Create jobs where the job-seekers are

G Krishna Kumar  April 16, 2014:   Lead Edit Page , The Hindu Business Line ( Page 8)

A recent TV programme that reviews the work of MPs in their constituencies threw up an interesting fact — the chief concern raised by people across constituencies was the lack of job opportunities — not corruption nor infrastructure issues. A clear message that people need jobs rather than freebies.

The finance minister recently said the unemployment rate has fallen and is about 5.5 per cent. Chidambaram added that the UPA has fared much better than the NDA, though the absolute number of jobs created had not increased during the UPA regime. How? Perhaps the reduced unemployment rate can be attributed to people taking up jobs out of desperation — jobs with no relevance to their field of study or specialisation.

Instances of engineering graduates joining the insurance sector and educated people in the rural areas taking up manual labour are common these days. A labour ministry report says many people in employment are actually overqualified for the job they are doing and, therefore, society is losing valuable skills and forfeiting stronger productivity growth than would have been achieved.

Employability

India produces over 7 lakh engineering graduates every year; over 60 per cent of them don’t find relevant jobs. Questions have been raised on the quality of graduates, their employability. On an average, over 10 lakh people will enter the job market every month over the next decade and this number is expected to rise. The much-hyped demographic dividend must be used effectively, before it is too late. But where are the jobs?

The job market is primarily a factor of demand (for skilled people) and supply (availability of the right people). Reports suggest that the situation is quite alarming, with over 25 per cent of under-30 degree, diploma or other certificate holders unemployed. In contrast, it has been argued in recent reports that unavailability of the “right” talent is costing the economy a whopping Rs 53,000 crore and that India’s talent adaptability ranking is among the lowest. The new government will have to quickly address this severe demand-supply mismatch.

India’s biggest challenge has been the low-productivity agriculture sector that employs 50 per cent of the people, but accounts for just 14 per cent of GDP. There has been a constant decline in agriculture-based employment over the past two decades, with people shifting to non-farm jobs in labour-intensive areas, such as manufacturing and construction.

The MGNREGA and the Pradhan Mantri Gramin Sadak Yojna are only helping more people take up non-farm jobs. But a CRISIL report states that incremental non-farm employment is expected to decrease more than 25 per cent to 38 million in FY 2013-19 as the economy has been treading a lower-growth path.

High productivity services sectors such as finance, insurance and business services, including the IT sector, provide employment for only 3 per cent of the population, yet account for about 20 per cent of GDP. However, these industries have limitations in adding millions of jobs every year in a highly competitive global environment.

What needs to be done?

India needs a multi-pronged ‘rural-oriented’ strategy to improve the employment scenario. First, the Government should focus on improving farm productivity. With over two-thirds of the population living in the rural hinterland, the focus must be on using science and technology to improve farm output.

Countries like Australia and New Zealand spend heavily on farm R&D. Seventy per cent of the value of farm output in such countries arises from the various sources of productivity growth, such as improvements in infrastructure and communications, higher quality inputs, and new technologies from research and extension activities.

Some advanced counties are even encouraging urban agriculture as a key theme, including production, processing and distribution of agricultural produce.

Considering India’s demography, just replicating ideas from other countries may not work; instead, the concepts must be adapted to improve productivity.

India also needs major changes in rural infrastructure — better roads, and a reliable power supply and communications set-up.

Second, it is time policy was tweaked to enable indigenous manufacturing and thereby generate significant job opportunities. Isn’t it intriguing that India does not have the infrastructure to manufacture mobile phones indigenously?

There is certainly an opportunity for India to become a dominant player in the global manufacturing sector. Should it adopt the German model, in which public and private sectors work together and generate jobs? Or focus on creating a good ecosystem for cottage/ small-scale industries to flourish — maybe with learning from Japan? There is an urgent need for the right government policies and impetus to spur job creation in the large manufacturing sector.

 

Placement targets

Third, skill development initiatives such as the National Skill Development Corporation’s (NSDC) programme to create employment-ready people are very important. Although NDSC has not met the job skilling and placement targets so far, this initiative must be pursued with greater vigour going forward to achieve the skilling target of 350 million by 2022.

The Government formed the National Skill Development Agency (NSDA) to support the NSDC by coordinating with it to create a framework for skill development. Eventually, the success of any such initiative is determined solely by employability.

