Indholdsfortegnelse for August 5, 2024 i India Today

The hot-button issue of the recent election, in which the NDA did not do as well as expected, was unemployment. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has taken heed of it and focused Budget 2024 on “job creation”. According to a Word Cloud analysis, she mentioned the word ‘employment’ only three times in last year’s budget as opposed to 23 times this year. Taking the bull by its horns, she announced an innovative Five-Fold Path targeting 41 million youth with a Rs 2 lakh crore outlay over five years. The scale of the problem is gigantic—the Economic Survey 2023-24 estimates the current Indian workforce at 565 million. Of these, over 45 per cent are employed in agriculture. They contribute barely 18.2 per cent to the GDP; the bulk comes from services, manufacturing…

₹ 11.11 LAKH CRORE Allocation of capital expenditure in infrastructure—an 11 % increase from the 2023-24 provision of Rs 10 lakh crore IN PREVIOUS TERMS, THE NARENDRA MODI GOVERNMENT FOCUSED on building infrastructure to improve connectivity, reduce logistics costs and enhance India’s business environment. This thrust continues, though without major new announcements, in this year’s budget. Make no mistake. At Rs 11.11 lakh crore, the estimated capital expenditure is still some 3.4 per cent of the GDP. But it’s a modest 11 per cent increase from last budget’s Rs 10 lakh crore. Then, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman had steeply increased the capital investment outlay by 33 per cent to Rs 10 lakh crore—3.3 per cent of the GDP. That was almost three times the 2019-20 figures. Indeed, after 10 years of…

INDIA’S HIGHER EDUCATION SYSTEM STANDS AT A CROSSROADS. IT HAS THE POTENTIAL TO BE A GLOBAL leader, and significant progress has been made in that direction, but addressing the challenges of access, quality, research and employability is crucial for the system to realise its full potential. The National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 provides a robust framework for these reforms. It aims to transform the education system by promoting internationalisation, reducing the emphasis on rote learning and encouraging multi-disciplinary courses. The NEP also focuses on improving faculty-student ratios, enhancing research funding and fostering a culture of research and innovation. However, the successful implementation of this policy, as many have concluded, will require the coordinated effort of the government, the institutions and the private sector. To transform its higher education landscape and secure…

GO PAST THE WELL-GUARDED ENTRANCE GATE at the Lavale campus of Symbiosis International University (SIU) and you are instantly transported to a hill retreat with lush vegetation, winding roads, low hanging monsoon clouds and the call of birds that punctuates the animated chatter of students. Away from the bustle of the busy city, the SIU Lavale campus, situated in the hilly terrain of Mulshi near Pune, sprawls over 350 acres—a perfect setting for a centre of learning. In preparation for President Droupadi Murmu’s visit for the 21st convocation ceremony of SIU on July 29, the campus is buzzing with frenetic activity. Over the decades, eminent people from various walks of life have come to SIU to interact with students—a testament to the reputation the university, which got deemed status in…

The first All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) was originally meant to be set up in Calcutta but following a rejection by the then West Bengal chief minister Bidhan Chandra Roy, it was eventually set up in New Delhi in 1956. Since then, the institute has become the top choice for medical education and specialisation for millions in the country. What students at the institute say they value the most is the constant improvement in facilities and academics. AIIMS has never shied away from embracing new technologies and testing out new procedures. It was the first to perform a heart transplant in the country, the first to set up ventilator care and, in the past year, has performed three first-of-their-kind procedures in India. It has been the first to perform…

IN THE EVER-EVOLVING LAND- SCAPE OF LEARNING, technical education acts as a catalyst for fostering innovation. Focusing on equipping students with practical skills and preparing them for the real-world challenges, it teaches them how to find practical solutions. And that’s exactly what IIT Delhi has been doing for the past six decades—training its students to fit in, adapt and grow in the careers or specialisations of their choice while addressing the pertinent issues faced by society. Among the five oldest IITs, IIT Delhi was set up in 1961 and got the ‘Institution of Eminence’ status in 2018. Today, it offers a plethora of technical programmes post higher secondary, but its approach to postgraduate education is particularly striking. With 5,857 students enrolled in masters and PhD programmes, IIT Delhi is fostering a…

Technology has been a key focus area at the National Law School of India University (NLSIU) given the emergence of generative artificial intelligence (Gen AI) in the past couple of years. The objective, explains Sudhir Krishnaswamy, vice chancellor, is to understand the foundations of Gen AI and the techniques to customise a large language model so as to apply it to a corpus of material in various fields of law. Last November, NLSIU embarked on a unique research project in the field of consumer law using AI. This project, in collaboration with IIT Bombay and the Department of Consumer Affairs, will explore how openly available large language models, such as Llama, can be used for building public solutions for enhancing efficiency in India’s consumer grievance redressal system. The initiative aims at…

