Central government to launch a Rashritya Avishkar Abhiyan

The Central government plans to launch a Rashritya Avishkar Abhiyan, or national innovation mission, next year, Union human resource development minister Smriti Irani said at an event in the Capital last week.

"Next year, we hope to roll out the Rashtriya Avishkar Abhiyan, which is a national innovation ex perience or initiative on behalf of the government of India so that in primary and secondary education, we can inculcate a desire for enquiry-based learning and a desire to possibly os cillate towards the fields of maths and science as a profession and not only something you pursue as part of your academics," Irani said at the Ficci higher education summit (HES) 2014. To pre-empt brain drain, she added, "The government of India seeks to find the money so that ideas don't leave our shores."

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She spoke about other initiatives, such as the Unnat Bharat Abhiyan involving the IITS, IIMs and central universities to work for rural uplift.

At the summit, Greg Clark, minister of state for universities, science and cities, UK, announced the launch of the Generation UK-India programme under which more than 25,000 young UK aspirants are go ing to become teaching assistants in Indian schools and learn about the country through cultural immersion courses.