It is imperative that the government accords the right priority to removing policy hurdles to create job opportunities, mainly in the rural areas. This, along with an increased focus on skill development, is urgently needed to address the serious demand-supply mismatch.

The writer is Advisor, Centre for Educational and Social Studies. Views are personal

(This article was published on April 15, 2014)

 

Symphony Teleca crafts solutions for a connected, mobile world

Symphony Teleca crafts solutions for a connected, mobile world   (http://www.indiatechonline.com/it-happened-in-india.php?id=1245)

From iPhone audio to in-car systems to dual screen phones, India-based engineers have contributed to the company's innovative solutions

Bangalore December 31, 2013: For Palo Alta ( California, US)-headquartered Symphony Teleca --
the world's first services company focused on creating products at the convergence of software, mobility and the cloud-- buzzwords like Internet of Things, Machine to Machine and Smart Metering are more than the stuff of year end crystal ball gazing. They are workaday technologies that the company harnesses in the service of software vendors, mobile device and solutions manufacturers worldwide, as its engineers turn today's bright ideas into tomorrow's cutting edge products.
"There is a continuing evolution in how everything works with everything else in the home -- from smart TVs to smart metering", says Andrew Till, Symphony Teleca's UK-based Senior Vice President and head of the Mobile and Media Devices Business Unit, " I see 4G and 4G+ driving a whole new generation of personalized services built rich multimedia and location/context aware cloud-based platforms."
Thanks to its good relationship with Google, Symphony Teleca has rolled out over 600 Android apps since 2007, making important contributions to its performance and stability. A big chunk of the company's solutions have been around Android at home with five anchor customers in the burgeoning field of smart metering.
Retail, telecom, automotive, healthcare, and energy are some of the areas where mobility is the name of the new game -- and the company has contributed innovation in all these areas, Till says.

Key software to manage the YotaPhone, the world's first dual screen phone --an LCD touch screen on one side and an electronic paper display on the other -- was created at the India labs of Symphony Teleca, adds G. Krishna Kumar, Vice President Engineering, Mobile and connected Devices . Indian engineers brought their Android platform expertise to bear, to improve power management, manage the dual displays. If users could read long news articles and social networking updates and display photos, stock quotes etc on the EPD without draining the phone’s battery or having to constantly “wake up” their smartphones, it was thanks to the tight integration of the EPD into the phone software.
In other arenas too the Indian end of Symphony Teleca has contributed significant chunks of software innovation, Krishna Kumar adds. The Pune centre has special expertise that has flown into Symphony's connected car solutions; while Bangalore-based engineers have contributed software to the Wolfson chip which fuels the audio on the iPhone.

 

Learning from the Germans

G Krishna Kumar, Vasishta Haavanur | Updated: Nov 18 2013, 12:06 IST

Summary
India will do too well to adopt a skill development-based education system like the one Germany follows

The Union HRD minister recently stated that India has the potential to become the worldwide hub for sourcing skilled labour, apart from meeting the country’s demand. While this is indeed possible, India faces significant challenges around skill development and employability. The recent article “India’s skill will conundrum” (goo.gl/15k0lh) in a leading newspaper provides some insights on the challenges in India’s skill development.

It is well known that India is set to become the youngest country by 2020 with an average age of 29 years. Empirical data suggests that the presence of large percentage of working-age labour force, also called India’s “demographic dividend”, would greatly stimulate economy and growth. It is time to look afresh at the broad education framework in the country and imbibe some of the best-in-class education systems in the world to improve skills and employability in the country.

In this backdrop, how about learning from Germany? Germany has the best employment-oriented education system in the world through its Duales Ausbildungssystem or the dual system of vocational education and training (DSVET).

