Taking emerging technologies to the rural populace
Author: BI Bureau
Chennai: Smart boards and videos can be wistful dreams for students of rural and low resource urban schools. But such dreams have come true for students of 450 schools in remote areas of Thiruvallur district of Tamil Nadu, which are accessing some of the best quality digital resources. This has been possible through Asha Kanini, an application to provide easy access to the best quality digital resources to enhance their classroom teaching experience. The application is network independent, supports most operating systems and devices, and can be customized to work with any language and curriculum.
Pravartak, a Technology Innovation Hub supported by the Department of Science and Technology (DST) under the National Mission on Interdisciplinary Cyber Physical Systems (NM-ICPS) at IIT Madras and Asha Chennai, a public charitable trust that works for education of the underprivileged, are spreading the use of Asha Kanini to all government schools, by running a pilot program in Thiruvallur district. They aim to make it available for all the schools in Tamil Nadu and the rest of India.
The two organisations have come together to launch Pravartak Asha Rural Technology Centres (RTC) at Seethanjeri and Kanakamma Chathiram in Tiruvallur district, which will take Computer Science Literacy to remote government schools and enable tapping of the potential of school students in rural areas. A total of 25 more RTCs are being planned in the coming years across Tamil Nadu.
Along with eleven other entrepreneurial start-up companies, Pravartak launched a consortium in the deep tech and engineering domain under the mission I-STAC DB - Indian Space Technologies and Applications Consortium Design Bureau. It will focus on building an end-to-end Atmanirbhar ecosystem for space technologies including on-demand access to space, rapid launch capability, satellites, sensors, future generation communication such as 6G, satellite data, and its applications.
The consortium will work on space vehicle design and manufacturing, multiple and rapid rocket launch capabilities, satellite design, manufacturing, assembly and fabrication, software, hardware, and communication components, security systems of satellites in the form of cyber or communication security and physical security as well as ground stations, data processing, assimilation for communication and geospatial application sectors.
The RASA (Regenerative Agriculture Stack Architecture), a proposed technology stack initiated by Pravartak in collaboration with BNY Mellon will aid the farmers to monitor and fine-tune their cultivation and harvest process in a proactive manner so as to realize maximum benefits. The stack will comprehensively address the entire farm-to-kitchen cycle, including pre-cultivation, cultivation, harvest, storage or shipment, marketing and payment. /BI/
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The exports of agricultural commodities from March to June 2020 shot up by 23.24 percent on-year to Rs 25,552.7 crores.
As the economy comes to a standstill amid the coronavirus-led lockdown, India’s agriculture sector has taken the baton of economic growth in its hands. The exports of agricultural commodities from March to June 2020 shot up by 23.24 percent on-year to Rs 25,552.7 crores, according to the Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare. The government said that self-reliant agriculture is critical for the goal of an Atmanirbhar Bharat and for this, agricultural export is extremely important as besides earning foreign exchange for the country, the exports help farmers, producers, and exporters to take advantage of the wider international market and increase their income.
The surge in exports has also resulted in increased production in the farm sector by increasing coverage area and productivity. The share of India’s agricultural exports and imports in the world agriculture trade in 2017 was 2.27 percent and 1.90 percent, respectively. Even during the difficult time of pandemic lockdown, India took care not to disturb the world food supply chain and continued to export, the government said.
Ministry of Agriculture has prepared a comprehensive action plan for the promotion of Agri trade; the twofold approach focuses on boosting Agri Export with emphasis on value addition and action plan for Import Substitution. Recently, the Agriculture sector has witnessed a series of reforms, giving more choices to the farmers to sell their produce at competitive rates.
To mention a few, the Export strategy focuses on the export promotion of fast-evolving niche markets of Wellness food/ Health-conscious food/nutraceuticals, Development of “Brand India” in campaign mode to help penetration into new foreign markets and of new products which automatically translates into higher value realization, Gulf countries have been identified as focus destination to increase the market share which is a strong market for India though presently India caters to only 10-12% share of their total imports. A product-market matrix has been made containing a list of products of strength that could be expanded in new geographies and a list of known markets which can be introduced with newer products.
At the behest of the Department of Agricultural Cooperation & Farmers’ Welfare, Ministry of Agriculture, product-specific Export Promotion Forums have been created to lead Agri exports to new heights. Each Export Promotion Forum shall be having exporters of the related commodity as its members along with official members representing concerned Ministries/Departments of the Central and State Governments. Chairman APEDA shall be the chairman of each of these forums. The forums will meet at least once every two months, to discuss recommendations on issues pertaining to the export.
The recommendations of the forum will be placed in the product committee / Authority of APEDA. The Forum will keep in close contact with the concerned organization of the Ministry of Agriculture such as MIDH, Extension, NPPO, etc., DGFT, Ministry of Civil Aviation, MoFPI, etc. to further the interest of agricultural export.
