NEW DELHI: In January 2018, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced at the 25th Anniversary ASEAN-India Commemorative Summit in New Delhi India's offer of upto 1000 integrated PhD Fellowships for ASEAN students in the prestigious Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs).In implementation of this commitment, External Affairs Minister Dr. S. Jaishankar formally launched the Fellowship Programme at a ceremony at the Ministry of External Affairs on Monday.Besides the Ambassadors/High Commissioners of all ten ASEAN Member States in New Delhi, the Launch Ceremony was also attended by senior officials from MEA and Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), Directors/Representatives of all 23 IITs, CEO of NITI Aayog and Chairpersons of the University Grants Commission (UGC) and All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE).IIT Delhi has been designated by MHRD as the coordinating IIT for the fellowship programme. It has developed a web portal (http://asean.iitd.ac.in) to administer the application and admission process. ASEAN students can log in to the portal to apply for PhD programmes of their choice at various IITs.The first batch of the ASEAN students will be admitted in January 2020. Admissions under the programme will be staggered over three academic years i.e. 2019-2020, 2020-2021 and 2021-2022. MHRD will provide scholarships to ASEAN students at par with Indian PhD scholars, along with a yearly research grant, as applicable. IITs will make a small provision to cover living expenses of selected students from their own budgetary resources.The fellowship programme at a total budget outlay of INR 300 crore (approximately USD 45 million) is the single-largest capacity development initiative of India in its partnership with ASEAN.