Didn’t let students lose a year: Ramesh Pokhriyal

CHENNAI: Much like everything else, the biggest education conclave, ThinkEdu, went virtual this year. Union minister for education Ramesh Pokhriyal, in his inaugural address, elaborated on his vision for the National Education Policy and the way ahead. He also spoke about how India was among the very few countries in the world that didn’t let students’ year go waste. 

“Even when the rest of the world had foregone a year, India ensured that its students didn’t waste it. Around 33 crore students were given education online. Provisions were made for those who couldn’t come online through mediums like radio,” said Pokhriyal.

TNIE Editorial Director Prabhu Chawla kicked off the ninth edition of ThinkEdu, saying: “This year, we have brought illuminating discussions and conversations about new ideas from India’s finest thinkers — scientists, businessmen and storytellers.”

In a different session, Subhash Kak was in conversation with Indic scholar Dushyanth Sridhar and senior journalist Kaveree Bamzai. Kak spoke about how he sifted through various layers of Sanskrit literature to find a lot of subjects, including astronomy, that had been lost for thousands of years. “It opened a whole new horizon to me,” he said.

S Vaidhyasubramaniam, Vice-Chancellor, SASTRA Deemed-to-be University was in conversation with Makarand Paranjape, Director, Indian Institute of Advance Study, who spoke about Swami Vivekananda and AI replacing human teaching. “Swamiji is so important because he takes us beyond the idea of education being some sort of livelihood training.”