The 11 Indovation Centres will conduct research for IKS projects such as confirming and interpreting literature, as well as validating theories put forward in ancient periods.
The All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) intends to establish eleven such centres across the nation to carry out Indian Knowledge System (IKS) projects, which are a cornerstone of the Center’s new education policy, moving beyond innovation to what has been dubbed “indovation.”
As their primary job has been digitalized and is now managed from the headquarters, the eleven centres will be replacing the now-closed council’s regional offices, which until recently oversaw the approval process for higher education institutions in those regions.
“The indovation centres will be set up in 11 cities including – Kanpur, Bhopal, Bengaluru, Trivandrum, Hyderabad, Chennai, Chandigarh, Jaipur, Baroda, Kolkata and Guwahati. These cells will be carrying out research for IKS projects such as validating theories developed in ancient times, verifying old texts, and carrying out translations, among others,” said a senior official.
The regional offices, which were used for innovation and incubation, were shut down this year. The official continued, “Innovation under IKS will now be the key focus in these facilities.
The strategy is in keeping with National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, which places a strong emphasis on including Indian knowledge in curricula for higher education. The same year, the IKS division under AICTE was created for this purpose by the Union Ministry of Education (MoE).
The University Grants Commission (UGC) earlier this year released guidelines on IKS that mandate promotion of research and instruction at all levels of education, by developing and teaching new courses at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels.
The IKS guidelines that were released this April stated that the knowledge of the Vedas, Puranas and other ancient Indian texts can now fetch students credits under the National Credit Framework (NCrF). The guidelines under the framework shall be implemented in all higher education institutions across the country.
IKS can now be “creditised” under the NCrF at par with other fields of activities such as games and sports (Olympics, federation games, Asian Games etc), performing arts (dance, Indian classical music), master craftsmen of heritage and traditional skills and social work with high impact or in priority areas, among others.
The IKS tradition mentions 18 major vidyas, or theoretical disciplines and 64 kalas, applied sciences or vocational disciplines, crafts. The 18 vidyas include – the four vedas, the four subsidiary vedas (Ayurveda – medicine, Dhanurveda – weaponry, Gandharvaveda – music, shilpa – architecture), Purana, Nyaya, Mimamsa, Dharmsastra and Vedanga, the six auxiliary sciences, phonetics, grammar, metre, astronomy, ritual and philology. All of these together formed the basis of the 18 sciences in ancient India.
The ministry’s higher education department has already opened 13 IKS centres across the country for research and outreach activities under wide categories of subjects such as science, engineering, technology, health and wellness through ayurveda, yoga, naturopathy, psychology, linguistics, phonetics and epistemology, among others.
(Source: News 18)
