The UNESCO Cardinal Paul Poupard Foundation Chair at St. Andrew’s College has been interacting with other Post Graduate Academic Centres to enhance and expand its activities. One such activity is the “Postgraduate Diploma in Interreligious Dialogue and Water for Sustainable Development”. It is a co-branded program run in collaboration with multiple partner agencies, namely St. Andrew’s College; Institute of Indian Culture; and Nirmala Niketan College of Social Work (Autonomous). The course work is conducted at College of Social Work under the Short -Term Programs Unit. Funds for running the program are provided by the UNESCO and Cardinal Paul Poupard Foundation Chair at St. Andrew’s College. This year, the program began in December 2019. So, the academic year for this batch will be readjusted as December 2019 to October 2020. Six students registered for the third batch of the postgraduate diploma program.

The first paper titled “Sustainable Development and Alternative Energy” was anchored by Mr. Albin Thomas and Ms. Behnaz. The topics covered in this paper included the Environment , Conservation Science, EnvironmentalLaw, Theories on Development, Concepts in Ecological Economics, Climate Change, Renewable Energy and Sustainable Future. Mr. Ram Kumar and anchored the 2 papers, i.e, project work. The input sessions for these two papers were completed by 24 March 2020. As soon as the college resumes from break (from July to October 2020), the third paper titled “ Water, Governance and Development” and fourth paper titled “World Religions and Interreligious Dialogue” will be handled by Ms. Roshini and Dr. S. M. Michael respectively. We wish to thank Prof. Elvis Thomas who coordinated batch 1 and 2 of the PG Diploma program. Dr. Ronald Yesudhas has taken charge of coordination of the Postgraduate st diploma from 1 November 2019. The Convenor for this coordination programme is taken in turn by the principles of these three academic institutions. At present Dr. S. M. Michael is the Convenor of the program.