Regional Trade Agreements to help India’s Manufacturing Growth

India’s new-age Regional Trade Agreements (RTAs) will need to be upgraded to reflect the changing eco-system of regional and global value chains. This is crucial to India’s emergence as a manufacturing hub, said Commerce Secretary Rajeev Kher at a CII-JETRO conference on RTAs.

Mr. Kher said that Indian industry needs to engage with the government to identify specific sectors where such value chains will be beneficial for the country for deepening the presence in global markets while keeping sensitivities in mind. He highlighted the importance of India’s strength in service sector in this regard. The conference comes at a crucial time when the 6^th round of Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) negotiations are slated to be held in Delhi in December.

DIPP Secretary Amitabh Kant said that a slew of reform measures are being undertaken as part of the ‘Make in India’ initiative to improve India’s ease of doing business and connecting to value chains. He pointed out that for India to grow at 9-10 percent, manufacturing sector has to grow at 14-15 percent and exports-led manufacturing growth should clock 25-30 percent. Mr. Kant informed the high level Japanese participation that the future of Japanese companies is in India and they should not be risk averse in investing in the country.

The Chairman & CEO of JETRO, Mr. Ishige further emphasised the need for regional integration in Asia under the RCEP umbrella. He reiterated the Thatcherian slogan that ‘there is no alternative’ to regional economic integration in an increasingly connected world. India’s potential as a manufacturing hub can be realised through broad-based supply chain linkages, unification of business rules and the integration of services into the value chain. Mr. Ishige also echoed the views that reforms are key as the old trade and industrial policies will not see India emerge as a hub for competitive manufacturing.

Successful Japanese companies operating in India, such as Daikin and Nissan highlighted the need for reforms in areas such as taxation and the need for infrastructure investment. They said that closer regional economic integration will help in the creation of local supply chains as well as making India a hub for exports to other regions including West Asia, Africa and Southeast Asia. India is strategically located to become the hub for manufacturing and in this context regional integration is not only desirable but a necessity and a must.

 

Sessions on education at India-US Technology Summit emphasise on using technology to empower school educators

(L-R) Mr Anjan Das, Executive Director, CII; Mr Venkatesh Valluri, Chairman, CII National Committee on Technology; Dr Arbinda Mitra, Adviser & Head, International (Bilateral) Cooperation Department of Science & Technology

A galaxy of speakers from India and the US came together to discuss the various ways through which technology could be used to improve pedagogy and make learning more student centric, during Tech-Tonic sessions for kindergarten – class XII (K-12) which were held on the opening day of the two-day India-US Technology Summit, being organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and the Department of Science and Technology in Delhi NCR.

In his opening remarks, Mr. Vijay Thadani, Chair, CII National Committee on School Education said that the 21^stCentury was all set to witness a unique convergence of technology and education, which was earlier a remote possibility. Technology was now being used to support, supplement and reinvent the existing teaching experience. Shedding light on the changing dynamics of the education sector, he said that students had become the decision makers and commanded what they would like to learn or unlearn. This had led to the need for revisiting the existing teaching practices. While technology had penetrated into the Indian classrooms, it was important for educators to be able to use the new-age tools in an emphatic manner. Empowering them was a must to revolutionise the present education system, he added.

Shedding light on the CII initiatives in this direction, he briefly talked about an on-going CII program designed to train the Teacher Educators to ensure that technology was not being introduced for technology sake but was also being brought into practice to benefit the students at large, across levels.

Ms. Eve Psalti, Director, Partners in Learning, Microsoft USA talked about the various opportunities and challenges being faced by the students, policy makers and educationists at the school education level.

She said that though education is at the forefront of the economic growth across the globe and has generated a lot of interest and investment, youth unemployment continues to be on a rise and one of the key areas of concern. Given the transformation of the very concept of education in India through practices like e-learning and increased dependence on digital content, there is a need to design customized programs and adjust the teaching and learning practices to suit the student needs.

Mr. Amit Kaushik, Practice Head, Education and Skills Development, IPE Global Private Limited focussed his thoughts on the government schools and suggested that the authorities must revisit the existing regulatory environment and design customised solutions to support the needs of students in the urban and rural areas to attain higher levels of excellence coupled with innovation.

