Irani stresses convergence of industry and academia

Stressing the need for greater convergence of industry and academia, Human Resource Development (HRD) Minister Smriti Irani Thursday asked the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) to provide inputs for the government's 'Think-in-India' movement.

'Think-in-India' is aimed at rewarding and funding, innovators and designers within India.

The programme is meant to complement the 'Make In India' programme launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, to put India prominently on the global manufacturing map and, in turn, facilitate the inflow of new technology and capital, while creating millions of jobs.

"For the first time, several institutes of the central government - IITs and NITs - have come together to showcase India's research might. We need more convergence of this kind," a CII statement quoted Irani.

Irani was speaking at the inauguration of the first edition of Knowledgexpo, organised by CII in partnership with the department of industrial policy and promotion, ministry of commerce and industry, the HRD ministry and the ministry of science and technology.

According to the CII statement, Irani also requested the CII to give its inputs to Skill India faster and support in the success of GIAN project - which aims at tapping the talent pool of scientists and entrepreneurs to engage with the institutes of higher education in India to augment existing academic resources, accelerate the pace of quality reforms and further strengthen India's scientific and technological capabilities.

"The minister also agreed with the suggestion made by Chandrajit Banerjee, CII director general to set-up a task force which will comprise industry and academia to interact with the government to address knowledge gaps," the statement said.

The minister, who said that school and higher education need to be built together added that the government was working on several issues such as land for educational institutes, free online education at premier institutes for all citizens of India and credit transfer system after Class IX and more.