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The Vice President Shri M. Venkaiah Naidu today said that everyone must become a warrior in the movement to protect the environment in the light of the climate crisis the world is going through. “From Panchayat to Parliament, all stakeholders must act proactively in protecting the environment”, he added.

He also stressed the need to act stringently with violators of pollution laws and consider strict enforcement of the ‘Polluter Pays’ principle.

Highlighting the recent disasters such as the flash floods in Himachal Pradesh, landslides in Uttarakhand and heat waves in Canada and the United States, he said they are instances of increasing frequency of extreme weather events due to global warming and climate change. He added that ‘these are tell-tale signs that climate change is real and cannot be wished away.’

Shri Naidu also expressed concern about the recent lightning-related deaths in Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, and noted that the increased lightning strikes (34 per cent more in India during 2020-21 compared to the previous year) are also being linked by scientists to the climate crisis.

Interacting with the trainees at Swarna Bharat Trust, Hyderabad, the Vice President said that in the light of these worrisome trends, it is imperative for us to co-exist harmoniously with nature and protect the environment to ensure the well-being of all. Going forward, the Vice President suggested that it is extremely important to balance our developmental needs with environmental protection. “It cannot be business as usual”, he stressed.

Recalling the importance given to nature in Indian civilisation, the Vice President said that we should act as ‘trustees’ to our natural environment, as Gandhiji advised. He noted India’s commitment to the Paris Climate Agreement, leadership in forging the International Solar Alliance and called for even greater substantive global efforts towards mitigating climate change.

The Vice President also underscored how environment and health are deeply intertwined. “Studies have revealed that spending time in nature lowers blood pressure, reduces stress and enhances emotional well-being. Being close to nature leaves us rejuvenated”, he noted. He called for creating awareness from a young age on the need to live in harmony with nature. “It was also found that children who received outdoor training were more satisfied and emotionally well-balanced. Every school should make outdoor activities like gardening and trekking an integral part of the curriculum”, he emphasized.

Speaking to the young trainees at the Trust, Shri Naidu expressed concern about the increasing cases of myopia among children. He referred to his interaction with experts at the L V Prasad Eye Institute and cautioned that, according to experts, 64 million children living in urban areas in the country are likely to have myopia by 2050 if no anti-myopia measures are initiated soon.

Referring to the experts’ opinion that current digital-ecosystem and the indoor-centric lifestyle were possible reasons for the increasing cases of myopia among children, the Vice President called for implementing the experts’ advice of making outdoor play time of one hour mandatory in all schools.

Addressing the trainees, Shri Naidu suggested that skill development and skill upgradation are necessary in the new job market in the context of the fourth industrial revolution. He noted that the New Education Policy is in tune with these emerging demands of the economy and called upon the industry to join hands with the government to train and upskill the youth. “A skilled workforce is critical to India’s accelerated growth in the coming years”, Shri Naidu observed.

Shri G.N. Rao, founder of LV Prasad Eye Institute, Dr. Prashant Garg, senior ophthalmologist from LV Prasad Eye Institute, Shri Chigurupati Krishna Prasad, President of Swarna Bharat Trust, Shri Bhadrareddy, Treasurer of Mallareddy Educational Institutions, students undergoing training at Swarna Bharat Trust and others were present during the event.

Union Education Minister Shri Dharmendra Pradhan and Tribal Affairs Minister Shri Arjun Munda jointly launched the ‘School Innovation Ambassador Training Program’ for 50,000 school teachers today. MoS, Smt Annpurna Devi; MoS Shri Rajkumar Ranjan Singh and MoS Dr Subhas Sarkar were also present along with senior officials of the Ministry of Education and Ministry of Tribal Affairs.

Together with Shri @MundaArjun ji launched the School Innovation Ambassador Training Program which aims to train 50,000 school teachers on innovation, entrepreneurship, IPR, design thinking, product development, idea generation etc.

Speaking on the occasion, Minister Pradhan said that teachers are the biggest influence in our lives. He said that we aim to make our teachers, change-agents and ambassadors of innovation to make our students future-ready.

Shri Pradhan stressed that technology is reshaping the world and our students have the potential to not only address domestic but also the global challenges. The program launched today is a collaborative effort by the Ministry of Education’s Innovation Cell, Ministry of Tribal Affairs, CBSE and AICTE, which will in turn nurture lakhs of students with innovation capabilities, develop a culture of innovation and lay the foundation of a new and vibrant India, he added.

The Union Minister for Tribal Affairs, Shri Arjun Munda expressed his gratitude that the Ministry of Education has launched its new initiative in the field of innovation in collaboration with Tribal Affairs Ministry which will benefit the large number of schools for tribal children across the country. This programme will have far reaching consequences which will help to fulfil the Prime Minister’s vision of a New Indiathe Minister elaborated.

