A Decade of British Medical Journal In India...

It is just yesterday that British Medical Journal (BMJ) India celebrated its ten years of operations in South Asia.

BMJ started out in South Asia with the commencement of its operations in India. With a multitude of educational initiatives, some of which include Journals from BMJ, including The BMJ, BMJ Learning, BMJ Best Practice, Course in Diabetes, provision of high quality, evidence-based resources to clinicians in South Asia has always been on BMJ's radar. The commemoration of a decade marks BMJ's way of thanking all their partners, customers, stakeholders and collaborators in India over the past decade.

By the means of its numerous events such as The BMJ Awards South Asia, Healthcare Improvement Summits and The BMJ Conclave, BMJ has aimed to provide the best platforms to its delegates in South Asia.

BMJ has perseveringly trained nearly 9000 doctors through BMJ Masterclass and received a cumulative of 5000 entries in the BMJ Awards since its launch in 2014. In merely four years, the organization has trained 300+ doctors through its courses in Diabetes & CKD.

With accreditation from the Maharastra, Delhi, and Goa Medical Councils, and its Research To Publication initiative, BMJ is also fostering credible scholars from India's vast think tank.

To mark the occasion Mr. Prashant Mishra, Managing Director BMJ India & South Asia announced a charity initiative in partnership with Smile Foundation under which BMJ and Smile Foundation plan to jointly conduct health camps in Delhi-NCR through a programme named Smile Health Camp with the objective of providing primary health care services to the underserved women and adolescent girls in our society.

While sharing his vision and the help extended by BMJ, Mr. Santanu Mishra, Co-Founder and Executive Trustee, Smile Foundation said, “India is witnessing a rising demand for immediate medical facilities across urban and rural areas as a major part of the population continues to reside in urban slums or remote and hard-to-reach rural areas, and are also suffering and fighting the worst kind of ailments. In such a scenario a mobile healthcare service delivery system is the most practical mechanism that can deliver immediate relief to the needy. We are thankful to the British Medical Journal for their support in ‘Smile on Wheels’ programme. We are pleased to share with you that our partnership has facilitated the delivery of quality healthcare services to the very doorsteps of the needy, besides promoting healthcare awareness among the underprivileged.”

Commenting on the occasion and applauding BMJ India's achievements, Mr. Prashant Mishra, Managing Director, BMJ India & South Asia, said,

“It gives me great pleasure to see BMJ India reach this milestone. We’ve covered a long journey ever since we established the first office for the South Asian region in New Delhi. I can assure all our stakeholders that we will continue to demonstrate our commitment towards creating a healthier world through our evidence-based educational resources: courses, journals, e-learning programs, and CME content.”

All in all, BMJ India hopes to continue scaling heights in the medical and academic arenas, renewing their faith in the mission and vision of BMJ. :)

Universities Of The Future With Pranab Mukherjee...

Shri Pranab Mukherjee, President of India today inaugurated an international conference themed as “Universities of the Future: Knowledge Innovations and Responsibility’’ at O. P.  Jindal Global University (JGU). The 3-day conference hosted by the university is being held from 18-20th of March 2017.

The conference which seeks to examine the future of Indian universities in the 21st century is being organized by the International Institute for Higher Education Research and Capacity Building (IIHEd), O. P. Jindal Global University. It recognizes that while individual scholars have reached global excellence, the Indian university, as an institution requires essential reforms to acquire the intellectual status and eminence.

The inaugural was a landmark event graced by a host of distinguished guests notably Professor Kaptan Singh Solanki, Governor of Haryana; Shri Rambilas Sharma, Minister of Education, Government of Haryana; Smt. Kavita Jain, Minister for Women and Child Development; Shri Ramesh Chander Kaushik, Member of Parliament, Sonepat and other eminent personalities.

Speaking on occasion, Shri Pranab Mukherjee said, “Knowledge mobilization through quality higher education is pivotal to the socio-economic development of a nation. Innovation and futuristic universities are the driving force behind this. There is an urgent need to improve the education system in terms of the quality of instruction, faculty, research and capacity building.”

The President lamented that no Indian university figures in the top 200 universities in the world. Transforming universities into centers of excellence is the key challenge policy-maker and academic leaders face. Educational institutions have to gear up to face the socio-economic challenge the country is facing in terms of job creation. The ‘demographic dividend’ in our country has to be tapped with the help of these educational institutions, which will have to be holistic, value-based, skill-intensive and technologically advanced. He stressed that the future of higher education lies in the increased use of IT through innovation and futuristic teaching.

The President said, “Quality, affordability, and accessibility are the three cornerstones of higher education which need to be understood in the Indian context. Our universities need to actively pursue linkages with the best universities in the world to ensure student mobility, collaborative research, and joint projects.” He also emphasized on the linkages between education and industry and said, “Innovation should be linked to the market.  Through collaborative work and international knowledge exchange, educational institutes can build a larger influence in the international education arena.’’

Speaking to an eminent gathering Shree Rambilas Sharma, Education Minister, Haryana said, “Knowledge, innovation, and responsibility have been Indian patents since ancient times. Knowledge is not only our past but is our future.”

Welcoming the first citizen of India to the JGU campus, Mr. Naveen Jindal, the Founding Chancellor, of the University said, “We are proud and honored to have the President of the country inaugurate this conference. It is a rare fortune for us at JGU to have him in our midst. He is at our campus for the second time today. His first visit was in March 2013 for the Conference on ‘The Future of Indian Universities,’ a moment vividly remembered as one of the most inspiring in the institution’s history”.