Global adoption of DSVET
The DSVET, pioneered by Germany allows youth to pursue over 350 apprenticeship occupations like assistants to doctors or assistant in a legal firm or specific jobs in manufacturing industries. It provides skills to the youth without a degree, thereby providing them a great opportunity to enter the labour market.
Germany’s Federal Ministry of Education and Research states that 66% of the school students enter the dual system and the entire program is mostly financed by the German companies. The course combines practical apprenticeships in a company and theoretical vocational education at a school. The duration of the theory and practical aspects vary from a few days to months. This system allows the student to be a quasi-employee of the company from the beginning, and based on individual interest and performance, a student could find full time employment.
The European Commission states that work-based learning, such as dual approaches, should be a central pillar of vocational education with the aim of reducing youth unemployment. The time-tested DSVET has been replicated in many European countries like France with positive results. Many of the countries affected by the European crisis are looking at the DSVET for improving employability. Interestingly, while countries like Greece and Spain have over-50% unemployment rates, Germany has managed to keep it at less than 8%. Although many experts attribute the low unemployment rate in Germany to its strong economy and more aged population, DSVET certainly has certainly contributed to better employability in the country.
A news report suggests that China has recently started DSVET and the results are encouraging. It is quite astonishing that some form of DSVET system has been in India since the early 1990s! The Indo-German Training Center (IGTC), which is part of the Indo-German Chamber of Commerce, is credited with bringing the system to India. Isn’t it unfortunate then that only around 100 students pass out of this system every year?

Challenges in replicating DSVET
It is quite intriguing that despite considerable effort from Germany in propagating the DSVET in other countries, the model has been successful only in a few countries. Why? Adopting the dual system involves more than mere duplication. Existing skill development framework needs to be overlapped with DSVET by considering the country’s educational, social and economic objectives. Besides, industry-academia relationship is crucial for a successful DSVET system. In addition, the government’s willingness and the availability of mass-employment generating industry are extremely important.

What needs to be done in India
India needs a three-pronged strategy to adapt the VET system. First, a strong career counselling system should be developed at the secondary school level. In Germany, segregation of children based on their abilities is carried out in the 6th grade. It is certainly debatable if a kid’s future should be decided at the age of 11 or 12 years. In India, we need schools to monitor and provide career counselling to the students when they are in 10th standard. This would help identify students who can pursue regular higher education and the ones who should take the DSVET route.
Second, we need to develop a system that will encourage industry bodies to own the DSVET initiative, including the decision on the syllabus for theory and practical training. Maybe, the mandatory CSR contribution from companies can be used effectively this way. Further, the HRD ministry and the All India Council for Technical Education could collaborate with the Indo-German Chamber of Commerce and come up with an implementation plan along with the leading industry bodies in the country. Perhaps such an exercise will help in strengthening the government’s initiatives like the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC), the National Vocational Education Qualifications Framework (NVEQF). As a pilot, the DSVET initiative could taken up in a highly industrialised state like Tamil Nadu or Maharashtra and a state with a low level of industrialisation like Bihar or Odisha.
Third, with the advancement in ICT, students could attend theory classes using the Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) platform that provides a classroom-like environment. Perhaps companies associated with the DSVET program could provide tablets to the students to make use of the MOOC platform.
Summing up, India has a great opportunity to utilise the demographic dividend and improve skills, thus providing employment opportunities to the youth. However, for capitalising this opportunity, India should look at strengthening the existing education and training system and perhaps time to learn from the Germans. Can we see an Indianised DSVET soon?

G Krishna Kumar & Vasishta Haavanur

The authors are Bangalore-based IT professionals. Views are personal
 

India's Skill Will Conundrum

By G Krishna Kumar

 

