NEW DELHI: The
Indira Gandhi National Open University (
IGNOU) on Friday launched a 'Peace Studies and Conflict Management' certificate course for
jail inmates, celebrating the 150th birth anniversary year of Mahatma Gandhi.
The course has been designed in association with the
Gandhi Smriti and Darshan Samiti for jail inmates across the country to help them "become better citizens once they go out and join the mainstream".
According to the statement issued by the University, its Vice Chancellor Nageshwar Rao announced the course to be free of cost for the inmates, who he stressed "are not liabilities to the society" and said the "programme could help them become assets".
Tara Gandhi Bhattacharjee, granddaughter of Mahatma Gandhi, who was present at the launch, urged the programme to be supplemented with some vocational training like 'charkha' spinning to give the inmates a sense of being self-sufficient and to instil in them Gandhian philosophy of peace and non-violence.
