President Pranab Mukherjee on Thursday launched ‘IMPRINT India’, a joint initiative of the country’s top educational institutes, for developing a roadmap for research to solve major engineering and technology challenges relevant to India on Thursday. At the event, Prime Minister Narendra Modi described Mukherjee as a “university in himself” and said he had personally got benefitted from his vast knowledge.
The initiative is based on Modi’s suggestion that research done by institutions of national importance must be linked with immediate requirements of the society at large.
The President said it is necessary to develop in our students a scientific temper, which allows the flight of imagination beyond the realm of grades and classrooms.
“Promotion of research at the under-graduate level would assist such an objective. The link between progress and innovation is direct. History is witness to many nations low on resources emerging as advanced economies only on the strength of rapid technological development,” Mukherjee said while launching the project during Visitors’ Conference at Rashtrapati Bhavan here.
The Prime Minister stressed the importance of innovation and technology for the progress and development of the nation. He said institutions of higher education should give primacy to innovation in learning and finding solutions to challenges like global warming and converting waste to wealth were key to the rise of India. He exhorted institutions of higher learning to focus on areas such as defence manufacturing. “Science is universal but technology must be local,” Modi said.
HRD Minister Smriti Irani, MoS HRD Ram Shanker Katheria and MoS Chemicals and Fertilisers Hansraj Ahir were present on the occasion.
The idea of launching IMPRINT India, which is now a joint project of IITs and IISc, originated during the conference of chairmen, Board of Governors and Directors of Indian Institutes of Technology convened by the President in August last year.
IMPRINT India will focus on 10 themes, with each to be coordinated by one IIT or IISc, including Health Care (IIT Kharagpur), Computer Science and ICT (IIT Kharagpur), Water Resources and River systems (IIT Kanpur), Defence and Manufacturing (IIT Madras), among others.