Ch-II 9 Annual Report 2013-14 Chapter 2 BHASHA-BHAVANA (Institute of Languages, Literature and Culture) Bhasha-Bhavana - Institute of Languages, Literature & Culture - has ten major language departments, one centre and three subsidiary language units functioning under its aegis. In 2014 Bhasha-Bhavana is going to move to a new independent building with a language laboratory and other state of the art facilities. Bhasha-Bhavana offers regular courses at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels as well as M.Phil. and Ph.D. programmes in its constituent departments of languages, literature and culture. Bhasha-Bhavana also offers part-time language courses comprising two-year Certificate, one-year Diploma and one-year Advance Diploma in 17 Indian and foreign languages. They are open mainly for regular students and staff members of Visva- Bharati and for residents of the locality. One-year integrated casual courses on Indian Classics and in certain languages and literatures are offered to foreign students. The Department of Sanskrit offers a 6-month course on Manuscriptology. Bhasha-Bhavana takes pride in its rich treasure of manuscripts in Sanskrit, Bengali, Odia, Tibetan, Arabic and Persian which are preserved in the departments concerned. Cheena Bhavana, the department of Chinese, and Hindi Bhavana, the department of Hindi, house prestigious sectional libraries, each containing around 45,000 and 35,000 books respectively. Visiting professors and scholars from all over the world regularly visit Bhasha- Bhavana where the exchange of ideas opens up new areas of research, to which significant contributions are made. Bhasha-Bhavana holds the promise of advancement towards national integration and world peace through continuous intellectual and cultural exchange. Bhasha-Bhavana takes pleasure in announcing the initiation of an ongoing Student Exchange Programme with Yunnan University of China in 2011 realized by the pioneering efforts of Dr. Avijit Banerjee, Associate Professor of Chinese, Visva-Bharati. The first batch comprising 15 students from various departments of Visva-Bharati visited Yunnan University, China, in the summer of 2012. The exchange programme has not only continued through 2013 and 2014 with batches of students from both universities visiting each others' institutions, it has also developed into a teachers' exchange programme. A cultural team from Visva-Bharati also visited Yunnan University in 2013. The present Principal, Professor Rameshwar Mishra, Professor of Hindi, took over the stewardship of Bhasha- Bhavana from Professor Arttatran Nayak in 2013. The Bhavana had introduced the study of Comparative Literature as a subsidiary / alternative subject in its undergraduate courses from the academic year of 2010-2011. Its proposal to establish a Department of Comparative Literature within the 12th plan period with the introduction of B.A. in Comparative Literature is resolutely on course and progressing steadily in the direction of its realization. A Centre for Modern European Languages, Literatures and Cultural Studies (CMELLCS) under the Department of English and Other Modern European Languages (DEOMEL) has been established. As its inaugural venture, this fledgling Centre offers an undergraduate course in modern European languages, literatures and cultural histories with the scope of specializing in any one of the four modern European languages (French, German, Italian and Russian) being taught in DEOMEL since countless decades. In February 2014, Dr. Indrani Das, Associate Professor of Italian and Dr. Sanjib Kumar Das, Associate Professor of Indo-Tibetan Studies handed over charge as Vice-Principals to their successors Shri Romit Roy, Associate Professor of German and Dr. Harekrushna Mishra, Assistant Professor of Sanskrit. The office of Bhasha-Bhavana is ably run by the office administrative staff. Shri Soumendra Sen is Deputy Registrar of Bhasha-Bhavana and Vidya-Bhavana. Shri Ganesh Ghosh is Senior Office Assistant, Sk. Mahiuddin