Indonesian Embassy in Islamabad hosted a lively reception for 20 recipients of the Darmasiswa and KNB scholarship programs on Saturday. The recipients and the alumni of the two Indonesian government-funded scholarships, officials of the embassy, Director Human Resource Development Division, Higher Education Commission, and some Indonesians studying in Islamabad attended the event. Addressing the gathering, Cultural Affairs Counselor Deny Tri Basuki congratulated the scholarship recipients and elaborated that the scholarships are a financial assistance offered by the Indonesian government to the international students coming from developing countries to pursue their academic programs at the Indonesian universities. He highlighted the importance of quality human resource and said the mutual cooperation such as the KNB and Darmasiswa scholarships are good opportunities for the students to develop their vision, knowledge and competencies through educational ambitions and professional development in a broad range of fields. Basuki noted with satisfaction that the interest among the Pakistani students to pursue higher education programs in Indonesia is growing. He shared that, encouraged by this positive trend, the government of Indonesia has increased the number of scholarships and this year 20 scholarships were granted to the Pakistani students. He expressed his appreciation for the students coming from different cities of Pakistan and believed that the continued interaction will better facilitate the students and certainly pave the way forward in expanding greater cooperation in human resource development and deeper understanding of cultural diversity. The Counselor expressed the hope that the students having completed their study programs in Indonesia will not only actively play more constructive role in the progress of Pakistan in many fields but help further strengthen friendly relationship between the two countries. The Indonesian government annually awards two types of scholarships namely Darmasiswa and KNB. The Darmasiswa program offers undergraduate scholarship to study Bahasa Indonesia (Indonesian language), Indonesian art and culture, Indonesian culinary and tourism studies while the KNB Program offers masters level scholarships at the leading Indonesian universities. More recently, masters and doctoral level scholarships offered by a number of Indonesian universities have also received encouraging response from the Pakistani students.