Published: 01st October 2013 07:25 AM

Sample this: 50 per cent of India’s population is below 24 years of age. India is set to become the youngest country by 2020 with an average age of 29, while all major global economies are between 37-48. India is expected to add 200 million in the working-age group of 15-64 years between 2015 and 2050.
Reports suggest that the presence of large percentage of working-age labour force, also called “demographic dividend”, could greatly stimulate growth and prosperity. How can India capitalise on the demographic dividend over the next three decades? That India needs a strong focus on skill enhancement is given. The government should take a holistic view of workforce demand-supply and support growth in existing/new industries for sustainable economic development.
In addition to the government’s role, willingness from business/industry and the people (the Gen Next) are critical in improving the talent pool and thus employability in the country.
It is extremely important that the government provides the right framework to improve education, right from the primary level. In spite of many government programmes like Sarva Siksha Abhiyan, RTE and others, only 18.8% of the population are qualified above secondary level and in the rural areas, it is only 14.7%.
The enrolment rate in primary school is an encouraging 96%, but the dropout rate is rather high. A recent news report states that 80 million children drop out without completing basic schooling in India. Even worse, the dropout rate after the 10th standard is over 57%. The major reasons for the high dropout rates in primary or higher level include financial crunch at home, lack of quality teachers and infrastructure, distance between home and school, among others. Can the government enforce families receiving food security benefits to compulsorily enrol children in schools and thus reduce dropout rates?
The quality of students is a concern, their inability to solve even basic arithmetic problems especially. Children in India are subjected to rote learning. The ones in the 5-10 age group may seem smarter than their counterparts in other nations. But, when we consider those in the 15-16 bracket, the picture differs. For instance, India ranks among the last in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD) Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). The poor showing is attributed to lack of application-oriented learning.
Can the government water down the over-whelming syllabus, modify it to encourage critical thinking and enable quality learning?
An ASER report suggests private schools are attracting more children in rural areas. Perhaps the government should create a framework and hand over some of the badly managed public schools to private institutions, with the right set of checks and balances should be in place.
Advancements in information and communications technology (ICT) can provide a possible “intervention” solution for improving quality of education including “teaching the teachers” through internet connectivity. Such programmes would also help strengthen concepts among students. The latest UN report says India is lagging behind in broadband penetration. The National Telecom Policy 2012’s vision of “right to broadband” is a step in the right direction. But, relevant localised content is still largely missing.
Although over 2 crore students are enrolled in high schools, there are only five or six options for pursuing an organised career growth. While a few options are oversold, awareness is lacking among the rest. Emotional quotient/intelligence quotient should be assessed for each student in 10th standard, followed up with counselling.
Despite the dropout rate, India manages to bring out lakhs of graduates/diploma and industrial training institute (ITI) degree holders. But, there are serious issues regarding employability as most graduates are unskilled or semi-skilled and lack soft skills. The government’s initiatives like the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC), national vocational education qualifications framework (NVEQF) are steps in the right direction. However, for this effort to be successful and sustainable, industry should own the skill enhancement/intervention programmes. Can the new companies bill mandating corporate social responsibility (CSR) be used effectively?
CSR initiatives must be result-oriented and measurable. Perhaps, the major industry bodies in India should take the lead in driving a model and mandate companies to work closely with NSDC, NVEQF, along with universities to encourage innovation, help improve skill levels and address employability challenges. In fact, depending on demand, some vocational courses could be converted into full-fledged ITI/diploma courses. Globally, there are several examples of strong industry-academia relationship resulting in mutual benefits. India needs to replicate it.
There are companies in India supporting skill enhancements in entrepreneurship and technology. But a system for experience sharing and bringing industries together is much needed. Most companies in India would have an in-depth understanding of human resource aspects like communication and co-working skills, career progression, assessments, counselling and mentoring. As part of CSR, can these be leveraged effectively to create intervention programmes and support students in colleges/universities?
Even if we assume the government and industry have taken the right steps to improve the quality of education and skill levels, it is critical that individuals have the willingness/desire to learn. Unlike earlier, the ICT era has ensured “anytime” information, thus learning is only limited by the individual’s interest. Also, the Internet-based massive open online course platform offers unprecedented choices.
With the new-age material aspirations driving youth, as in advanced countries, we could soon face challenges of “over-entertained” youth lacking social skills and work ethics. A strong social support system including a personal mentor is much needed to help the youth prioritise and remain focused. To benefit from the demographic dividend, the government should come up with an ICT based long-term plan for addressing the skill requirements by involving key stakeholders. The combined “will” of the government, industry and individual is needed for Gen Next.
The author is vice-president at Symphony Teleca.
Email: krishnak1@outlook.com

