It is now increasingly recognized that the importance of Central Asia to India is multi-spectral: civilisational, historical, geopolitical and economic. And, the area invites fresh and focused studies to advance common interests and concerns.

It is emerging as an area rich in strategic, economic and trade terms. Its historical and cultural linkages with India would, of course, continue to be of abiding interest. But awareness of and sensitivity to contemporary events in Central Asia are of higher importance in promoting common interests. 

These countries, uniformly, display unique warmth towards India and a desire for a significant increase in bilateral interactions. In their perception, India is a welcome and benign neighbour. These countries also have a desire to learn from India’s developmental experience in pluralist politics and post-1991 economics.

India’s interests in Central Asia deserve to be effectively advanced by diversifying from cooperation in education and culture to high technology interactions and enhanced business transactions. And, there is a firm need to provide professional and timely research advisories for Indian and Central Asian entrepreneurs on the new pathways and markets in Central Asia, Eurasia and the world at large. Against this background, there is clear and present need for creation of a non-governmental entity to fill this gap. 

It is against this backdrop that The India Central Asia Foundation has been set up in Delhi as a Track-II non-profit enterprise whose objectives would include the following: 

· to establish and promote bilateral interactions  in social, economic, cultural, political, strategic and related areas to mutual

benefit;

· to facilitate and promote exchange of scholars and other professionals;

· to build and foster appropriate linkages with institutions in  Central Asia; 

· to create a contemporary data base of relevance to scholars and business persons;

· to create and maintain a data base of various publications in Central Asian countries and provide document translations as

part of information dissemination services; and,

· to generate funds from membership fees, sponsored research, publications etc for activities of the Foundation.

The founding members of The India-Central Asia Foundation who form the Governing Body look forward, primarily, to support from non-governmental institutions and industry in enabling its objectives to be satisfactorily met.

The Governing Body of the Foundation for the period 2005-2008 is composed of the following Founding Members: 

• K. Santhanam                           President, Distinguished Scientist
• K. Raghunath                            Vice President, Fomer Foreign Secretary 
• Prof. Nirmala Joshi                     Director, Former Professor JNU 
• Dr. Ramakant Dwivedi                Strategic Analyst, Member
• Dr. B.B. Kumar                          Educationist, Member
• Prof. R.G. Gidadhubli                 Economist, Member
• Dr. Gulshan Sachdeva                Associate Professor, JNU, Member
• J.N. Roy                                    Former IPS Officer, Member
• Rajesh Bhargava,                       Engineer,Member