MEA Jaishankar, Zanzibar Prez sign agreement to set up overseas IIT campus

On the first day of his state visit to Tanzania, Minister of External Affairs S Jaishankar met with the President of Zanzibar Hussein Ali Mwinyi on Wednesday to witness the signing of an agreement to set up an IIT Madras campus in Zanzibar.

A memorandum of understanding (MoU) was signed between the Ministry of Education (MoE), the Government of India, the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras, and the Ministry of Education and Vocational Training (MoEVT) Zanzibar.

New IIT Campus Testament to India’s Commitment to Global South: Jaishankar

Jaishankar, who is on a two-day state visit to Tanzania, emphasised that this agreement reflects India’s commitment to invest in the infrastructural development of its allies in the Global South. The event was accompanied by several high-ranking ministers of the Revolutionary Government of Zanzibar.

The new IIT Campus, which will be named IIT Madras at Zanzibar, will be opened on October 2023 with a batch of 50 undergraduate students and 20 master’s students. It will be the third overseas campus of IIT, with the other two located in Abu Dhabi, UAE, and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Other than the signing of the IIT MoU, MEA Jaishankar also hosted a reception event onboard the visiting INS Trishul, which was attended by the Zanzibar President, Speakers, Ministers, Members of Parliament, and senior officers from Tanzanian Defence Forces. Members of the Indian diaspora in Tanzania were also in attendance.