Latin American programme commences at University of Kerala

As the world celebrates Argentina's win over France in the football World Cup, a Centre for Latin Studies (CLAS) was started at the University of Kerala from Monday. The CLAS programme was inaugurated by state Finance Minister K N Balagopal, who said the new course was commenced as part of the schemes announced in the last budget for encouraging studies on Latin America in view of its similarities with Kerala on various aspects, including the love for football.

In fact, one of the academic sessions which were included as part of the inaugural program was on the topic -- 'Football, the Passion that Connects: Towards New Cultural Formations with Special Reference to Latin America and Kerala', Balagopal said in a social media post.

Latin American programme commences at University

He said the idea behind CLAS was to utilise the mutual potential of Latin America and the southern state in various fields, including agriculture, tourism, literature and education. The minister also said that CLAS of the University of Kerala was functioning out of a building built at a cost of Rs 25 lakh from the MP fund allotted to him when he was a member of Rajya Sabha.

The academic sessions which would be held during the day are on 'Comparative Agriculture' and 'Culture and Education'. The presentation on the topic of football is a part of the latter of the two sessions.

Why to study Latin America

Latin America in not only hving geographical diversity, but the cultural and racial diversity as well. Latin America has the largest diasporas of Italians, Lebanese Spaniards, Portuguese, Japanese and Africans. The region also has the huge population of German, Palestinian, French, Chinese and Jewish people.