India To Train Taliban In Diplomacy; Students From Thailand And Malaysia Attending As Well

The Indian Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) launched a four-day diplomat training course which will see the presence of diplomats from the Taliban, reported The Indian Express.

The course titled “Immersing with Indian thoughts, an India Immersion Program”, will be conducted from 14 March to 17 March and will be imparted to students from various countries by IIM Kozhikode.

The course is designed by the Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation (ITEC), a training division of the MEA that offers various training programmes.

This course is open for participants from all countries, where apart from Afghanistan, a total of 25 students from Thailand and Malaysia will also attend, the IE report says.

According to the IE report, an Indian official said that, “ITEC offers several courses and these courses were open to all participants from across the world and there was ‘nothing specific’ to Afghanistan.”

The course will include recorded video lectures with interactive sessions. Digital certificates, PDFs of referral materials, case studies, and videos will also be provided.

The students will be asked to write short essays on the learning outcomes, at the end of the course.

Earlier, India ran various training courses for Afghans, but after the takeover of Kabul by the Taliban on 15 August 2021, all programmes were shut.

India closed its embassy in Kabul, two days after the Kabul takeover. The embassy was only re-opened in June 2022 last year, although India still does not recognise the Taliban government.