Government’s Initiatives

Bharatavani Portal

The Union HRD Ministry in May 2016 launched the multilingual knowledge portal www.bharatvani.in.

• Bharatavani App will perform the task of bringing about digital revolution in the county.
• This project is in line with the HRD Ministry’s efforts to not only ensure universalization of education but also towards creation of a knowledge society in the digital age.
• The Central Institute of Indian Languages (CIIL), Mysuru is implementing this ambitious project of MHRD.
• Bharatavani is the first knowledge portal of its kind in India which focuses on becoming a single point source for multiple language learning, content and technology.
• Given India’s diversity, Bharatavani is an attempt to bring the people of India under one portal, its goal being to bridge the Digital and language divide, with the idea to publish as well as involve people in the Open Knowledge movement.

Bharatavani Multi-lingual App

• The Bharatavani Multi-lingual App called Bharatavani app will enable users to search for one language text in another language as well as get meanings in different languages.
• Currently the App has 35 multilingual Dictionaries and MHRD aims to extend it to 250 dictionaries in a years time.
• This App, on the day of its launch became India’s first and largest multilingual dictionary.
• The Bharatavani Portal would publish the content in the following main sections:
  1. Paa Thyapustaka Kosha: Textbooks by various authorities
  2. Jnana Kosha: Encyclopedic Knowledge base in all languages
  3. Shabda Kosha: Dictionaries, Glossaries, Terminologies,
  4. Bhasha Kosha: Language learning books
  5. Suchanaa Praudyogikii Kosha: IT tools (right now linked to TDIL)
  6. Bahumaadhyama Kosha: Multimedia content

Shala Asmita Yojana

The Union Ministry of Human Resource Development (HRD) in January 2017 launched Shala Asmita Yojana, a student educational tracking system programme. ASMITA stands for All School Monitoring and Individual Tracking Analysis.

• The tracking system will keep records of academic journey of every student studying in about 15 lakh private and Government schools in India.
• The tracking system will be a single platform which will carry all the information about every student such as student attendance and enrollment, mid-day meal service, learning outcomes and infrastructural facilities, among other things.
• The tracking of students will be done on the basis of Aadhar numbers. About 65% of the students between the age of 5 to 18 years have Aadhar numbers, according to estimates.
• The students without Aadhar numbers will be provided unique identity number for tracking.

National Digital Library (NDL)

• Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) is establishing the National Digital Library (NDL) under the National Mission on Education through Information and Communication Technology (NMEICT) with the objective to host a national repository of existing e-content available across educational institutions in the country and e-content developed under NMEICT. IIT Kharagpur has been entrusted to host, coordinate and set-up National Digital Library (NDL) of India towards building a national asset.
• The objective of the project is to integrate all the existing digitized and digital contents across educational and cultural institutions/bodies to provide a single-window access to different groups of users ranging across the entire population.

SWAYAM Prabha

• It is an initiative to provide 32 high quality educational channels through DTH (Direct to Home) across the length and breadth of the country on 24X7 basis. This would enable to deliver e-education in a most cost effective manner.
• The Department of Space has allotted two Transponders of GSAT-15 for the same. The subscribers of free DTH service of Doordarshan (Free dish) would be able to view these Educational channels using the same set Top Box and TV. No additional investment would be required.
• These educational programmes delivered over DTH shall also be made available at YouTube as archival data. The information related to channel schedules; subject, archival link, etc. are available on SWAYAM Prabha portal (https://swayamprabha.gov.in/) which is developed by INFLIBNET, Gandhinagar.

SWAYAM (Study Webs of Active Learning for Young Aspiring Minds)

• The Ministry of HRD, has embarked on a major and new initiative called ‘Study Webs of Active Learning for Young Aspiring Minds’ (SWAYAM), which will provide one integrated platform and portal for online courses, using information and communication technology (ICT) and covering all higher education subjects and skill sector courses to ensure that every student in the country has access to the best quality higher education at affordable cost.
• The SWAYAM IT platform is indigenously developed that facilitates hosting of courses, taught in classrooms from 9th class till post-graduation in a number of disciplines that can be accessed by anyone, anywhere at any time. The three cardinal principles of Education Policy viz., access, equity and quality shall be achieved by providing high quality e-content to all learners in the country through SWAYAM.
• The SHAGUN portal was launched in January 2017 to enable real time monitoring of the SSA components and various decisions on elementary education taken during the reviews by Hon’ble Prime Minister. The Online Grading of States and UTs, which measures their performance, was introduced in September/October 2017, and it will be expanded and refined further so that it is a valuable tool enabling States and UTs to assess and improve their performance.

Imprint India

• IMPRINT India is an effort to direct research in the premier institutions into areas of social relevance.Under this, 10 domains have been identified which could substantially impact the living standards of the rural areas: (1) healthcare technology, (2) energy security, (3) rural urban housing design, (4) Nano technology, (5) water/river system, (6) advanced materials, (7) computer science and ICT, (8) manufacturing technology, (9) advanced security and (10) environment/climate change. Each of these domains is coordinated by one IIT.
• More than 2,600 research proposals have been submitted by scientists in the priority areas of these domains. These have been examined by eminent scientists and 259 proposals for Rs. 595.89 crore have been approved for implementation. 142 research projects costing Rs. 323.17 crore with joint funding by MHRD and various participating Ministries/ departments are currently under execution under IMPRINT – I. IMPRINT-II is under process for approval.

Jigyasa

• CSIR in July 2017 launched a program named JIGYASA in collaboration with the Ministry of Human Resource Development. The focus is on connecting school students and scientists so as to extend the classroom learning of students with experiential education based on a very well-planned research laboratory environment. “JIGYASA” aims to inculcate the culture of inquisitiveness on one hand and scientific temper on the other amongst the school students and their teachers. The Programme is expected to connect 1151 Kendriya Vidyalayas with 38 National Laboratories of CSIR targeting 100,000 students and nearly 1000 teachers annually.