Welcome! Belarusian Vedic Centre Director: PhD (in History) Mikhail I. Mikhailov E-mail: mih_mihailov@email.com Tel.: 375-02233-25867. Our recent publications: 1. Kshemendra Vyasadasa. Foundations of True Morality. 2. The Key to the Vedas.   The Centre is an independent, non-partisan organization dedicated to elevating public awareness and promoting the discussion of ethics and other disciplines in a global Indo-European context. As an interdisciplinary think tank, the Centre focuses on activities in education and research being a nucleus of an ethical revolution, which we are putting through an education in Belarus today. The mission of the Centre is to unite scholars, researchers, intellectuals, people of the arts and culture, journalists and public figures interested in exploration of the sources of world, primarily, Indo-European civilization; and to be a forum for public lectures and discussions, a place for intellectual, cultural and artistic dialogue, contact and cooperation with colleagues from Belarus, India and Eastern, Central and Western European countries. It is new research centre, which devotes particular attention to one subject, building a Vedic Academy in the heart of Belarus, which will be a school of excellence in a deprived area. There will be opened a University, which will offer high-quality, easily accessible skills courses through the Internet. Our aim is to revive the ancient Vedic Belarusian tradition and to foster studies and understanding of the crucial problems of the European, American and Asian civilizations, primarily, in the context of the Indo-European global integration process. One of special objectives is to raise sharply global ethics awareness. The current initiative is addressing an imperative need of developing an independent Belarusian Research Centre for Indological and Vedic studies. We view the Centre as a cultural institution testing disciplinary boundaries, problems of reform of education, and moving into newer fields of inquiry within the Social Sciences and Humanities in Belarus.     Principles of the Centre are Reorientation of the Belarusian cultural tradition towards wider range of contemporary and ancient ideologies, Western and Eastern; Study and Application of the best European and Indian cultural practices and contemporary training techniques; Comparative cultural, literary and philosophical approaches for proper understanding and interpretation of the Belarusian culture and history; Implementation of the values of an harmonious and just society, and development of Critical thinking based on logics. We are fully aware of the need to enhance, better organize, and better utilize the human and cultural potential of the Belarusian people. Centre was founded in 2000 to provide an interdisciplinary forum for professionals interested in research in Social and Cultural sciences and to offer the highest quality, state-of-the-art leadership programs that improve society by inspiring, developing, and supporting ethical movements. The aim is to identify, affirm, and promote the values of ethical integrity among researches and seekers of truth. By encouraging and supporting research on factors that affect ethical integrity, the centre hopes not only to develop models that address issues of ethical choice, but also to make business and government leaders more aware of the impact their decisions can have on the moral development of the society at large. The centre is currently developing an Ethical Guide (which draft is already available in Russian language) designed to be used by colleges and universities across the country interested in strengthening their ethical integrity and undastanding of global ethics issues. One of our primordial concerns is about the links of moral theory with educational practice. Through its program of conferences and publications, Sarasvati hopes to serve as a resource to educators, practitioners, and the public in matters related to liberal education and social development, moral responsibility and historical-political awareness. Sarasvati is committed to encouraging and developing high-quality interdisciplinary scholarship and teaching within the fields of practical and professional Ethics, Cultural History, Philosophy and Political Sciences, Indology, and Indian languages (Sanskrit, Hindi, Bengali, Tamil). Sarasvati encourages the development and enforcement of standards of conduct for students in an educational endeavour that fosters students' personal and social development. Students must assume a significant role in developing and enforcing such regulations so that they can be better prepared for the responsibilities of citizenship. Sarasvati is viewed also as an independent organization that promotes change and reform in higher education to ensure its effectiveness in a complex, interconnected world. Sarasvati recently initiated a number of research projects in different disciplines. The projects are anchored by most vital issues of universal interest but deeply rooted in our Belarusian cultural context. They are designed to provide resources to faculty wishing to explore community-based learning in and through the academic disciplines. The organization will also be convening a series of meetings and conferences to promote service-learning collaboration across the disciplines. One of our projects is a multiyear organizing effort to initiate a dialog about religious pluralism and spirituality in higher education. It aims at developing new models and strategies to support religious diversity on campus and explore how spirituality can serve as a web that interconnects educational initiatives such as college student values, moral and ethical development, experiential education, health, and community service. Sarasvati is an educational organization whose purpose is to convey to successive generations of college youth a better understanding of the values and institutions that sustain a free and just