“Skill Development will be the Backbone of Atmnirbhar Bharat and Garib Kalyan Rozgar Abhiyaan”: Dr Mahendra Nath Pandey

Dr. Mahendra Nath Pandey, Hon’ble Union Minister for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, today said that skilling, up-skilling and re-skilling of the India’s workforce will play a crucial role in the success of the Government’s vision of Atmnirbhar Bharat and the recently launched Garib Kalyan Rozgar Abhiyaan, announced by the Hon’ble Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi.

The government is soon to get approval on the next phase of Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY) which will have increased focus on demand driven skill development, digital technology and skills pertaining to Industry 4.0.  The current part of the flagship skill training scheme (PMKVY 2016-2020) is about to conclude and has so far trained close to 73 lakh youth in the country, Union Minister of Skill Development & Entrepreneurship, Dr Mahendra Nath Pandey said in an ASSOCHAM webinar today.

“We need to focus on employment in current scenario and that’s why we will be focusing upon demand-based skilling in the next phase of PMKVY, where we have added certain aspects like - strengthening district skill committees and connecting with local employment offices. District Commissioner and State Skill Development Missions (SSDMs) will also have a crucial role to play and will be connected to the industry bodies so that we can bridge the demand supply gap and impart relevant trainings to the migrant labour who have returned to their home state,” said Dr Pandey while addressing a webinar, ‘Skill Development Post Covid-19,’ hosted by ASSOCHAM.

He said that if required the government would give permission to run PMKVY centres and ITIs (Industrial Training Institutes) in 2-3 shifts in order to follow guidelines of social and physical distancing.

He also urged industry to expand their operations from big cities to small districts and villages and invest in upskilling and re-skilling the youth across rural India which would help make a giant leap towards the success of the Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyaan launched by the Hon’ble Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi. “We invite private sector people to come forward and impart training and focus on being vocal for local product and services empowering youth to drive local economic growth.”

The Minister added, “I appeal to the industry to be more compassionate towards the migrant labour, do their counselling, treat them respectfully and facilitate those who intend to return and get back to work.”

In a veiled message to China, Dr Pandey said, “Our neighboring country is trying to remove its blot and working on expansionist policy, but it is also able understand now that this time round it has a strong opponent and it will further get to know this thing more clearly as our entire nation stands united.”

Talking about the various plans of the Skill Development and Entrepreneurship Minister, Dr Mahendra Nath Pandey said, “We are also working on Skill Management Information System, which will bring the entire skill ecosystem on a common web portal and work as an aggregator for demand and supply of skilled workforce.”

He further informed, “We plan to further simplify the apprenticeship which is the on-the-job model of skill training so that industries do not hesitate in absorbing apprentices and they do so enthusiastically. We shall invite suggestions from the industry on that, our proposal is going ahead with whatever discussions we took in past in this regard.”

The Minister also said that his Ministry is working closely with other central ministries and state governments on compiling data of skilled persons across the country which would be made available at a single click. “The database of skilled youth in the country will also the registered data of people who have come in from overseas as a part of reverse migration. NSDC, the implementation arm of MSDE, has come up with an effective application called ‘Swades’ whereby both Ministry of External Affairs and Ministry of Civil Aviation are also cooperating in collating this information and segregating the workforce basis their skills, so that they can later be connected with opportunities of employment within the country and add to their personal and nation’s overall growth.”

He stated that about 20,800 people have connected through the Swades app already. “In future, we plan to use their skill on a bigger scale and also seek help of industry bodies in utilizing their skills and promote them as trainers as we go ahead.”

Dr Pandey said that the role and responsibility of the industry in terms of skill development has increased during the current scenario even as the government is sharing ideas and working together with the private sector and that these times call for a unified solution for citizens of the nation, ensuring a more secure and better livelihood for all.

“In wake of the Covid-19 global pandemic we need to move ahead with innovative methods, especially in the industrial sector, there is a need for a big change in terms of the overall mindset and approach towards doing business as we need to give more importance to use of digital technology,” said the Minister.

In his welcome remarks, ASSOCHAM president, Dr Niranjan Hiranandani said, “Industry will willingly work in tandem with government to jointly fight this battle and support the Hon’ble Prime Minister in his vision of New Artmnirbhar Bharat.”

Mr Maninder Nayyar, co-chairman, ASSOCHAM National Council on Skill Development said, “Post Covid-19, new sectors and avenues of working are set to emerge, requiring new levels of skill, as such it is important for government and industry to predict the possibilities of the future and prepare for them today itself.”

Amid others who addressed the webinar included – Ms Divya Jain, co-chair, ASSOCHAM National Council on Skill Development, Dr Darlie Koshy, director general, Apparel Training & Design Centre; Mr N.K. Mohapatra, CEO, Electronic Sector Skill Council and Mr Pawan Agrawal, MD & CEO, Smartskills Bits & Bytes (P) Ltd.

Avail smart ticketing from Indian Railways

The Indian Railways has selected a chip technology by NXP Semiconductors, a semiconductor founded by Philips to power its contactless smart cards for automatic fare collection system. The secure microcontroller-based technology called MIFARE DESFire will be implemented across various Indian cities in the ATVMs (Automatic Ticket Vending Machines).

