The success of any endeavour is an interplay of capital, collaboration, regulatory mechanisms and, most importantly, the scientific and technological know-how, put simply, skills.

In India, many initiatives have been undertaken in the skills sector by governments in the last decade. However, outcomes are still elusive. According to the UNDP’s Human Development Report-2020, only 21.1 per cent of the labour force was skilled in the period 2010-2019 in India.

This dismal result is due to lack of cohesion within policy actions, absence of holistic approach and working in silos. Therefore, if India wants to reap the demographic advantage, it needs to fix the challenges pertaining to skill development in India.

What are the issues with Skill development?

• Piecemeal Approach: The piecemeal approach to skilling can be seen in this year’s Budget which has allocated ₹3,000 crore to realign the National Apprenticeship Training scheme but has restricted it to only engineering stream and not to other science and arts streams.
• Overburdened Responsibility: Phase III of Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana, launched to impart skills development to over 8 lakh persons in 2020-21.
  • However, it suffers from excessive reliance on the District Skills Development Committees, chaired by District Collectors, who would not be able to prioritise this role, given their other assignments.
• Discontinuity in Policy Process: The National Skill Development Agency (NSDA), created in 2013 for resolving the inter-ministerial and inter-departmental issues and eliminating duplicates of efforts of the Centre.
  • However, it has been now subsumed as part of the National Council for Vocational Training (NCVT).
  • This reflects not only discontinuity in the policy process, but also some obfuscation among policy makers.
• Humongous Number of New Entrants: According to a 2019 study by the National Skills Development Corporation (NSDC), 7 crore additional people in the working-age of 15-59 years are expected to enter the labour force by 2023.
  • Given the sheer magnitude of youth to be skilled, it is paramount that the policy efforts are adequate in all respects.
• Employers’ Unwillingness: India’s joblessness issue is not only a skills problem, it is representative of the lack of appetite of industrialists and SMEs for recruiting.
  • Due to limited access to credit because of Banks’ NPAs, investment rate has declined and thus has a negative impact on job creation.

What is the way forward?

• Ending Separation Between Education & Skills: There is a need to end the artificial separation of the education system into formal and vocational shall end with such enabling frameworks allowing seamless integration.
  • In this context, the New Education Policy (NEP) 2020 envisaged a right policy as it emphasises on integration of vocational and formal education both at school and higher education levels.
  • The NEP also proposed a pilot ‘hub-n-spoke’ model with the conceptual framework of ITI becoming a ‘Hub’ for providing VET related training and exposure to students of adjoining 5-7 schools.
• Skills survey: Surveys can be conducted to find the exact skill requirements from the employers.
  • Analysis of such surveys would help in designing course structures of the training programs and thus standardized course curriculum or training delivery systems can be developed.
• Enhanced Expenditure on Education and Training: In the long run, Skill India will also not be enough if government expenditures in education remain low and if, therefore, the ground isn’t prepared for proper training.
  • In this case, the proposal of NEP to enhance public expenditure on education to 6% of GDP is a step in the right direction.
• Imbibing International Success Models: India needs to learn from technical and vocational training/education models in China, Germany, Japan, Brazil, and Singapore, who had similar challenges in the past, along with learning from its own experiences to adopt a comprehensive model that can bridge the skill gaps and ensure employability of youths.

Conclusion:

To truly live in an Atmanirbhar Bharat, all the skilling efforts need to be brought under one platform and to be executed with full efficiency. A sturdy institutional framework with practical and real pathways to change course between mainstream and vocational programmes needs to be put in place.

Friendship is not about being inseparable, it is being separated but still nothing changes. When we spend time with friends we didn’t know that we are making memories we just thought we were having fun.

Missing our friend keeps us awake more than a tea or a coffee. If I write a single word for every time I think of you, I’m sure I would complete writing a book. Being your friend was the best choice I have ever made.

Friendship is the most unplanned thing on the face of this marble called earth. Life is full of surprises and one of them is finding the one best friend for you, in the most unexpected manner, and I found it.

A best friend can be found in unexpected places. Sometimes we go out in search of something and finally end up with what we are supposed to have. That is how I got you in my life.

A friend comes to you just at the right time, the time you never thought. Friendship is very hard to define, it is not something you learn in school or college but if you haven’t learnt the meaning of friendship, then you really haven’t learnt anything.

Life is partly what we make it, and partly what it is made by the friend we choose. The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of friendship. Find a person who challenge and inspire you, spend a lot of time with them, and it will change your life…

India has ranked tenth (10^th) in Global Cybersecurity Index (GCI) 2020 by ITU (International Telecommunication Union) by moving up 37 places.