Karnataka records lowest mobile internet users

Tuesday, Sep 24, 2013, 13:03 IST | Place: Bangalore | Agency: DNA

Suparna Goswami Bhattacharya

Only 9.3% of users in the country are from Karnataka

Karnataka has the lowest mobile internet penetration in the country. According to data compiled by various reports by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, Karnataka has 9.3% mobile internet users in the country, which records the lowest percentage in India. At 33.67%, Maharashtra has the maximum number of mobile internet users, while Jammu and Kashmir stands second at 26.53%.
Surprisingly, when it comes to broadband subscribers, the state is among the top four in the country. Also, India’s mobile internet boom has begun with growth in the sale of smartphones. Though smartphone users have increased over 50% in the last year, the total smartphone users as a percentage of total subscribers is only 6-7%. For Karnataka, the figure stands at 2%.
Service providers, however, see a huge opportunity in Karnataka, since people here have always been more open to new technology.
“Our customers are largely the youth or upwardly mobile working professionals. In Karnataka, we see a 20% penetration or adoption of mobile internet services. With 3G services now available at 2G price, we look forward to a robust opportunity and growth providing better browsing experience,” says Rohit Tandon, MBU head – Karnataka Circle, Tata DOCOMO.
According to G Krishna Kumar, vice-president at the Bangalore Symphony Teleca, who also tracks the mobile sector in India closely, service providers need to be more active in spreading awareness among consumers in state.
“People in Bangalore and Mysore might actively use mobiles for internet surfing. However, the same might not be true for districts like Hubli and Dharwad. Hence, service providers need to increase awareness of mobile internet in these areas. The true impact of the technology on the society can be realised only if we have localised content that can help in improving education level,” says Kumar.
Also, some feel tablets are used more for internet use than mobiles. According to Rohit Malhotra, chief executive officer, Bharti Airtel, Karnataka Circle, there are around 10,000 tablets and 1.8 lakh smartphones that are sold in Karnataka.
“The overall tablet user base in the state is 1.5 lakh, which has grown by 150% in the last six months, and the overall smart phone user base is 4.5 million in the state that has grown by 35% in the last six months,” says Malhotra.

Realising India’s broadband dream

Financial Express, 24th Sep 2013, Edit & Column

SummaryAlthough uptake of mobile internet usage is encouraging, wire-line, wireless services must.

As per the 2013 edition of the State of Broadband report released recently, there are now more than 70 countries where over 50% of the population is online. The report emphasises that broadband internet has become a key tool for social and economic development, and points out an important caveat that 90% of the people in the world’s 49 least developed countries remain totally unconnected.
The Indian government set itself a target of 160 million broadband users by the year 2017 and 600 million by 2020. A quick look at the recent performance indicators published by Trai indicates the following: wire-line broadband subscription stands at a paltry 15 million with a maximum in Maharashtra at about 2.5 million; of these 15 million, 85% are provided through the digital subscriber loop (DSL) technology deployed by the fixed line service providers; wireless internet subscriptions has reached an astonishingly high number of 143 million with a maximum of about 14 million in UP. What is interesting is that while the top 10 states in wire-line broadband subscription accounted for about 80% of the total wire-line broadband in the country, the same set accounts for only 65% of mobile internet subscriptions. The above statistics indicate that mobile internet access is a possible substitute for wire-line broadband service. Going by the existing definition of 256 Kbps downlink speed, most of the mobile internet subscribers that use 3G services might qualify to be broadband subscribers. So, we seem to have almost reached the target set for next year, now itself!
What is the problem then?
Though NTP 2012 has a clause for the grand revision of the definition of broadband from 256 Kbps to 512 Kbps to 2 Mbps by 2015 and thereafter to 100 Mbps, the mobile internet access still crawls. Though Trai is yet to come up with detailed metrics for measurement of quality of service for data and internet services over mobile, the response time and call disconnects do not make it worth browsing content-heavy websites on our mobiles—unless of course we do not have a wire-line broadband service at home, which seems to be the case especially for those who live in suburban areas and less dense locations.
On the other hand, countries are marching ahead with improving broadband penetration levels, which research indicates has a positive correlation with economic development. While most of the European countries have mandated 100 Mbps broadband connections to homes, companies such as Google are experimenting with providing fibre-to-home with a speed of 1 Gbps in the US!
Amongst the OECD countries, Japan and Korea lead the pack with over 60% of the wire-line broadband deployed over optic fibre cables. However, despite opening up basic telecom services with no cap on the number of operators, the wire-line connectivity has not picked up in our country.
Is there any solution in sight?

