Posts in category: Business

Aviation secretary Ashok Lavasa has been transferred to the environment ministry as the new secretary, while V. Somasundaran will be the new aviation secretary, the government said in a statement on Thursday. Lavasa took charge of aviation in 2013. Somasundaran is currently additional chief secretary Kerala.

NEW DELHI: The government on Friday announced a set of secretary-level appointments, selecting 1979-batch Kerala cadre IAS officer V Somasundaran as the new aviation secretary and transferred current aviation secretary Ashok Lavasa to the environment ministry.

Former Indian Airlines chairman and managing director Sunil Arora, an IAS from Rajasthan cadre has meanwhile been appointed as secretary in the newly created Department of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship under ministry of skill development, entrepreneurship, youth affairs and Sports.

India stands at the cusp of a demographic dividend, and several people have expressed the urgent need to leverage this dividend to enable jumps in GDP growth. The formation of the National Skill Development Mission (NSDM) signalled the high priority attached to skill development. The NSDM created three distinct structures, namely, the Prime Minister’s National Council on Skill Development, the Skill Development Coordination Board at the Planning Commission and the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC). The first two were subsequently shelved and replaced by the National Skill Development Agency (NSDA). The NSDC, however, was retained as an entity under the NSDM. Now, the NDA government has brought all skill development initiatives under one umbrella ministry, probably motivated by various governance and management issues.

Under the Swarna Jayanti Shahari Rozgar Yojana (SJSRY) Scheme GVT has been awarded a project by the Rajasthan Skill Livelihood Development Corporation, RSLDC to provide skill development training to 20,000 candidates in Construction and Information & Communication Technology, ICT trade. This is a placement linked skill development training whereby GVT will provide training to the candidates and will also ensure their placement with different organizations. GVT has already signed MoUs with several organizations to place those candidates who will successfully complete their trainings at its institutes in Rajasthan.

With his twin focus on jobs and growth, Prime Minister Narendra Modi seems intent on placing renewed emphasis on skill development in the services and manufacturing sectors. In his Independence Day speech, the Prime Minister spoke of his ‘skilled India’ mission to promote holistic development. There is no doubt that India needs to equip its youth with greater work skills. At present, the country churns out a mostly semi-literate workforce without the requisite marketable skills in a globalised world.

In order to achieve the government’s skill development goal, policy makers would need to recognise the structural strengthening of ecosystem by introducing enabling policies such as – Minimum Wages Act, Labor Laws, and Apprenticeship Act apart from providing required support to key stakeholders like NSDC, SSCs, State Skill Missions, Training Providers and others, according to a FICCI-KPMG white paper launched in New Delhi, on September 4, 2014.

NEW DELHI: India and Australia have come together to deepen collaboration on the skill development front with the NSDC signing a pact with Australia’s Department of Industry and committing to strengthen bilateral relationship in technical vocational education and training (TVET) space.

An MoU between the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) and Australia’s Department of Industry was signed in the presence of Indian Prime MinisterNarendra Modi and his Australian counterpart Tony Abbott, a statement said.

S.0.1986(E).-In excercise of the powers conferred by clause (3) of article 77 of the Constitution,the President hereby makes the following rules further to amend the Government of India (Allocation of Business)Rules,1961,namely:-

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government will work to provide 24×7 power supply to the people of India during its tenure and work towards making India “generator and inverter free,” Piyush Goyal, Union Minister of State (with independent charge) for Power, Coal and New and Renewable Energy said.

Delivering The Economist’s The India Summit’s 2014 keynote address — “Powering India’s Future” in the capital, Mr. Goyal, said that the greatest challenge he faced when he started as power minister was the transmission and distribution of power. He assured, “The Modi government will work to provide 24X7 power supply within the span of their tenure, with the expectation of making the country generator and inverter free.”

Human resource development minister Smriti Irani is likely to be put in charge of a new department of skill development and entrepreneurship, one of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s pet projects.

The department will ensure speedy and quality training to India’s youth, making them more employable. It will be carved out of 21 ministries dealing with the Centre’s skill development programmes, and focus on Modi’s mantra of 3S — Scale, Speed and Skill.