Former Afghan President Hamid Karzai has praised India for helping his country in providing education and professional training to the youth.
Karzai, who was speaking at an event organized by Delhi Policy Group and India Habitat Centre on "Afghanistan and neighbourhood" earlier this week, lauded India's contribution in educating and rebuilding human resource in his nation.
"India has been at the top of the list of the countries and is the front runner in providing education to Afghanistan for those in the audience who do not know that India gives us thousands scholarships every year. These are government scholarships and then India allows the Afghan Government to provide its own scholarships," said Karzai, who has studied in India.
"So, in the past 10 years through youth like you who study in India, Afghanistan has now gained a core of young educated Afghans and that is tremendous strength and the wheel that has put forward for a better future," he added.
A large number of Afghan students presently studying in New Delhi also participated in the event. They admired India's pro-active role in the development of their country.
"I have learnt things that all the students should work very hard, they should study very hard, they should learn something very deeply between the two nations, the two countries, for example India and Afghanistan, Pakistan and Afghanistan. They should focus to keep the balance between the neighbouring countries," said Gul Ahmad, an Afghan student studying at the prestigious Jamia Milia Islamia University in New Delhi.
Lya Zareque, another Afghan student studying at Jamia Milia Islamia University, said the main challenge for his nation is security.
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"I think the countries are working hard to bring stability in Afghanistan. I would like to say India is helping a lot. So, the challenges are security challenges and also we have some sort of problems with Pakistan, these are the political problems we have and this has to be resolved to bring stability in Afghanistan," he said.
The neighbourhood series lecture that was also attended by former prime minister Dr. Manmohan Singh put light on Afghanistan's 300 years legacy, invasion by different countries that had left the country in destructive situation.
India offers thousands of scholarship programmes in various disciplines to the Afghan students every year. India has also provided assistance of Rs. 1,233.78 crores for five projects in the last three years to Kabul under the 'Aid to Afghanistan' programme.