Centre changed Padma selection procedure to acknowledge unsung heroes: Jitendra Singh at NIF

Prime Minister Modi has given a new direction to not only science technology innovation, but also in celebrating science and honouring, felicitating those who really deserve it in letter and spirit, he added.

Further, stressing on the role of rural economy and applauding India’s transformation from the ‘Fragile Five’ to the ‘First Five’ and its soon-to-be fourth place in the global economy, he said that for 2047, value-addition will happen through resources, which were either left unexplored or underexplored by the earlier governments and which have started receiving due attention only after PM Modi came in 2014.

“It is obvious that you cannot reach that pedestal if you leave your rural resources unexplored or inadequately explored. For that, it is important that you make available for the rural areas, similar technologies, similar facilities, which have been made available for the urban resources.

“India’s science and scientists enjoy an esteem, not only domestically but internationally which they had perhaps never enjoyed before. I don’t think in the recent history of independent India, there would be an instance of a Prime Minister making an appeal to the common sector for the cause of science. This is one of the better times happening for science, and that is how our innovation is now getting projection and acceptance across the world. And therefore, at a time like this, the National Innovation Foundation gains special significance in the light of India’s upward trajectory. National Innovation Foundation provided risk capital to 238 innovation projects, risk capital no one gives but NIF. national innovation foundation is also one of the rare institutions which has groomed such rare grass root innovators,” he stated.

Complimenting the National Innovation foundation for its initiative Asia India Grassroot Innovation Forum and Asia India Innovation platforms, which are dedicated to the purpose of grassroots innovations, the MoS said, “By doing all this, you’re also living up to Prime Minister Modi’s India decade vision, emphasising the role of technology in empowering across the sections of society, not leaving innovation to handful of the upper strata.”