New Delhi: While inaugurating the Diamond Jubilee Celebrations of Delhi IIT through a video conference, Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu has emphasized that research at IITs and other higher education institutes must be relevant to society and focus on finding solutions to various problems faced by mankind from climate change to health issues.
He said Indian institutions will be counted among the world’s best only when they start impacting the societies around them by developing optimal and sustainable solutions to the problems faced by the nation.
Calling for greater investment in R&D projects which focus on finding solutions to societal problems, the Vice President urged the private sector to collaborate with the academia in identifying such projects and fund them liberally.
He also emphasised that research should focus on making the lives of people comfortable, quicken the progress and ensure a more equitable world order. Calling upon the IITians to pay attention to the problems faced by the farmers and rural India, Shri Naidu asked them to work not only for enhancing agri-production, but also give special focus on production of nutritious and protein rich food.
Asking the higher education institutions not to work in silos and form a symbiotic relationship with the industry to develop cutting-edge technology, he said the industry experts in various areas should act as mentors in guiding researchers. “This type of collaboration will help in fast-tracking projects and produce quicker results”, he added.
Expressing his happiness that the New Education Policy seeks to promote India as a global study destination, VP pointed out that only eight Indian institutions figured in the top 500 globally.
He said this situation has to change and there has to be a concerted and collective action from all the stakeholders—governments, universities, educationists and the private sector to bring about a radical improvement in the standards and quality of education of our institutes of higher learning.
