MILLION MINDS AUGMENTING NATIONAL ASPIRATION AND KNOWLEDGE

Recently, the 8th National Level Exhibition and Project Competition (NLEPC) for the INSPIRE Awards – MANAK (Million Minds Augmenting National Aspiration and Knowledge), has commenced.

Important points:

• It is aligned with the ‘Start-up India’ initiative and is being executed by DST (Department of Science and Technology) with National Innovation Foundation – India (NIF), an autonomous body of DST.
• Under the scheme the students are invited from all government or private schools throughout the country, irrespective of their educational boards (national and state).
• It covers the students in the age group of 10-15 years and studying in classes 6 to 10, to pursue Science and a career in Research.
• An award of Rs.10,000 is disbursed into bank accounts of winning students under Direct Benefit Transfer scheme.
• It does not believe in conducting competitive exams for identification of talent at any level. It believes in and relies on the efficacy of the existing educational structure for identification of talent.

INSPIRE Scheme:

• The INSPIRE (Innovation in Science Pursuit for Inspired Research) scheme is one of the flagship programmes of the Ministry of Science and Technology & Earth Sciences.
• Its objective is to communicate to the youth population of the country the creative pursuit of science and attract talent to the study of science at an early stage and build the required critical human resource pool for strengthening and expanding the Science & Technology system and Research & Development base.
• The Government of India has successfully implemented the INSPIRE scheme since 2010. The scheme covers students in the age group of 10-32 years and has five components.

SOURCE: THE HINDU,THE ECONOMIC TIMES,MINT