The Institute of Indo Pacific was inaugurated at Osmania University on Friday. Boianapalli Vinod Kumar, Vice-Chairman, Telangana State Planning Board, was the guest of honour along with Ambassador C Rajasekhar, Ministry of External Affairs, Prof  Limbadri, Chairman, Telangana State Council of Higher Education and Surabhi Vani Devi, MLC.
The new centre of research is the only one in India after JNU with a focus on Indo-Pacific covering areas such as security, trade, culture, diaspora, science and technology with an idea of pooling human and financial resources across institutions, organisations and borders.
Vice-Chancellor Prof D Ravinder talked about the genesis of the idea of Indo-Pacific and OU efforts in giving a shape to it in the form of establishment of Institute of Indo-Pacific Studies at OU. He narrated that it all began as an idea put forth by Vinod Kumar followed by preparing and presenting the concept note to the officials of Ministry of External Affairs, GOI.
Ambassador Rajasekhar, representing the Ministry of External Affairs, said that Indo-Pacific is a dynamic region with all important developments taking place here and the focus of every country is on this region’s developments. He emphasised how Asia-Pacific has transformed into Indo-Pacific with the rise of Southeast and East Asian countries along with China and India. It is the oceanic space connecting all these countries and most of their trade taking place through the Indian and Pacific oceans.
Vinod Kumar narrated his discussions with political leaders and officials about global developments, particularly the developments that have been taking place in Asia-Pacific. He requested the Vice-Chancellor of the OU to start an institution to study the developments in Asia-Pacific with an emphasis on these countries.