Sh Arjun Munda further said that ‘SIATP’ will give wings to the creativity of the children and provide a platform so that they can give something new to the world with their ideas. Eklavya Model Residential Schools (EMRS) for tribal children is another ambitious programme of the Prime Minister under which 740 EMRS will be established in tribal dominated areas over the next three years, he said. The students of EMRS will greatly benefit from SIATP since it is also the endeavour of Tribal Affairs Ministry to give the best possible education to the tribal children. Sh Arjun Munda explained that through this unique capacity building programme for teachers, prominence has been given to development of creativity, collaboration , critical thinking and communication skills among children and the integration of Eklavya Schools into the entire programme is a big step in this direction for the meaningful development of tribal children.

Speaking on the occasion, Secretary, Tribal Affairs, Shri Anil Kumar Jha said that encouraging innovation is at the core of the New Education Policy. Teachers will need to evolve new methods of teaching; they will need to first transform themselves into guides from being instruments of written text books. Shri Jha further said that apart from running Ekalavya World Education School, the Ministry of Tribal Affairs has been supporting initiatives of States/Union Territories in spreading scientific education to tribal students and the new initiative will help promote quality education among tribal children. The Ministry of Tribal Affairs has launched an Adi-Prashikshan portal which is also a repository of training inputs. It will be of great benefit if SIAP training module also gets connected to this portal, he said.

The innovative and one-of-its-kind training program for school teachers, it aims at training 50,000 School Teachers on Innovation, Entrepreneurship, IPR, Design Thinking, Product development, Idea generation, among others.

The program has been designed by the Innovation Cell of the Ministry of Education and AICTE for school Teachers based on its “Innovation Ambassador Training Program for Higher Educational Institution’s faculty members”. The training will be delivered in online mode only.

Raksha Mantri Shri Rajnath Singh launched an Artificial Intelligence (AI)-powered grievance management application in New Delhi on July 15, 2021, developed by Ministry of Defence with the help of IIT-Kanpur. Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Personnel, Public Grievances & Pensions Dr Jitendra Singh graced the occasion. 

This is the first AI based system developed to improve grievance redressal in the Government. The AI tool developed as part of the initiative has capability to understand the content of the complaint based on the contents therein. As a result, it can identify repeat complaints or spam automatically. Based on the meaning of the complaint, it can categorise complaints of different categories even when key words normally used for such search are not present in the complaint. It enables geographical analysis of complaints in a category including analysis of whether the complaint was adequately addressed or not by the concerned office. Easy user-friendly search enables user to formulate his own queries/categories depending on management requirements and seek performance results based on the query. Given that lakhs of complaints are received on CPGRAMS portal of DARPG, this application will have great use in understanding the nature of complaints, geographies from where they emanate and policy changes which can be introduced to create systemic improvements to address these grievances. 

 Speaking on the occasion, the Raksha Mantri described the application as a product of good governance, which reflects the growing synergy between the Government and academia. He said this initiative is another citizen centric reform of the Government that aims to empower the people at large. 

Shri Rajnath Singh lauded Department of Administrative Reforms & Public Grievances (DARPG) for playing an important role in the reform of the Public Grievances Redressal System, saying that resolving the grievances of people is a great service in itself. He added that the active involvement of reputed institutions like IIT Kanpur will further bolster the system and resolve the grievances of people in a transparent and effective manner. 

The Raksha Mantri was briefed that this AI-powered application will automatically handle and analyse the complaints of the people and would reduce human intervention, save time and bring more transparency in their disposal. 

A tripartite MoU for the project was signed among Department of Defence, MoD, DARPG and IIT, Kanpur on August 04, 2020.   

The release of this application marks the introduction of AI-based innovations into governance and administration. This project is first of its kind initiative of the Government for using AI, data science and Machine Learning techniques in grievance redressal. The success of this project in MoD will pave the way for extension of this application across other Ministries. The MoD and IIT, Kanpur intend to drive their collaboration forward in the coming years, seeking to better leverage the use of AI for the disposal of citizens’ complaints. The web-based application has been jointly developed by Department of Defence, MoD; DARPG and a team of IIT Kanpur comprising of Professors Shalabh, Nisheeth Srivastava and Piyush Rai. 

Defence Secretary Dr Ajay Kumar; Additional Secretary, DARPG Shri V Srinivas, Additional Secretary MoD Smt Nivedita Shukla Verma, Director, IIT Kanpur Prof Abhay Karandikar and other senior officials of MoD were present on the launch of the application. 

