Focus on Self-reliance To Navigate Global Turbulence, Vaishnaw Tells Policymakers
There is a need to maintain steadfast focus on the nation's goals and economic growth, he said
New Delhi: Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw on Thursday advocated an approach of self-reliance and a firm resolve to navigate the global turbulence, saying that there is a need to maintain steadfast focus on the nation's goals and economic growth. “An important question on the mind of every policymaker today is how to effectively deal with rapid changes unfolding globally at the moment,” he said while speaking at the 12th Annual Public Affairs Forum of India (PAFI) event here.
“We must keep our focus very clear on what we want to achieve in our country. How do we want to grow our economy, strengthen ourselves, so that the storm which is there in the world. We should be strong enough to absorb those and pass our ship through those big storms. The Prime Minister has articulated a strong focus on growth supported by an approach of ‘atmanirbharta’ or self-reliance. We must embrace the things, which are produced in India, Made-in-India, in a very big way,” the minister said.
Addressing the event, Vaishnaw also emphasised on consistent focus on developing talent. “In telecom, we had set up 100 5G labs. In semiconductor, we took a target of 100 universities where the world's latest tools would be used by students for training and we achieved 278 universities where the students are actually using world's latest EDA tools, Synopsys, Cadence, Siemens, they are using this and the first set of 20 chips designed by students tapped out, validated, tested...Student-designed chips were presented to the PM during the Semicon conference,” he said.
Vaishnaw also urged the audiences to mull over the next round of reforms in income tax. “Give your inputs to the finance ministry, because we wanted to take the first round as complete simplification of the way the Act is written, so that gives you a good baseline and then the next rounds of simplification can continue to happen,” he said.
On India’s semiconductor mission, he said that the number of chips designed by students now stands at 28. “Nowhere in the world will you find an ecosystem or a talent development program on as big a scale and as deep in capabilities as our semicon mission is currently taking up,” he said.
