hyderabad faculty will teach the intensive Hindi course through e-learning technologies and Professor Leela Prasad will teach the Gandhi and Ethics courses in-person at Duke. In mid-October, DIG-Hyd students and Professor Leela Prasad will move to Hyderabad where all learning will continue in person at the University of Hyderabad. The semester will be concluded in India.

Program of study includes collaborating with Indian peers to teach underprivileged children who lack schooling facilities in Hyderabad, visit to a Gandhi ashram near Nagpur, Maharashtra, and interactions with Gandhi scholars, critics and practitioners.

Spring 2012: 4 credits required (no substitutions allowed)
Preliminary List:
HINDI 2: Accelerated 2nd year (FL - 1 credit) (w/ University of Hyderabad faculty)
TECHNOLOGY IN SERVICE OF SOCIETY (SS, STS - 1 cc) (w/ Dr. Baba Prasad, IIIT-H faculty)
LING 169S: LANGUAGE, TECHNOLOGY & SOCIAL CHANGE IN INDIA (ALP, CCI - 2 cc) (w/ Dr. Baba Prasad)

Students begin the semester in Hyderabad, move back to Durham at the start of Spring break, and end the semester at Duke. While in Hyderabad, Professor Baba Prasad, IIIT-H and University of Hyderabad faculty will teach in person. After students return to Duke, these courses will be taught using e-learning technologies.

Travel in India

Hyderabad, the capital of Andhra Pradesh—about 500 years old—is a unique blend of distinctive Hindu and Muslim cultures. DIG will provide opportunities to get to know the city's intriguing history and its new global faces. Traveling outside Hyderabad, in the Fall semester, in conjunction with our course on Gandhi, we will visit a community ("ashram") that Gandhi established and lived in near the city of Nagpur.

During the winter break, we will travel to Jhansi in north central India, which is singularly famous for historic events both during pre-colonial and colonial periods. There we will participate in the activities of an extraordinary grassroots organization that is doing work in various aspects of sustainable development (Development Alternatives: http://www.devalt.org/). This will allow us to experience first-hand the partnerships and processes of grassroots work with a focus on community radio and appropriate technologies. From Jhansi, we will go north to Agra (the Taj Mahal) and New Delhi, and then further north, to one of the most famous tiger reserves of the world: the Corbett National Park.