Union Minister for Labour & Employment and Environment, Forests and climate change Shri Bhupender Yadav today felicitated the donors who made generous donations of different equipment and material to ESIC Hospitals during the COVID-19 pandemic. Minister of State for Labour & Employment and Petroleum & Natural Gas Shri Rameswar Teli, Secretary, Labour & Employment, Shri Apurva Chandra and DG, ESIC Shri Mukhmeet S. Bhatia were present on the occasion.

Through the coordinated efforts of Government, Private Institutions, Civil Society, NGOs and Private Citizens overcame the health crisis caused by second wave of Covid-19 pandemic. More than 100 donors across India made donations of equipment/kits/disposables etc. to ESIC Hospitals amounting to the sum of Rs.13 Crore.

Speaking on the occasion, Union Minister  for Labour & Employment and Environment, Forests and climate change Shri Bhupender Yadav said the government has undertaken the 3Ts for confronting the pandemic for over 125 crore people of the country. These include tracking, testing and treatment. He said, the country has moved ahead in the field of production of masks and PPE kits, while two indigenous vaccines have been developed in the country. He expressed hope that around 257 crore vaccines will be produced and distributed by the year end. The Minister said the government is totally committed for welfare of the people, it has endeavoured to provide electricity and health facilities to all in the country. In this direction, the health budget has been enhanced by 137per cent.    He said under the new Social Security Codes all benefits will be extended even if there is only one employee covered in a company.

Minister of State for Labour & Employment and Petroleum & Natural Gas Shri Rameswar Teli said that government is working to uplift people from all walks of life. He complimented ESIC for extending benefits to over 13crore people. He, however, exhorted people to remain vigilant against the pandemic.

A total of 33 ESIC Hospitals with around 4000 dedicated Covid beds having 400 ventilators provided exclusive COVID medical services to the IPs and general public of the area as either dedicated COVID Hospital or as Hospital with dedicated Covid beds, as per requirement of local administration. During Covid-19 pandemic starting from April, 2020 till date, more than 50,000 Covid patients have been provided IPD treatment services through ESIC Hospitals across the country. Plasma therapy which is shown to save the lives of serious COVID-19 patients was also started in ESIC Medical College & Hospital, Faridabad (Haryana) and ESIC Medical College & Hospital, Sanath Nagar (Telangana).

ESIC made alternate provisions for providing routine medical services to ESI Beneficiaries through Tie-up Hospitals, in case an ESIC Hospital was declared as a dedicated Covid Hospital to cater exclusively to Corona suspected/confirmed cases. In such cases, ESI beneficiaries could be referred to tie-up Hospitals for providing prescribed secondary/SST consultation/admission/investigation during the period for which concerned ESIC Hospital functions as dedicated Covid-19 Hospital. ESI Beneficiaries were also allowed to seek Emergency/non-Emergency medical treatment from tie-up hospital directly without referral letter, in accordance with his/her entitlement.

In addition to existing cash benefits under ESI Act, Covid-19 Relief Scheme has been launched, in which periodic payment @ 90% of average wages of deceased Insured Worker is paid to the eligible dependents of the Insured Worker who died due to COVID-19. Till date, the periodic payment @ 90% of average wages were payable only against the death of Insured Worker caused by Employment Injury, but now the death caused by Covid-19 has also been included for payment of relief to eligible dependents. Against the abstention of Insured Worker being infected with COVID-19, Sickness benefit @ 70% of average daily wages for 91 days for the period of abstention can be claimed. In case of Insured Worker rendered unemployed, he/she may avail relief under Atal Beemit Vyakti Kalyan Yojana (ABVKY) @ 50% of average per day earning for a maximum 90 days. For availing this relief, the Insured Worker can submit the claim online at www.esic.in.

Employees’ State Insurance Corporation (ESIC) has undertaken multiple steps to provide host of cash benefits besides making every effort to ensure better medical care to its Stakeholders as well as general public during resurgence of COVID-19 Pandemic.             

The Employees’ State Insurance Corporation is a pioneer Social Security organization providing comprehensive social security benefits like reasonable Medical Care and a range of Cash Benefits in times of need such as employment injury, sickness, death etc. It is covering about 3.4 Crores of family units of workers and providing matchless cash benefits and reasonable medical care to its 13.24 crore beneficiaries. Today, its infrastructure has increased many folds with 1502 Dispensaries (including mobile dispensaries)/308 ISM Units and 159 ESI Hospitals, 744 Branch/Pay Offices and 64 Regional & Sub-Regional Offices. The ESI Scheme today stands implemented in 566 districts in 34 states and Union Territories of the country.