Indo-US scientists jointly finds for COVID 19 solutions, Mission Karmayogi-a National Programme for Civil Services Capacity Building (NPCSCB), Government Blocks 118 Mobile Apps under Prejudicial to Sovereignty and Integrity of India

September 3, 2020 · Param IAS Team

Daily News

Indo-US scientists jointly finds for COVID 19 solutions

  • Eleven teams of Indian and US scientists will soon start jointly scouting for out of the box solutions ranging from novel early diagnostic tests, antiviral therapy, drug repurposing, ventilator research, disinfection machines, and sensor-based symptom tracking for COVID 19.
  • The teams have been selected to take up these initiatives through a rigorous binational review process of proposals received for an invitation under COVID-19 Ignition Grants in April 2020 issued by the U.S.-India Science and Technology Endowment Fund (USISTEF).
  • The USISTEF has been established by the Government of India (through the Department of Science & Technology) and the governments of the United States of America (through the Department of State) for the promotion of joint activities that would lead to innovation and entrepreneurship through the application of science and technology.
  • The joint U.S.-India S&T based entrepreneurial teams will work on initiatives that address the development and implementation of new technologies, tools, and systems to address COVID-19 related challenges including monitoring, diagnosis, health and safety, public outreach, information and communication.
  • As countries battle the COVID-19 pandemic, innovations in Science, Engineering, and Technology will play a critical role in finding solutions to this global challenge through the development of new vaccines, devices, diagnostic tools, and information systems, as well as strategies to help communities and nations manage and deploy resources to combat this pandemic.
  • In keeping with its’ mission and vision, the USISTEF announced the Call for Proposals under the category of COVID-19 Ignition Grants with the intent to support promising joint U.S.-India S&T based entrepreneurial initiatives to address the COVID-19 challenge.
  • The mission of the United States–India Science & Technology Endowment Fund is to support and foster joint applied R&D to generate public good through the commercialisation of technology developed through partnerships between U.S. and Indian researchers and entrepreneurs to help combat this pandemic.

Mission Karmayogi-a National Programme for Civil Services Capacity Building (NPCSCB)

  • Mission Karmayogi-a National Programme for Civil Services Capacity Building (NPCSCB)by the Union Cabinetwill go a long way in creating a new future ready civil service for a New India.
  • It is an endeavour to incarnate civil services into a real Karmayogi who is Creative, Constructive, Pro-active and Technically Empowered to face the future challenges.
  • This is also aimed at ending the culture of working in silos and to overcome the multiplicity of training modules.
  • The historic passage of National Recruitment Agency on 19thAugust, 2020, the Mission Karmayogi will prove to be the largest Civil Services Reform in the world in terms of depth and spread.

Salient Features NPCSCB:

NPCSCB has been carefully designed to lay the foundations for capacity building for Civil Servants so that they remain entrenched in Indian Culture and sensibilities and remain connected, with their roots, while they learn from the best institutions and practices across the world. The Programme will be delivered by setting up an Integrated Government Online Training-iGOTKarmayogi Platform.

The core guiding principles of the Programme will be:

  1. Supporting Transition from 'Rules based' to 'Roles based' HR Management. Aligning work allocation of civil servants by matching their competencies to the requirements of the post.
  2. To emphasise on 'on-site learning' to complement the ‘off-site’ learning,
  3. To create an ecosystem of shared training infrastructure including that of learning materials, institutions and personnel,
  4. To calibrate all Civil Service positions to a Framework of Roles, Activities and Competencies (FRACs) approach and to create and deliver learning content relevant to the identified FRACs in every Government entity,
  5. To make available to all civil servants, an opportunity to continuously build and strengthen their Behavioral, Functional and Domain Competencies in their self-driven and mandated learning paths.
  6. To enable all the Central Ministries and Departments and their Organizations  to directly invest their resources towards co-creation  and sharing the collaborative and common ecosystem of learning through an annual financial subscription for every employee,
  7. To encourage and partner with the best-in-class learning content creators including public training institutions, universities, start-tips and individual experts,
  8.  To undertake data analytics in respect of data emit provided by iGOT- Karmayogi  pertaining  to  various  aspects  of capacity  building,   content creation, user feedback and mapping of competencies and identify areas for policy reforms.

Mission Karmayogi aims to prepare the Indian Civil Servant for the future by making him more creative, constructive, imaginative, innovative, proactive, professional, progressive, energetic, enabling, transparent and technology-enabled. Empowered with specific role-competencies, the civil servant will be able to ensure efficient service delivery of the highest quality standards.