UNION FINANCE MINISTER NIRMALA SITHARAMAN HAS ACQUIRED THE ART OF COINING SMART ACRONYMS for initiatives and schemes from her boss, Prime Minister Narendra Modi. When she presented the first Union budget of Modi 3.0 (her seventh as finance minister), she preferred to be politically correct by mentioning productivity in agriculture as the first on the list of the nation’s nine priorities. But on her official X handle, to highlight the main theme of the budget, she rearranged the order of the nine focus areas so that the first letters of the words could spell EMPLOYMENT as in Employment, MSMEs, Productivity in agriculture, Land, Opportunities, Youth, Middle class, Energy, Next-gen reforms and Technology. Appropriately, a photograph of Modi was pasted next to the listing with the tag #BudgetViksit Bharat. Many interpreted…

↘ The Rs 2.2 lakh crore central boost to the housing sector over the next five years under the PM Awas Yojana Urban 2.0 will benefit MSMEs in a big way as 60 per cent of the product categories in housing come from the small scale segment ↘ A credit guarantee scheme has been proposed for MSMEs in the manufacturing sector for facilitating term loans to purchase machinery and equipment without collateral or third-party guarantee. So, MSMEs can now go in for fresh and faster loans ↘ There’s also a new mechanism for facilitating continuation of bank credit to MSMEs during their stress period. Under this, the details of which are awaited, banks will either offer government-guaranteed loans to MSMEs or the government will directly create a fund from where…

8% Increase in allocation for agriculture and allied activities, up from ₹1.41 lakh cr. in FY24 (RE) to ₹1.52 lakh cr. in FY25 THE FARMER UNIONS IN NORTH INDIA may be on to the next phase of protests over a legal framework on MSP (minimum support price) for their produce, but Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman seems unperturbed. Her FY25 Budget allocations for agriculture showed no indications of a change in trajectory from the path the BJP-led government has charted since 2021-22—strengthening the post-farmgate ecosystem and not fiddling much with market prices. Agriculture and allied sectors have seen an annual average growth rate of about 4.2 per cent over the last five years—one of the lowest for any period in the last four decades. Despite the country’s farmers contributing 18.2 per…

IN A FEW FIGURES AND WORDS, THE UNION BUDGET CAPTURED TWO REALITIES. One, how vital India’s state-steered space and atomic energy sectors are to the vision of Viksit Bharat. And two, how the idea of opening them up to the private sector is seen as critical to their evolution. Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman has allocated Rs 13,042.75 crore to the space sector, up from the Rs 12,543.91 crore allocated in 2023-24. She also announced the setting up of a venture capital fund worth Rs 1,000 crore to push development in space technology. The capital, which Sitharaman said will expand the space economy by five times in the next 10 years, is likely to aid more than 180 government-recognised start-ups working in the field of space technology. Talking about the atomic…

With 655 general, 79 medical, 192 technical and 27 law universities on its radar, the India Today Group’s annual rankings of Best Universities are a crucial barometer of the country’s higher education universe. The rich information and data therein not only make it easier for aspirants to take critical career decisions, it also benefits other stakeholders such as recruiters, parents, alumni, policymakers and people at large. INDIA TODAY’S knowledge partner Marketing and Development Research Associates (MDRA), a reputed research agency, followed a rigorous methodology while conducting this survey between January 2024 and July 2024. For the objective ranking, MDRA carefully attuned 120+ attributes to arrive at a comprehensive and balanced comparison of universities. These attributes were clubbed under five broad parameters—‘Reputation & Governance’, ‘Academic & Research Excellence’, ‘Infrastructure & Living…

JNU HAPPENED BY MISTAKE. This was the 1980s and Hindi professor Namvar Singh, a close friend of my father, had come to visit us in Madras. He was the one who suggested to my father that I should apply in JNU. I had just completed my masters and was keen on pursuing a PhD in international relations. Prof. Singh sent me the application forms which I duly filled out and submitted. I was called for the interview and coming to Delhi was such an eye opener. I had never been to the capital before and everything here was different. A little known fact is that when I came here I did not know even a word of Hindi. But I picked it up soon enough. I was in JNU from…

IN ALL OF MODERN CULTURE, PERHAPS - NO PHASE OF LIFE IS as romanticised as one’s (uni)varsity years. And if those years are spent amid the lush greenery of the Western Ghats, with monsoon rains turning gentle crevices into meandering rivulets, it’s an experience that could inspire a Coleridge. For many professionals across various industries—be it pharmaceuticals, telecommunications, marketing, or entertainment—this was their reality for two transformative years. Symbiosis, or Symbi, as it’s colloquially known, is more than just a university or a shared campus; it’s a shared life. Years after graduating, alumni still recognise each other with a nod of familiarity, having eaten the same campus food, ridden the same bicycles from hostel to classroom, taken the same buses to the city, and missing the same buses back to the…

