Page 28 - NIS English November16-30

Science Educating Young Minds

Science Setu: Innovation to drive

development

To become self-reliant, India is bridging several sectors including agriculture and
MSME through science to give them a new and different perspective

nnovation is crucial for every sector. India, a tra-
ditional country in its methods, is now changing
Iits approach. The present Government realises
the full importance of the encouraging innovations
in making the country an economic superpower.
Thus it is aggressively pursuing a programme of
inculcating an innovative bent of mind among stu-
dents in schools and colleges. Speaking at an event
to mark 75 years of Food and Agriculture Organi-
sation, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on October
16, 2020, said the good variety seeds improve the
nutritional value of the grain. Science has played a
crucial role in such developments.
The Science Setu programme was launched
after the Prime Minister in 2014 called upon the
Indian scientists to actively involve themselves in
teaching in colleges. Acting on this, the Nation-
al Institute of Immunology formulated a detailed
programme to connect itself to undergraduate col-
leges, working out the principles, scope and mode
of implementation in informal consultation with
several colleges of the University of Delhi. The pro-
gramme was named Science Setu. So far, ten Delhi
University colleges have agreed to be partners in
this programme.
The idea was conceived in view of the shortage
of teaching resources in higher education. India
has hundreds of national research institutions in a
wide variety of academic areas, with thousands of
scientists of high scholarship competence. Nation-
al research institutions had little by way of system-
atic teaching commitments beyond pre-PhD cours-
es, and none at the undergraduate level.
To contribute to the national goal of encouraging
more and more bright young minds to take up the
pursuit of science and technology as a career op-

26 New India Samachar