India’s Position

• India scored a total of 97.5 points from a possible maximum of 100 points, to make it to the tenth position worldwide in the GCI 2020.
• India secured the fourth position in the Asia Pacific region.
• India is emerging as a global IT superpower, asserting its digital sovereignty with firm measures to safeguard data privacy and online rights of citizens.
• The result shows substantial overall improvement and strengthening under all parameters of the cybersecurity domain.

Countries which topped the list

• The US topped (1^st), followed by the UK (United Kingdom) and Saudi Arabia tied on the second position together.
• Estonia was ranked third (3^rd) in the index.

What is the basis of the assessment?

• On the basis of performance on five parameters of cybersecurity, which are Legal measures, technical measures, organisational measures, capacity development, and cooperation.
• The performance is then aggregated into an overall score.

What are the challenges to cyber security in India?

• Deploying multiple cybersecurity tools reinforces a fragmented and complex security environment that is prone to risks arising from human error.
• Cybersecurity challenges companies face as they shift the majority of their employees to a remote working arrangement in a really short period of time.
• India lacks indigenization in hardware as well as software cybersecurity tools. This makes India’s cyberspace vulnerable to cyberattacks motivated by state and non-state actors. India doesn’t have an ‘active cyber defense’ like the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) or the US’ Clarifying Lawful Overseas Use of Data (CLOUD) Act.

What are the Efforts to Improve Cyber Security in India?

• National Cyber Security Strategy 2020: It is being formulated to improve cyber awareness and cybersecurity through more stringent audits.
• Draft Personal Data Protection Bill, 2018 (based on the recommendation of Justice BN Srikrishna Committee) to secure citizens’ data.
• The scheme to set up I4C (Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre) was approved in October 2018, to deal with all types of cybercrimes in a comprehensive and coordinated manner.
• National Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) functions as the nodal agency for coordination of all cyber security efforts, emergency responses, and crisis management.
• Protection and resilience of critical information infrastructure with the set up of National Critical Information Infrastructure Protection Centre (NCIIPC).

You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consist of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life. There is nothing like deep breath after laughing that hard. Nothing in the world like a sore stomach for the right reason.

Happiness is not something ready made. Sometimes it comes from your own action. Stop counting your life by tears and start counting it by your smile.

They say a person needs just three things to be truly happy in this world: someone to love, something to do and something to hope for but take responsibility of your own happiness, never put it in hands of other people.

You can’t protect yourself from sadness without losing yourself in happiness because no medicine cures what happiness cannot. Don’t waste your time in anger, regrets, worries and grudges.

Life is too short too be unhappy. Be grateful to the people who make you happy, there are the charming gardeners who make your souls blossom.

Success is getting what you want but happiness is wanting what you get. Stop comparing yourself to other people, just choose to be happy and live your own life. The best way to stay happy is to make others happy. Do not set aside your happiness. Do not wait to be happy in the future. The best time to he happy is always now.

If you want to be happy, do not dwell in the past, do not worry about the future, focus on living fully in present…

There are wounds that never show on the body that are deeper and more hurtful than anything that weeds. The most painful thing is losing yourself in the process of loving someone too much, and forgetting that you are special too. Tears shed for another person are not a sign of weakness. They are the sign of a pure heart and the pain that it holds.

Some old wounds never truly heal and bleed again at the slightest words. Mental pain is less dramatic than physical pain, but it is more common and also more hard to bear.

The frequent attempt to conceal mental pain increases the burden. It is easy to say” My tooth is aching” than to say” My heart is broken”. Mostly the pain you feel now is the happiness you made before.

Waiting hurts. Forgetting also hurts. But not knowing which decision to take can sometimes be the most painful.

When you compare the pain of real life to the pleasure of the imaginary one, you will never want to live again, only to dream forever. If you can learn to endure pain, you can survive anything ,some people learn to embrace it to love it.

Some endure it through drawing it in source or by making themselves forget, others turn it into anger. Pain is only what you allow it to be. Just like there is always time for pain, there is always time for healing.

You can take pain and turn it into something beautiful, into something that people connect to. And that is what good music does. It speaks to you . It changes you.

Time doesn’t heal emotional pain, you need to learn how to let go. Our pains are the openings of the best and most beautiful part of us.

In times of stress, the best thing you can do for yourself is to listen with your ears and heart and to be assured that your questions are just as important as your answers.

Nothing is worth diminishing your health. Nothing is worth poisoning yourself into stress, anxiety and fear. Just when you feel you have no time to relax, know that this is the moment you most need to make time to relax.

The mind can go either directions under stress: towards positive or negative. Think of it like a spectrum whose extremes are unconsciousness at the negative end and hyper consciousness at the positive ends.

The way the mind will learn under stress is strongly influenced by training. Your body needs laughter of stress. The biggest enemy of willpower is stress. Self awareness, self care and remembering what matters most these three skills are the foundation for self control.