FOR MOST MEDICAL SCHOOL ASPIRANTS IN INDIA, AIIMS - has always held a pride of place, and so it was for me too in 1974 when I joined this prestigious institute. A large campus, an impressive modern building, its various departments having abundant resources for cutting-edge equipment, its library stocked with all kinds of books, latest journals and later electronic literature search facility, an Olympic-size swimming pool, a large gymnasium with outdoor tennis and basketball courts, individual hostel rooms for all students, and a film club that regularly showed avant-garde indie movies sourced from the many foreign embassies in Delhi were part of what made AIIMS attractive. But I think there were two more significant features that added to its appeal: a small class size, the smallest in the country (only…

I WAS NOT A TYPICAL IIT STUDENT. After joining the Na-Defence Academy in Khadakwasla, Maharashtra, in National 1961, I spent seven years in service and engineering training. Following a brief stint on warships, the Navy sent me to IIT Delhi in July 1969 for a two-year MTech programme. The IIT, with its impressive labs and libraries, offered a different world from the Navy and a new opportunity. At IIT, Professor P.V. Indiresan (who later served as the director of IIT Madras) helped me switch to a PhD programme within my approved two-year Navy deputation. As a PhD scholar, I worked on a rather abstract theory of non-linear filtering, utilising tools from stochastic calculus and diffusion models. This work caught the attention of researchers at Stanford University and UC Berkeley, eventually leading…

AFTER MY MBA IN FINANCE, I wanted to transition in my education to a non-profit kind of orientation. By then, I was already into films. In fact, my first film happened in the midst of my first year of work at GE Research in Bengaluru as a risk consultant working on statistical models, which I took up soon after my MBA. For six months, I juggled films and work before quitting my job to focus on the former. In 2007, I was shooting for the Malayalam film Kerala Varma Pazhassi Raja and it was a long shoot during which I couldn’t sign up for anything else. That’s when I took up a one-year Postgraduate Diploma in Environmental Law at the National Law School of India University (NLSIU). It was a long-distance…

Q. Why have you sub-titled your new album Shakkar #SongsAboutStayingAlive WhenYouDon’tWantTo? It was written during a phase when I was not keen on being alive. I was fighting this phase of depression and absolute loss of direction. I could have written dark and sad songs, reflecting the emotion of the moment, but the idea was to write songs as an antithesis to the phase I was going through. Q. How did you get out of this phase? I finally [sought] therapy. It was very beautifully designed by two therapists who work as a team, one as a spiritual healer and the other in cognitive behavioural therapy. [Playing] Lollapalooza [in Mumbai this January also] changed the game for me. The set went down so well, and there was so much love…

₹ 1.24 LAKH CRORE The estimated budgetary allocation to Andha Pradesh and Bihar CALL IT A RETURN GIFT OR APPEASE-MENT POLITICS, Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s budget has been kind—in cash—on Andhra Pradesh and Bihar, showering substantial allocations on the two states led by key allies of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). While chief ministers N. Chandrababu Naidu and Nitish Kumar have welcomed the windfall, Opposition-ruled states have decried it as unfair, calling it a clear quid pro quo for their support to the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA). Neither Naidu and Nitish, both of whom returned to the NDA fold ahead of the recent Lok Sabha election, have been coy about demanding preferential treatment for their states—for instance, repeatedly pressing for Special Category Status to get central grants…

2% Approximate increase in allocation for the health and family welfare ministry, from ₹89,155 crore in 2023-24 to ₹90,958.6 crore for 2024-25 AN EXTRA RS 1,803 CRORE. SO EVEN AT A MODEST INCREASE OF 2.022 PER CENT, THE RS 90,958.6 CRORE allocated to the health and family welfare ministry in the Union budget would seem to represent a steady, continuing focus on India’s well-being—on the face of it. But that conceals the fact that it falls woefully short of requirements when one considers the enormity of the country’s health challenges. Experts say it fails to address even some vexed policy knots: rationalisation of taxes for life-saving drugs and emergency treatments, well-tailored incentives to industry that can bring private healthcare closer to the common Indian, and other critical areas like GST…

Q • What, according to you, is the main thrust of the Union Budget 2024-25? ► ASHIMA GOYAL: It has correctly identified and worked on critical bottlenecks that need to be released for India to have sustained high growth. These include raising agricultural productivity and making it climate-proof, creating more infrastructure as well as good jobs, raising the level and amount of job-relevant skills and working with states to improve efficiencies. For real change to happen, it is necessary to get the private sector and states on board. The budget has used some well-designed incentives to do so. ► AJIT RANADE: The budget’s main thrust is on providing incentives for job creation, skilling, enhancing human capital and also providing support for small businesses. Skills formation and training is the need…

