P.V.Anandpadmanabhan
Addressing a two-day Conference of Directors of National Institutes of Technology, the President of India Pranab Mukherjee said, education would be the single biggest transformative factor in catapulting India into the league of developed nations.
The Conference concluded on Thursday at Rashtrapathi Bhavan.
It put emphasis on steps required for deepening research and technological innovation for meeting national development goals, technology enabled learning, building international networks and linkages for quality improvement and initiatives for capacity development of faculty.
The President asked each NIT to adopt five villages and transform them into model villages by converging various schemes like Saansad Adarsh Gram Yojana, Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana, Swachch Bharat Mission and Digital India Programme.
He said he has noticed that NIT Jamshedpur has been working with seven villages, NIT Uttarakhand with twenty, and NIT Jaipur with five villages. They may like to broad base their initiative to include the new schemes.
The President announced that the In-Residence Programme of Rashtrapati Bhavan will be now extended to young scholars from NITs. 30 scholars, one from each NIT, will be his guests in Rashtrapati Bhavan for one week. In addition, 6 Doctoral or Post-Doctoral students will be selected from the NITs as team leaders. These scholars and students will stay in Rashtrapati Bhavan for a week each in three batches of 10 scholars and 2 team leaders.