Talking of Universities of the Future, Naveen Jindal said, “In this context, three reform initiatives are imperative. First is to debate the option of a four-year undergraduate programme. Even as our universities churn out thousands of graduates every year, serious questions are often raised about their employability. The four-year undergraduate degree provides an opportunity to gain additional knowledge and skills and goes a long way in improving the quality of education. It gives flexibility through exit points at the end of 3rd year and 4th year, better combination of major and minor courses.

Secondly, he suggested, “The traditional models of classroom based learning are challenged by e-learning and massive open online courses (MOOCs). Social media is changing the way learning takes place. We must fully harness the technological potential for building a university of the future. His third suggestion was interdisciplinary and professional approaches to higher education.

Talking about the pertinent need of the conference, Professor (Dr.) C. Raj Kumar, Founding Vice Chancellor, JGU said “The Indian higher education system is facing many challenges, as issues related to quality, quantity, accessibility, and equity are simultaneously being addressed.  While there has been an effort to address the challenge of expansion and provide opportunities to access higher education, a lot more needs to be done. O.P. Jindal Global University aims to overcome these challenges in a sustained manner to become a truly world-class institution.

This is a defining moment for the Indian Higher Education with the political leadership aligned with institutional aspirations. With substantive and sustained regulatory reforms, and significant funding made available to the Indian Higher Education sector, we can realistically hope that the next decade can have a few Indian Universities to become truly world class”.

The Conference is a culmination of a range of ideas and perspectives that aim to shape India's aspirations of building world-class universities through comparative and international dimensions. It is a recognition that the future of Indian universities and their ability to seek global excellence will depend on three critical paradigms, first, need for creating a vision for higher education that will focus on research and knowledge creation, institutional excellence and global benchmarking as the indicators for standard-setting; second, the need for pursuing substantial reforms relating to policy, regulation and governance of higher education; and third, is the need for investigating a paradigmatic shift for promoting interdisciplinary in higher education with a stronger and deeper focus on the pedagogy of teaching and learning in different fields of inquiry.

Through a series of perspectives from noted academics and scholars from around the world, the Conference will attempt to discuss these three strings of thought across various sessions, including sessions on research and innovation, regulation and policymaking, financing of universities, internationalisation of higher education and subject specific sessions on science and technology, medicine, law, management, social sciences and humanities, journalism, international affairs and public policy.

The goal is also to create higher education opportunities that will enable the future generations of students to pursue a world-class education in world-class universities in India.

The Future Of Research In India With Springer Nature...

What?
Springer Nature's Conclave on "Research and Innovation in Science for sustainable Development of India"

When?
Monday, October 10

Where?
ITC Maurya, New Delhi

"Art is I; science is We." - Claude Bernard said a lot across a span of six words, and it is with these words that Springer Nature's insightful panel discussion on the future of research in India, for India began.

Springer Nature, being  a leading global research, educational and professional publisher, could have only been trusted with the onus of presenting such a hard-hitting, brainstorming session with luminaries of the likes of Dr. Shiv Kumar Sarin of Institute Of Liver and Biliary Sciences (ILBS), Mr. Vipin Tyagi of C-DOT, Dr. V. Ramagopal Rao of IIT Delhi, and Mr. Derk Haank (CEO, Springer Nature) gracing the panel.

Mr. Derk Haank introduced the report - The Nature Index 2016 Rising Stars - to an audience comprising partners from the research, science and education communities, business leaders and government representatives. The conclave, organised by Springer Nature brought together this diverse audience for a thought-provoking discussion on the role of science and innovation in supporting sustainable development in India.

Mr. Haank spoke to the audience as thus:

“India’s emergence as one of the world’s largest economies is being reflected by its increasing contribution to the world’s high-quality research publications, as the Nature Index Rising Stars has shown. Springer Nature has enjoyed long historical ties with India and we are excited about the future of high-quality research here.  We look forward to deeper engagement with both the government and the science, research and education community” 

The Nature Index 2016 Rising Stars supplement identifies the countries and institutions showing the most significant growth in high-quality research publications over the four years between 2012 and 2015. These are the emerging research powers to watch.

Rising Stars uses the power of the Nature Index, which tracks the research of more than 8,000 global institutions published in a group of 68 high-quality natural science journals, which have been independently selected by scientists.

While India makes its mark, the index finds that it is Chinese institutions that are leading the world in rapidly increasing high-quality research outputs. 40 of the top 100 highest performers across the globe are from this scientific powerhouse, with 24 of those showing growth above 50% since 2012.

The United States – which remains the largest contributor to high-quality scientific papers overall – is second, with 11 entrants into the top 100 despite many starting from a high base. Nine institutions feature from the United Kingdom, eight from Germany and four from India.

The four institutions from India among the top 100 featured in the index are the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER), the Indian Institute of Science (IIS) and the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs).

Chemistry made up more than half (51%) of India's scientific contributions to the index in 2015. 36% was from physical sciences, 9% from life sciences and 4% from earth and environmental sciences.

China spent 1.4 trillion yuan (approximately $ 209 billion) on research and development (R&D) in 2015, or 2.1% of GDP. India, in comparison, currently spends around 1% of its GDP on R&D.

Also awarded at the Conclave, was Young Talent - a student from Amity International School - Vaishali Tikoo - for devising a tool for children with learning disabilities.