HRD Minster Arjun Singh inaugurates conference on Indian education - EDGE 08

The conference, being held in New Delhi from March 3-5, 2008 with the theme of Emerging Directions in Global Education, was inaugurated by Union HRD Minister Mr Arjun Singh on March 3.

Inaugurating the conference, Union Minster Mr Arjun Singh emphasized on making more investment on higher education and finding out the working solutions for entry and regulation of foreign institutes.

Also present on the occasion were Mr Rod Pryde, Regional Director, British Council India and Srilanka, Dr Ramdas Pao, Chairman, MEMG International India, Dr Kasturirangan, MP Rajya Sabha & Director-NIAS and Prod V N Rajasekhran Pillai, Vice Chancellor, IGNOU.

On the occasion India Education Vision document was released by Mr Arjun Singh. This vision document is the outcome of the deliberations held by members of the vision group and academic programme committee of EDGE conference shared by Dr Kasturirangan, MP Rajya Sabha & Director-NIAS.

The conference is scheduled to discuss key topics like innovative financing solutions for education infrastructure, emerging technologies and human resources. Some of the key speakers include: Dr. Ramdas Pai, Chairman, MEMG International India; Dr. Bhalchandra Mungekar, Member, Planning Commission,Govt. of India; Mr. Anand Sudarshan MD & CEO, Manipal Education; Mr. Martin Davidson, CMG ; Chief Executive, British Council; Mr. P. Raghuraman; Country Manager Emerging Businesses, Personal Systems Group, Hewlett-Packard India Sales Pvt. Ltd. and Mr. K. Ramkumar, Group-Chief Human Resources Officer, ICICI Bank Limited.

Talking about the background of the conference, EDGE says, Education forms the backbone of a nation and is one of the most important indicators of a countrys growth and development. Today we need to prepare the Indian Education Sector for producing large pool of students who are well equipped in various streams of knowledge and well trained. Themed as the Internationalizations of Indian Education, EDGE 08 is aimed at exploring new ways to meet the emerging challenges.