Universities Must Breed Innovation

Lieutenant Governor, Manoj Sinha has laid the foundation stone for the Innovation Tower at the University of Jammu on 29th January. This is a strong message that the union territory of Jammu and Kashmir is moving ahead with a mission to embrace the future with focus on the value addition. Value addition in terms of capacity building is a must to keep pace  with  the new age challenges and  to equip the society with the requisite human resource than can innovate and think out of the box. As time is changing. In order keep pace with the complex challenges in day to day life humans need to face them with local wisdom. Pandemic has forced us to bank upon the traditional wisdom as the non –indigenous interventions to tackle the problems have failed. India has proven many times that the ancient wisdom has served humanity well. Be it Ayurveda or traditional agricultural practices; India has given new hope to humanity. This Innovation Tower intended to serve as the central hub for transformational innovation, incubation ,skill development  entrepreneurship  will be a game changer in Jammu and Kashmir provided the best brains are identified to lead the  youth. So that the young innovators can be patronised by the leaders in skill development. The traditional way of imparting university education needs the value addition. As the accumulation of the bogus research credentials by publishing the research papers without any knowledge of the operational dynamics on the ground has spoiled the university education. Thus making it redundant. In this pseudo race guided by the cartels that thrive on this bogus scholarship destroy the originality of the young minds and end up cultivating lobbies. That bar the entry of the eligible original thinkers and scholars into the university system. Only those people must be in the forefront of leading these innovation centres who have established credentials of originality. It will develop a brand out of such Innovation Centres. This initiative is a welcome move. As it will end the frustration among the youth who are either denied entry into the traditional employment opportunities or who are bypassed by the selection process. Jammu and Kashmir is indeed making its mark all over India and creating new milestones in terms of skill development. The Agri- Business Incubator under the ageis of RKVY-RAFTAAR functioning at the Division of Agricultural Economics and Agri-Business Management (AE & ABM) at the SKUAST-Jammu is another success story. It has stood the test of the time and is developing new age agri-business entrepreneurs to diversify the reach of the agricultural technology and creating new horizons for the agri products. This success story when multiplied with the initiative of the University of Jammu will surely create a new landscape for the “Naya Jammu  and Kashmir”. Youth have to be sensitised that universities are not only meant for acquiring the degrees but adding value to degrees .So that they can create market gaze for themselves and develop a critical mass that is pan –Indian. New India needs the human resource that can make India march confidently as a resurgent economic power. We hope that this flagship project of the University of Jammu will encourage other universities in Jammu and Kashmir to enrich the university education system that thinks out of box  and has a capability to design the degrees that are market oriented  and having an ear to the ground. So that the students coming out of the universities in Jammu and Kashmir and rest of India don’t end up frustrated and dejected for the want of employment.