Delhi student wins Gates scholarship at Cambridge

Delhi student wins Gates scholarship at Cambridge

London: Aditi Malik, a Delhi-based human rights student, is among 80 bright from 26 countries to be awarded the prestigious Gates scholarship to study for a course at the University of Cambridge from this autumn.
Malik is among 80 of the world's leading graduate students from 26 countries who have been selected for Gates Cambridge Scholarships from a field of more than 7,252 applicants.
The scholarship programme celebrates its 10th anniversary this year.
Fifty-one of the 80 students were selected after interviews at Wolfson College, Cambridge, recently and 29 were selected after interviews in Annapolis, Maryland in February.
Thirty seven of the new scholars are from the United States, the largest grouping by nationality.
Four were selected from Canada and three from Germany, China and the Russian Federation.
The scholarship programme, set up in 2000 and funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, enables postgraduates with a strong interest in social leadership and responsibility to study at the University of Cambridge.
Malik did her undergraduate degree in government and economics at Franklin and Marshall college in Pennsylvania, US, and was given the Henry S Williamson Award, the college's most prestigious award for academic and extra-curricular achievement awarded to a member of the graduating class.
She will study for an MPhil in international relations at Cambridge, focusing on the theoretical and practical tensions between state sovereignty and human rights, with a special emphasis on the role of humanitarian intervention.
As an undergraduate, she conducted fieldwork in Cambodia on the Khmer Rouge genocide, worked with asylum seekers in the United States, and carried out research on the death penalty in India.
She says, "Through such experiences, my interest in genocide and international responses to problems of genocide and ethnic cleansing crystallised. My ultimate aim is to receive a PhD and become a university professor in India, where I believe the academic community on human rights discourse needs to be strengthened."
Gordon Johnson, Provost (CEO) of the Gates Cambridge Trust, said, "We are delighted to have selected 80 new Gates Scholars for entry in October 2010.
It’s very thrilling that within 10 years we have awarded nearly 1,000 scholarships to students from 92 countries to follow a graduate course in Cambridge".


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