Your stress, anxieties, pains and problems arise because you don’t see the world, others or even yourself as worthy of love. Behind under stress is like being stranded in a body of water. If you panic,it will cause you to flail around so that the water rushes into your lungs and create further distress. Yet , by calmly collecting yourself and using controlled breathing you remain float with ease.

Stress is the trash of modern life ,we all generate it but if you don’t dispose of it properly, it will pile up and overtake your life…

Life is too short to waste any amount of time on wondering what other people think about you. In the first place, if they had better things going on it their lives, they would not have the time to sit around and talk about you.

What is important to you is not others opinions of you but what is important to you is your opinion of yourself. Live the life of your dreams.

When you start living the life of your dreams, there will always be obstacles, doubters, mistakes and set backs along the way. But with hard work, perseverance and self belief there is no limit to what you can achieve.

Believe it can be done. When you believe something can be done, really believe, your mind will find the ways to do it. Believing a solution paves the way to solution. If you think you can then you really can.

Everyone benefits from someone believing in them, because it helps them to believe in themselves but it doesn’t matter if thousands of people believe in you , unless you believe in you.

Until you believe in yourself nothing will be ,but the moment you believe in yourself everything will be. Your self belief is the magic mantra to get the strength to chase your dreams.

Lack of self confidence holds more people back than lack of opportunities. If you believe in yourself then you can do the impossible things possible.

There is more good in you than anything else. And you don’t see that because you are seeing everything else. To believe in one’s self is to take a worthwhile risk. The easiest way of making others believe in you is by believing in yourself.

BELIEVE IN YOURSELF…

He who has a why to live for, can bear almost any how. You can easily judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers. The scientist is not a person who gives the right answer, he is one who asks the right questions.

Life is filled with unanswered questions, but it is the courage to seek those answers that continues to give meaning to life. You would rather have questions that can’t be answered than answers that can’t be questioned.

Courage does not happen when you have all the answers. It happens when you are ready to face the questions you have been avoiding your whole life.

Never give up on someone, sometimes the answers you are looking for are the same answers another person is looking for. Two people searching together are always better than one person alone.

Question are great but only if you know the answers . If you ask questions and the answers suprise you, you look silly. The wilderness holds answers to more questions that we have yet learned to ask.

Good books make you ask questions but bad readers want everything to be answered. There are no foolish questions and no man becomes a fool until he has stopped questioning. The most important questions in life can never be answered by anyone except oneself and that is you.

At the end of the day, the questions we ask for ourselves determine the type of person that we will become. There are some questions that should not asked until a person is mature enough to appreciate the answers. Wait for the right person and right time…

The only limits in your life are those you impose on ourselves. You can never read all the books you want. You can never be all the people you want and live all the lives you have. You can never train yourself in all the skills you want but you want to live and feel all the shades, tones and variations of mental and physical experience possible in your limit.

Belive in your infinite potential. Your only limitations are those you set upon yourself. You are worthy of all that you dream of and hope for.

When you reach for the stars, you are reaching for the farthest thing out there. When you reach deep into yourself, it is the same thing, but in the opposite direction. If you reach in both directions ,you will have spanned the universe.

If you spend your life concentrating on what everyone else would think of you ,you will forget who you really were and the face you show to this world turns out to be a mask with nothing beneath it.

Your personal thoughts close off or open up your reality. Make a conscious choice to change the way you think. Your reality will then become limitless. A limit on what you will do, puts a limit on what you can do. When you choose to have limits ,you limit yourself for growth, knowledge and experience.

Everyday try to push your limits. Do this for small tasks and for your bigger long term goals. Develop the growth mindset ,everyone’s time is limited.

What matters most is to focus on what matters most. The number of ways to live in our lifetime is limitless. As the sun knows even the sky is not the limit.

Peace begins when expectation ends. Treat a man as he is and he will remain as he is. When you stop expecting people to be perfect, you can like them for who they are. I’m not in this world to live up to your expectations and you are not in this world to live up to mine.

You are your own worst enemy. If you can learn to stop expecting impossible perfection, in yourself and in others, you may find happiness. Don’t swim in the sea of others expectation.

Stop expecting others to show you love, acceptance, commitments and respect because a wonderful gift may not be wrapped as you expect. The pretty once are usually unhappy. They expect everyone to be enameled of their beauty. You can’t be content when your happiness lies in someone else’s hands.So don’t give your happiness in others hands in the name of expectation.

It is good when all you have is hope and not expectation. The fruit of expectation is more bitter than the saddest truth. The key in letting go is practice . Each time you let go, you stop expecting and start accepting things as they are.

Expect more from yourself than from others because expectation from others will just hurt you. Don’t blame people for disappointing you, blame yourself for expecting too much from them. Life is easier when you stop expecting things to get better.

Sometimes we create our own heart breaks through expectation.

There are two ways to be happy : improve your reality, or lower your expectations.Choose one and lead a happy life…