External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj today said that Ramayana and Buddhism are two aspects that connect India and ASEAN and that is why they have been given special importance in the India ASEAN Memorial Conference. Sushma said at the India ASEAN Youth Awards, that there are centuries old relationships between India and ASEAN and these relations are spread over a wide variety of fields like history, culture, commerce and education.

The India ASEAN Memorial Conference is to be held here from January 25. One of the programs before that is India ASEAN Youth Avors. He said that the scholars of the South East Asian region choose India as a major learning center, in ancient times they chose Nalanda University. Sushma said that Ramayana and Buddhism are two aspects which connect India and ASEAN. So we have kept these two in the center of the Memorial Summit.