Q. What are the significant reforms the UGC has initiated since you took charge in 2022? The ministry of education and the country’s educational institutions are collaborating on higher education reforms, with the UGC acting as a facilitator. One of the primary objectives is to provide freedom and flexibility to students. Technology enables us to collect data on learning outcomes, helping identify areas that need improvement, leading to policy interventions. One such initiative encourages institutions to adopt multidisciplinary education without concerns about funding and infrastructure. We have also introduced new curriculum frameworks for undergraduate and postgraduate courses, offering significant flexibility. For example, students interested in studying medieval history can earn academic credits in insurance or risk management, enhancing their employment opportunities. Today, a large majority of the 43 million students pursue…

As SOMEONE KEEN TO SEE THE WORLD of academe in India elevated to worthy heights I am often reminded of the lament—from the 1980s—of one of India’s most distinguished academics and a former vice-chancellor of Allahabad University. His anguish stemmed from the fact that somewhere along the way independent India had been unable to steer our universities in the right direction. By way of illustration, I can provide many insightful instances but perhaps none would be as telling as that which has Srinivas Ramanujan at its centre and which transpired more than a hundred years ago. As most of us know, Ramanujan’s name had been struck off the rolls of Madras University after he failed to clear his English language examination. But by then he had already produced some profound work in…

FIRST, A WORD TO PARENTS. TAKE A CHILL PILL. STAY OUT OF THE PROCESS. Let the student take the lead. You have led the charge so far, through 15 years - of pre-school and school. You’ve given them roots; that will be their foundation for their whole lives. Now, give them wings. It’s their time to fly. Going to college is an important rite of passage, and allow them the autonomy to do it on their own. You are the safety net, the sounding board, but no longer the decision maker. They need to be independent, but never alone. So young folks, here are some home truths. You have already chosen the colleges available to you, by the marks you have scored in board exams. Don’t be under any illusions…

THE HEALTHCARE LANDSCAPE is evolving rapidly, driven by advancements in technology, changes in population demographics, commoditisation of information in a digital world, and the ongoing need for quality care. While physicians play a critical role in defining and delivering patient care, there is a growing recognition of the importance of non-physicians in imagining and creating health systems of tomorrow. Health is a superficially simple word, hiding a complexity such that its meaning changes from birth to death, from past to present, and from resource-constrained to resource-abundant. The future of health and healthcare systems is being shaped by new scientific, social and economic forces. In turn, medical education and research too will change; with the rise, fall and realignment of specialties. Here, I look at recent technological trends with the potential…

TECHNICAL EDUCATION IS ONE OF the most soughtafter choices for higher education as it lays focus on skill development and enhancing the employability of - students, setting the way to a rewarding career path. With technological transformation deepening its roots into almost every aspect of our lives, economic transformation shifting the terms of global trade and social transformation changing how we socialise, there is nothing that has remained untouched—how we communicate, bank, travel, shop, read, study and even entertain ourselves. Therefore, technical education is assuming importance like never before. So, what is that a student should be mindful of when seeking admission into technical programmes? The breadth and depth of the curriculum to widen the foundational base, integration with research opportunities to promote critical thinking, pedagogical interventions to be able…

LEGAL EDUCATION, SAD-LY, HAS NEVER been a top priority for India’s - higher education policymakers. Engineering, medicine and management, epitomised through the creation of numerous Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs), and All India Institutes of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), have hogged the spotlight. In legal education, a minirevolution started in the 1990s with the advent of the national law universities (NLUs) in India. Today, there are around 25 NLUs in the country. The word ‘national’ in the names of these universities is a misnomer. Unlike the IITs, IIMs, and AIIMS, which are truly ‘national’ institutions created by an Act of the Parliament, NLUs have been created by Acts of state legislatures. Thus, technically, NLUs are state universities. Successes and Failures The most considerable success of the NLU…

Note: 1. Ranking is based on objective data & perceptual survey data; 2. Only universities that submitted their objective data have been ranked. Universities like IIT Madras, BHU, IISc Bangalore, NALSAR etc. that did not submit their objective data on time or refused to participate have not been ranked. In addition, IIT Bombay could not submit their data. Hence, it was ranked on the basis of its previous submitted data & current publicly available data; 3. Only universities that fulfilled the below criteria were considered eligible for participation in ranking: (i) minimum three batches graduated, (ii) offering full-time postgraduate (PG) programme; 4. All scores have been rounded off to one decimal place. This may result in rounding-off errors while adding the parameter-wise score; 5. Universities not ranked during the perceptual…