60 Students to be Mentored Under PM Innovative Programme ‘Dhruv’ at Isro HQ

Sixty select students from science, mathematics and performing arts streams will be part of a 14-day programme, which will start at Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) head office in Bengaluru on Thursday and conclude at IIT-Delhi on October 23. The selected students will be mentored by experts under the Prime Minister Innovative Learning Programme – “Dhruv”. On the lines of Dhruv initiative, Isro is also setting up space technology incubation centres and space research centres across the country to exploit the potential of children and youth of the country in space science.
Speaking on the eve of the launch, Union minister for human resource development Ramesh Pokhriyal said that this is an initiative towards creating future leaders for India to realise the vision of a $5 trillion dollar economy and provide solution to climate change. “The government through a rigorous selection process has identified 60 talented students from arts and science streams for the Prime Minister Innovative Learning Program – Dhruv. The students, who will be called Dhruv tara, will get together and have the opportunity to discuss major problems being faced by the global community,” Pokhriyal said.

“These students will brainstorm on challenges like global warming, climate change, glacial meltdown, water conservation and agricultural problems. This will be a push towards India’s quest to become a 5 trillion-dollar-economy,” the minister added.
On the lines of the “Dhruv”, Isro is also engaged in the process of setting up space technology incubation centres and research centres. The space agency, in collaboration with the Tripura government, has already set up an incubation centre in Agartala. The remaining centres are being set up in Jalandhar, Bhubaneswar, Nagpur, Indore and Tiruchirapalli.
Speaking about the incubation centres, Isro chairman K Sivan had told TOI, “These centres will promote start-ups and give thrust to innovations and research in space technologies. The centres will help start-ups develop prototypes of components in space systems in partnership with the industry. Isro will evaluate these prototypes and buy them depending upon their worthiness.”

“We are also planning to set up space research centres at Guwahati, Jaipur, Varanasi, Kurukshetra, Patna and Kanyakumari. The centres will focus on research and give a platform to the talented youths across the country to come up with bright ideas and do research on those ideas for developing space technologies,” added Sivan.
The Isro chairman, Prime Minister’s principal scientific adviser K Vijayraghavan, and the first Indian astronaut in space Wing Commander Rakesh Sharma (retired) will be present for the Dhruv initiative on Thursday.

Source: ToI

Image Courtesy: AIR (Twitter)