Prof. Steve Molyneux, Professor, Global Education Centre for Doctoral Studies; Faculty, Lamar University, Texas, USA and Chief Executive Leadership, Tablet Academy, UK, suggested that educators shouldered the responsibility of generating, feeding and supporting not only the future of individual economies but that of the world. It was, therefore, very important for the present day educators to learn new pedagogies to get the best out of technology in the classroom.

Dr.Vijayan K., Assistant Professor, ESD, NCERT, shared key findings from a recent survey conducted by NCERT, titled National Achievement Survey. He suggested that practices like e-textbooks, e-self assessments for classroom assignments to evaluate day-to-day homework and using technology to enhance the quality of teaching could help revolutionise education at the school education level. 

Mr. Ajith Basu, Chief Program Executive, Agastya International Foundation highlighted certain innovative technology-driven best practices like mobile labs and mobile e-rooms, which were being used by the Foundation to support education at the grassroot level.

The panel discussion was followed by a hands-on session on Class Room of the Future – Flipped Learning conducted by Prof. Steve Molyneux. He started session with an interesting quiz, which highlighted how disruption in technology challenged the existing practices and made way for more advanced and innovative methodologies.

He also shared some key trends shaping the present-day education system like availability of multiple mobile platforms used to access content in diverse formats. He also talked about the emergence of cloud classrooms as an important tool bridging the gap between students across geographies.

Ms. Mansi Kirloskar of Educate India also joined Prof. Steve and shared the importance of community involvement for designing an inclusive academic system.

The session, which witnessed participation of an enthusiastic audience from industry and academia, concluded over an engaging dialogue with attendees sharing their thoughts and best practices.

Government is committed to Restructure Speed-up Reforms in Railways – Shri Manoj Sinha, Minister of State for Railways

Consistency in Policy is the key to Attract Investments

Inaugurating the CII India Rail Summit today,   Shri Manoj Sinha, Hon’ ble Minister of State for Railways stated that Railway is waiting for the recommendations of the Dr. Bibek Debroy Committee on Mobilisation of Resources and Restructuring of Railways, initiating a long term perspective plan.  This will provide consistency in policies and approach which are the key requirements to attract private sector participation and investment in railways.  He further emphasized that railways is committed to speed-up reforms in order to augment capacity, induction of new technologies and improve throughput with a view to increase freight share and improve passenger facilities.The present government has adopted an industry-friendly approach with a key focus on fulfilling the transportation needs of the common masses and the country.

Elaborating further, Hon’ble Minister stated that this government emphasizes on execution and implementation of projects as reflected in the last Railway budget.     He assured industry that he would consider the request for setting up a Joint Task Force to have constant dialogue and interactions with them, leading to better understanding and implementation of projects.     Reacting to industry concerns with regard to payment cycle, minister assured that they would shortly come out with measures which would make the system more responsive and transparent.  He also reiterated that the present system will closely look at the risk-sharing mechanism to provide comfort to investors.

Earlier addressing the gathering, Mr. Pankaj Jain, Additional Member, Railways, outlined PPP models that Railways has been contemplating to introduce to attract private sector investments in Railways.   These include Non-Government Private Lines Model, Joint Venture Model, BOT-Competitive Bidding Route, Customer Funded Model.   7 projects under PPP have already been executed, leading to addition / guage conversion of 950 line kms at a total investment of 950 crore, he added.

In addition to setting up a Joint Task Force on Railways,  CII proposed that projects where private sector participation were being sought can be divided into three categories, namely projects related to infrastructure, those related to manufacturing and projects with regard to operation of railways.   These three categories will require three distinct models, taking into consideration the dynamism and issues of risk reward mechanism associated with each of the segment.

The Inaugural Session of the Summit was addressed by Mr. Naresh Aggarwal, Chairman, CII Railway Transportation and Equipment Division and Managing Director & Co – Chairman, VAE VKN Industries Pvt Ltd and Mr. Tilakraj Seth, Vice Chairman, Rail Transportation & Equipment Division, and Executive Vice President, Siemens Ltd.