Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Jun 24, 2007
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Online edition of India's National Newspaper Sunday, Jun 24, 2007 ePaper |
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Karnataka
Staff Reporter
A SPECIAL OCCASION: Union Minister for Social Justice and Empowerment Meira Kumar, Infosys Chief Mentor N.R. Narayana Murthy, Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy and IIIT-B director S. Sadagopan at the graduation ceremony of SC/ST candidates conducted by Infosys and IIIT-B in Bangalore on Saturday.
BANGALORE: In a liberalised economy, affirmative action by industry, which includes reservation, must complement the public sector benefits for Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST), said Meira Kumar, Union Minister for Social Justice and Empowerment. Speaking of the successes of the private sector and the role of the Government in nurturing it with rebates and concessions, she said: “It is time the private sector volunteers and comes forward to supplement the efforts of the Government in creating an inclusive society.” Ms. Kumar was speaking at the graduation day for students of a “Special Training Programme” conducted by Infosys and the International Institute of Information Technology Bangalore (IIIT-B) for SC and ST students here on Saturday. Ms. Kumar said the Government had been in constant dialogue with the corporate sector on the issue of affirmative action in the last couple of years. There was now “recognition that merit is not a natural phenomenon but shaped by social circumstances”. The discussions about the form of affirmative action that the private sector was willing to take were “yet to crystallise” into action, she said. Certificates were given to 90 graduating students who had been selected for the training programme that concluded on April 30. Of these, 76 were placed with companies such as IBM, HP, Wipro and Infosys. “I would like to see Infosys make this a regular feature and upscale it to companies across the country,” Ms. Kumar said. Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy said: “Providing equal opportunities has been the main agenda of the Government, but much more needs to be done”. Rarely the private sector came forward in this regard, he said, acknowledging the initiative of Infosys and IIT-B in “empowering disadvantaged youth”. Mr. Kumaraswamy said the Karnataka State Vision Group should focus on economic empowerment in tier-II and tier-III cities and rural areas. “The IT sector must help the common man, especially in the areas of medicine and education,” he said. The training programme was a new experiment to raise the confidence of students and to demonstrate that “every student can add value to society”, said Infosys Chief Mentor N.R. Narayana Murthy. “There is the model of reservation. I wondered if there was any other model,” he said on how the programme was conceived. Widening gap
“We have created a body of knowledge that we hope is replicated”, said Mohandas Pai, Director, Human Resources. He said that this model would be scaled up and that five institutes had been identified throughout the country where the faculty would be trained and course curricula would be provided, in an initiative that would be part funded by Infosys. “There is a huge gap between what universities offer and what the industry expects, and this needs to be bridged if the industry is to grow. As the second fastest growing economy, there is the danger that we will run out of professionals. There has been an unprecedented increase in jobs, but there are more jobs than people,” he said. There was a need for a public private partnership in creating employability and opportunities, Mr. Pai added.
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