Set up chairs in name of Swami Vivekananda: Irani to VCs

New Delhi: HRD Minister Smriti Irani today asked vice chancellors of both central and state universities to set up chairs in the name of Swami Vivekananda to study his life and teachings.

"On this day in 1893, Swami Vivekananda delivered his famous speech at the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago," she said, adding the VCs should take this opportunity to set up the chairs.

She also announced a 'swachh vidyalaya' campaign to ensure functional toilets in every school by 2015 and an initiative to enable girl students transit from school to post-school professional education especially in science and mathematics.

A single girl child scholarship scheme called Swami Vivekananda scholarship programme was also announced under which 300 scholars would be provided junior research fellowship between Rs 8000 to Rs 10,000 per month.

Talking to reporters, Irani said the 'swachh vidyalaya' campaign will ensure that a functional toilet is available in every school before August 15, 2015 in keeping with the vision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The Udaan initiative of CBSE will enable disadvantaged girl students and other students from SC/ST and minorities to transit from school to post-school professional education especially in science and mathematics.

"The first flight of UDAAN is to address lower enrolment of girls in engineering colleges which is currently about 23 per cent girls as against 77 per cent of boys.

"The CBSE will provide free and online resources to the entire student population with special incentives and support to a thousand selected disadvantaged girls per year," a government statement said.

Besides, an AICTE scheme 'Providing Assistance for Girls Advancement in Technical Education Initiative' has been launched under which 4000 girls are expected to get benefit of scholarships available per annum.

HRD Ministry has also rolled out an 'Ishan Vikas' programme to bring selected students from the school and college levels from the northeastern states into close contact with the IITs, NITs and IISERs during their vacation periods.

UGC has launched a new scheme called Dr S Radhakrishnan Post Doctoral Fellows in Social Sciences. Under the scheme, 300 fellowships of Rs 25,000 per month and HRA etc. Would be awarded for a period of three years to the selected fellows.

AICTE has also announced 1000 scholarships per annum to eligible candidates to pursue PhD in CSIR/DRDO labs or other reputed institutions.

Leading academic institutions have been identified to take up research work in a particular domain such as health care or energy, defence or water resource or river system.

There would be research groups carrying forward research in these particular domain and each group will be headed by eminent experts to formulate time-bound plans of action.

IIT-Kharagpur has been identified to carry out research work in health, computer science and ICT, IIT Madras in defence and manufacturing and IIT Bombay in energy and nano-technology and hardware.