The Institute of Social and Cultural Studies (ISCS), India organized a month long Summer School Internship Programme for young students of class IX and X. Eminent schools from Kolkata like The Modern High School For Girls and The Delhi Public School, Ruby Park participated in the designed internship programme. The Internship programme is usually organized to orient students with multiple facets of research and documentation. It also provides an insight in the domain of foreign policy, governance and developmental economics.

The module of 2022 Summer internship programme focused on how soft diplomacy is setting itself as an important agent for the country to meet political  interests and national objectives. In order to transpire the theme of the internship module while ensuring COVID-19 mandates online academic sessions were developed. The First one was hosted on 21st May, 2022.

The session was conducted by Dr. Shrabana Barua, Assistant Professor, University of Delhi. The Speaker actually taught students how to comprehend research paper, articles and essays. Paraphrasing as well as referencing techniques were also been shared to help students with their academic term paper writings. The second session – “A Conversation with Diplomat” was organized to appraise students about the neighbourhood policy of our country. The Session was addressed by Sri Sandeep Chakravarty, Joint Secretary, Europe West Division, MEA, GOI. The Distinguished Speaker not only deliberated about some essential neighbourhood policies with regard to trade, security and development taken by Government of India with its first neighbours like Bangladesh, Nepal etc., but also shared his experience representing India at various nations as a Foreign Service Official. Students also interacted with the Speaker on multiple aspects between India and Bangladesh and their 50 years of eternal friendship. Followed to which an exclusive session was organized to determine the “Role of Indian Culture in Indian Foreign Policy”.

The session was conducted by Sri Rajesh Purohit, Former Director, Indian Musuem, Kolkata. The speaker illustrated on Indian Civilization connectivity, history, Indian art and culture and how these features 80 have amended an important role in assuring India’s security policy and economic goals in recent times. He also explained how media, Indian music, film industry and tourism as marshals are helping the country to better its networks and boost bilateral relations with countries at a par. As a part of their assignments students were asked to compose a 1200 word write-up on contemporary subjects ranging from environment, education, governances and impact of COVID-19 on sustainability. As a part of the internship programme students were given chance to participate at the other events that were hosted by the institute during their internship duration. The selected write-ups were also published in the institute’s Bi-Monthly “News Reel”. On completion of the internship progrmme participation certificates were given to all the 33 students and the ones whose write-ups were selected were also presented with a gift hamper by the organization