Saturday, January 29 2005 20:31 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: Amid the ongoing peace moves with Pakistan, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today (Jan 29, 2005) regretted that "our knowledge about our neighbourhood is far from adequate".

"Our focus both at home and abroad has to be based on the pursuit of excellence and the quest for knowledge. We know a great deal in our country about what happens in the advanced countries of the West but our knowledge about our neighbourhood is far from adequate," he said inaugurating the Centre for West Asian Studies at the Jamia Millia Islamia University in New Delhi.

"Very often we derive our knowledge from secondary sources - the world of scholars in the West. This must change. How much we succeed in improving our understanding of the world will determine the extent to which we succeed in anticipating or responding to events around us in this vital region," he said.

Singh said while the Centre for West Asian Studies was indeed a "praiseworthy" development, "we must expand our horizon to include other areas of importance in our neighbourhood and beyond".

The Prime Minister said as a member of the academic fraternity, he had always believed that universities were more than microcosms of society and havens of creativity and intellectual enterprise.

"Universities must also play a vital role to serve the society within which they are anchored. Maintaining the balance between a free flow of ideas and creativity while retaining an institution's moorings in the larger social environment is a task, that is both delicate and crucial," he said.