Media Release

Bengaluru, Sep 2: Global Leaders’ Alliance, the first of its kind fully funded international fellowship programme in India, was launched on the lush green campus of Alliance University.

The programme was launched in the presence of Dr Anubha Singh, vice-chancellor, Alliance University, Dr Punith Cariappa, pro vice-chancellor (student administration and affairs) and Anirudh Sridhar, associate dean of the Alliance School of Liberal Arts.

The Global Leaders’ Alliance (GLA) is the flagship (postgraduate diploma) programme in Liberal Arts at Alliance University. It is a multidisciplinary fellowship programme designed to train the brightest young thinkers in the world to be citizens, statesperson, and leaders in all fields of thought and action.

The GLA is India’s first actual postgraduate fellowship that will be fully funded. The purpose of the programme is to provide the best possible international education for the most promising minds in India and around the world.

“It is a great honor to welcome the inaugural batch of GLA fellows to Bengaluru. True to its name, the fellows are drawn from countries all over the world like Russia, Afghanistan, and USA” said Vice-Chancellor of Alliance University, Dr Anubha Singh.

Dr Singh said, “we are pleased to provide an intellectual home and financial support to this impressive group of philosophers, writers, researchers, and humanitarians. We aim to make Bengaluru home to hundreds of thinkers, writers, and scholars, as they develop their projects to delve deeper into solving the problems and challenges concerning humans in the present times.”

“The Global Leaders’ Alliance is meant to nurture budding leaders. Since leaders cannot afford to be parochial about their interests and disciplines, the program has a clear orientation towards transdisciplinarity. Fellows will be trained to make connections across disciplinary divides in a nimble and coherent manner. It is truly the epitome of the most modern vision of liberal arts” said Dr Anirudh Sridhar.

The first cohort of the GLA fellowship program consists of around 25 fellows, with nationalities ranging from US, Ghana, Ethiopia, Russia and India. Speaking about the opportunity as a fellow, Maria Abramovich from Russia remarked, “As for me, GLA is a great opportunity to understand what you want, what you think and what you feel to the whole world. This is not an ordinary program for studying abroad, you are really inspired to be better than now, finding new opportunities to develop soft skills, critical thinking, and emotional intelligence.”

“I decided to apply to the GLA programme for several reasons. In my 3rd year of undergrad, I had already decided to study abroad in India for a semester. However, the pandemic prevented all traveling from happening and I graduated without having that experience.” said Nywel Cheaye, from the US.

The inaugural session concluded with the screening of the movie The Great Beauty. The fellows were introduced to the film by Dr. Julien Paret and Prof. Puja Raj who head the Alliance Film Club.