Options for improving broadband penetration
First is the unbundling of the local loop by the incumbents about which Trai released its recommendations way back in April 2004 that will allow internet service providers and cable companies to lease the last mile/bandwidth of the incumbents to provide broadband access. Though unbundling has been touted as unsuccessful until recently, the regulators are using this policy to improve competition in an otherwise natural monopolistic market. Between 2005 and 2013, the number of unbundled lines in the UK has multiplied 70 times to about 9 million copper lines offering more than 24 Mbps. The competition in wire-line broadband has significantly increased leading to drop in prices by about 50% during this period.
With more than 90% of the 35-million-odd fixed lines being owned by the government operators (BSNL and MTNL), it is time that the government mandates unbundling to unlock value of these assets much like the above example to improve broadband penetration in the country.
Second, given the fragmented and minimal spectrum allocations to mobile operators, we can only dream of good broadband connectivity on our mobiles. Hence, release of more spectrum suitable for 3G and higher technologies is warranted. The recent policy reforms including making spectrum technology and service neutral is a welcome step encouraging the mobile operators to deploy wireless broadband technologies. However, the excessive fragmentation of spectrum and non-contiguous allocation prevents efficient implementation of broadband technologies and services. The average spectrum holding across bands per operator per service area in India stands at a paltry 2×10 MHz that is too little for effective broadband deployment with adequate quality of service. The government would do well by releasing more spectrum especially in the globally harmonised band of 2.1 GHz for 3G-based broadband services and assign contiguous spectrum for the refarmed 900 MHz spectrum in the upcoming auction.
Third is the innovative use of 4G spectrum and associated technologies such as long term evolution (LTE) by the operators. One option is to provide services similar to “MiFi” being offered by the operators in the UK and the US, where wireless long haul is provided typically through 4G-LTE network connection instead of the DSL landline. Thus, the MiFi routers are portable and flexible and can connect multiple Wi-Fi enabled devices such as smartphones, tablets and laptops. When enabled in public transport such as buses and trains, such MiFi routers provide the occupants with local Wi-Fi access, connecting them through the wireless backhaul to the internet. Applications such as the above require low frequency, better propagation spectrum in the 700 MHz range. This spectrum needs to be refarmed from the existing broadcast entities such as Doordarshan for mobile services as soon as possible as per Trai 2012 recommendations, so that quality broadband becomes a reality in our country.
To sum up, although the current uptake in mobile internet usage is encouraging, we need a much stronger push in both wire-line and wireless services as described above for India to realise its broadband dream.

V Sridhar is research fellow at Sasken Communication Technologies. G Krishna Kumar is vice-president at Symphony Teleca. Views are personal
 

Indifference is our way of patriotism

Published on Thursday, 22 August 2013 16:25 Daily Post, Editorial page
G krishna kumar
What is the opposite of ‘love’? The most straight forward answer is ‘hate’, but ‘indifference’ is an equally correct answer. We (Indians) provide a good example of ‘Indifference’ when it comes to patriotism. Gone are the days when it was mandatory for school children to participate in the Independence day celebrations. Not that the children understood the speeches, but the enthusiasm was palpable. Doordarshan would have grabbed the highest TRP considering people’s interest in watching the Independence Day parade. Now, Independence Day means shopping time with heavy discounts in Malls and retail outlets. Patriotic fervour is limited to hawkers selling plastic flags at traffic signals.

I always wonder why Indians are desperate to live or work abroad even though the standard of living has changed significantly over the past few years. Most embassies in India are crowded as though people are seeking asylum. A cover story in a leading magazine reveals how people spend lakhs of rupees to try to illegally migrate to America. We don’t care about racism, Indians are the number one permanent migrants in many countries. It doesn’t matter if more countries consider us as ‘risky’ and impose bond amount for Visa, we simply are obsessed to live abroad. Even today parents are proudest if their children are abroad. Why are we not as patriotic or proud as Japanese?

We have to shamefully agree that majority of the people including the literate populace in our country do not understand the meaning of our National Anthem. This is indeed unique to India. Perhaps we are in this state due to lack of emphasis on basic aspects of nationalism in the education system. Instead of politics dictating the curriculum, can we inculcate true nationalistic spirit among the children? Can we make it mandatory for every student above 5th standard to understand the meaning and thereby learn to respect the national Anthem?

Military personnel are undoubtedly most patriotic. Can we learn from them? How about implementing mandatory military service for say six months? This will certainly improve respect for the country and make youth far more disciplined. Considering the population it may be a tough ask to implement this. But, can we at least provide an opportunity for every student to interact with military personnel be it Army, Navy or Air Force to understand and appreciate how the armed forces are ensuring a safe India? Such inspiring touch-time programmes may also motivate students to join military service.