The user-friendly ATVMs will be rolled out across five Indian cities - New Delhi, Secunderabad, Kolkata, Bhubaneswar and Pune. Together with card and inlay-manufacturer Siepmann's Card Systems, NXP will provide MIFARE DESFire-based ICs for approximately 6.5 lakh contactless cards over a period of one year. This project is expected to be launched in September 2009 and will initially be rolled out in Delhi and Secunderabad.

The Centre for Railway Information Systems (CRIS), the IT wing of the Ministry of Railways had developed the ATVMs as part of an Unreserved Ticketing System (UTS). In 2007, CRIS developed the smart card based contactless solutions using NXP's MIFARE 1KB Classic chip in Mumbai Suburban Railway and Chennai. Over five lakh smart cards were issued to passengers in the Central/Western Railway at Mumbai and Southern Railway at Chennai.

Commenting on the implementation of smart card technology in India, Ashok Chandak, Senior Director, Global Sales and Marketing for India, NXP said, "We see a significant growth in the use of contactless Smart Card technology in transport systems in India." According to NXP, 75 percent of all electronic tickets in public transport worldwide use the NXP MIFARE technology.

Agencies

Mumbai attacks: Are other cities not vulnerability?

Whatever group lies behind the attacks in Mumbai, security experts say one thing has been made abundantly clear: a massive city can be reduced to mayhem if a group of men is well-enough armed and prepared to die.

Rather than hijacking planes as in September 11, or smuggling delicately wired car bombs into a city, the Mumbai gunmen chose a frontal style of armed assault, killing more than 100 people, wounding around 250 and causing immense panic in a thriving city of 13 million.

Security specialists say the attack was probably months in the planning and appears to have been finely tuned in its execution, but it ultimately relied on only an estimated 25 gunmen lightly armed with assault rifles and hand-grenades.

Their ability to roam around and sustain the attack, while all the while being willing to die in the onslaught, made it all the more difficult to combat and far more drawn out than an instantaneous suicide bomb attack might have been.

"It's virtually impossible to stop 20 guys with guns from attacking anywhere in the world if they are prepared to die," said Sajjan Gohel, an analyst with the Asia-Pacific Foundation, an independent security and intelligence group based in London.

"That is the thing about the fedayeen strategy," he said, using an Arabic term used to describe self-sacrificial gunmen who have operated in Iraq, Kashmir and across the Muslim world.

"It's even more effective than a suicide mission. With a suicide mission, you blow up your explosives and you're gone. With a fedayeen attack, you try to last out as long as possible, killing as many people as possible," he told Reuters.

Nearly 20 hours after the attack began late on Wednesday night, Indian soldiers and the militants were still exchanging gunfire and more than 100 people were trapped inside the Taj Mahal hotel, one of two five-star hotels popular with Western tourists and businessmen that were targeted in the assault.

Indian authorities closed stock, bond and foreign exchange markets, schools were shuttered and panicked foreigners on holiday or on business were desperate to flee, reducing India's business powerhouse to a tense, semi-warzone.

"Men armed with automatic weapons are able to run amok and keep the situation going for much, much longer," Henry Wilkinson, a senior analyst with Janusian Security Risk Management, a London-based consultancy, told Reuters.

"Whether it's intended or not, that creates an extended drama which is all the more terrifying."

AL QAEDA

Given the boldness of the assault, its high-level of planning and the fact that foreigners were specifically targeted, security specialists believe there is likely to have been a degree of inspiration from or link to external groups allied to Al Qaeda, such as the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba.

They say the tactics are different from the more common, post-9/11 attacks seen in Iraq and Afghanistan, but still bear similar hallmarks.

"It's very interesting that they didn't go in using car bombs, it was more of a direct armed assault on a city," said Wilkinson. "It's very reminiscent of the attacks in Saudi Arabia in 2003, when the gunmen were going around trying to find Westerners and kill them."

Wilkinson highlighted the fact the Mumbai gunmen appeared to have used only assault rifles and hand-grenades, giving them much more mobility and freeing them up to take hostages.

"I would suggest that using guns and hand-grenades was a deliberate choice... The amount of planning and training they must have done to carry out such an attack is impressive."

Such an assault might be mounted virtually anywhere in the world, he said, making cities in Europe and the United States vulnerable, even if such an outcome remains unlikely.

In London in 2005 four suicide bombers killed 52 people on public transport and brought the city to a standstill.

Both attacks underline just how hard it is for democratic states to protect themselves against such attacks without draconian security measures and powerful intelligence.

"I can't see any reason -- if there is a terrorist group that has the capability... attacks like this in Europe or the United States can't be discounted," he said.

One advantage for Indian authorities and any intelligence services called in to help investigate the Mumbai attacks is that at least nine gunmen are reported to have been seized.

In a suicide bombing, forensics can help investigators establish only so much. In this case, those detained are likely to reveal much more intelligence about who plotted the attack.

"The fact that a few of them have been seized is highly significant," said Wilkinson. "I think a lot more information about these attacks and who was behind them is going to come to light."

Source: Reuters