society through millenaries. To accomplish this goal, Sarasvati has established an integrated program of lectures, conferences and publications that reaches already dozens of college students and faculty and hundreds across the country. We want to improve the moral quality of society by advocating principled reasoning and ethical decision-making. One of the objectives is to form an ethical Coalition of youth organizations and civic groups that supports the ethical development of young people through programming that focuses on practicing such Pillars of Character as trustworthiness, respect, responsibility, fairness, caring, and citizenship. Today, the Centre conducts research and publishes educational and community resources to help citizens act responsibly and effectively on the challenges facing our society. We are acutely aware of the importance of the global problems, the international dimensions of our lives, and the Centre has evolved as a research body that would address pressing social and cultural problems and the need for developing local initiatives to respond to them. Our programs and services will promote the study of the most complex and vital areas of public consciousness and ideology in Belarus. The scope of problems tackled and the method of ideologically independent and objective approach demonstrate our sincere desire to improve upon and bring in an innovation in the whole area of Human and Social sciences in Belarus. This attempt intends to contribute to the building of a new ideological environment, to improve teaming and teaching in community college through development, implementation, and evaluation of alternative educational programs and services, and is timely and essential for the reform of education and research in the domain of Social Sciences and Humanities in Belarus. It is targeted primarily on Belarusian intelligentsia, political and cultural leaders, students, and also on large reading circles. If the initiative described is not all-inclusive, it is fully justifiable, as a serious gap exists in Social Studies and education in all post-soviet republics, Belarus not excluded. A number of disciplines and themes are either absent or underdeveloped due to the dominance of one-sided ideology during a large period and Social-Cultural Studies having been considered during more than a century peripheral. In a perspective, appropriate programs may be allowed improvement and innovation through similar initiatives that have a systemwide impact on the whole Belarusian cultural milieu. Sarasvati promotes a broad understanding of the essential role of public higher education in our society. Among its future projects is the Community Leadership Institute, which can provide professional development opportunities for newly appointed chief officers at community grassroots organisations. Dedicated to the belief that equal educational opportunity and a strong higher-education system are essential cornerstones of a just society, Sarasvati dreams about an initiative to strengthen the role of colleges in promoting civic responsibility among students. The centre is dedicated not only to sustaining democratic theory but also to extending democratic practice. It approaches democracy in the spirit of Walt Whitman -- as a mode of living rather than as a set of strictly political arrangements. The significance of this new development in the sphere of Belarusian scholarship and education is of primary importance, as Belarus' future depends on its community colleges meeting the expanding educational needs of its population. The main areas are History, Political and Social Studies, Cultural Studies, Literature, and Philosophy, which will be explored via a number of programs. History comprises European, Asian, and American Studies. Political and Social Studies include such subthemes as The Choices for the 21st Century Education; and Politics, Culture, and Identity. The Choices for the 21st Century Education project seeks to promote improvement and innovation through non-traditional instruction, program development, and faculty/staff development, and integrate state-wide challenge initiatives. The Major interest of the Politics, Culture, and Identity project is focused on the interdisciplinary, comparative study of the cultural processes influencing political identity formation, including the symbolic processes through which people acquire their understandings of the political universe. It includes the role of religion, philosophy and state in fixing ethnic/racial/religious identities; identity formation and political transition (with a special emphasis on Belarus); identity and citizenship in Europe, Asia and America; historical perspectives on ethnic harmony and violence in borderland areas. Cultural studies address the recovery and renewal of people's culture through continuing study of Indo-European as well as local and regional cultural history. Literature, Philosophy and Religion embrace Comparative Literary Studies, Comparative Philosophy of The West and The East, Global Ethics and Environment, Global Interactions of Belief and Value Systems, Hermeneutics, Semiotics, Indological Studies with a number of subthemes. Global Ethics and Environment subtheme is centered in study of ethics in the perspective of tremendous technological, economic and social changes produced by Globalisation. Global Interactions of Belief and Value Systems program addresses the circulation and interpretation of cultures, including questions of cultural resilience and regeneration; the consequences of diasporas, immigration, and new forms of citizenship; and issues of race, gender, ethnicity, and religion. Of particular interest is analysis of the impact of the mobility of ideas and people on an increasingly interconnected global society. We realize also the need for a Translation Project in Social Sciences and Humanities, and Web-based program for our distance-learning students. Gorki, Belarus