Los Gatos Weekly-TimesLos Gatos couple endows UCSC chairFocus will be India studiesBy Clarence Cromwell A $250,000 gift from a Los Gatos couple to UC-Santa Cruz will establish an endowed chair of India studies, the university announced on July 18. The chair is to be endowed in the name of Chandra Bhandari, one of its sponsors. Narpat and Chandra Bhandari, both Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and natives of India, announced the gift just in time for the 50th birthday of Indian Independence, on Aug. 15, and for Chandra's birthday, July 18. Chandra, an educator, has had a lifelong interest in India's history, art, politics and culture. She holds a master's degree in political science from Rajasthan University in Jodhpur, India, and conducted graduate work at Rajasthan and Purdue universities. "I believe it is vital that we devote resources to the study of what is not only the world's largest democracy, but also one of the world's oldest and most enduring cultures," Chandra Bhandari said. Narpat Bhandari is chairman and CEO of Vasona Systems, a Santa Clara electronics firm. After making groundbreaking progress in the microprocessing industry during the 1970s, he went on to found Aspen Semiconductor in 1987, a company that later merged with San Jose-based Cypress Semiconductor Corp. The endowment will fund a scholars-in-residence program, research fellowships, course development and library materials, among other things. The Chandra Bhandari chair will become one of only a few India studies chairs in the country, according to Robert Goldman, a professor of Sanskrit and director of the Center for South Asian Studies at UC-Berkeley. "I think it's remarkable that Santa Cruz is getting involved in this field, as India studies is not a widely developed discipline on most campuses in this country," Goldman said.
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This article appeared in the Los Gatos Weekly-Times, July 23, 1997. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||