Union Minister presents the 8th INSPIRE – MANAK Awards during a virtual ceremony

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The Union Minister of Science & Technology has presented the 8th INSPIRE – MANAK Awards during a virtual ceremony.

About INSPIRE-MANAK Awards

The INSPIRE-MANAK Awards is one of the components of the Innovation in Science Pursuit for Inspired Research (INSPIRE) Scheme.

Aim: To motivate students in the age group of 10-15 years and studying in classes 6 to 10 to become future innovators and critical thinkers.

Nodal Agencies: The award is being executed by the Department of Science & Technology(DST) with the National Innovation Foundation – India (NIF), an autonomous body of DST.

Coverage: Under this, students will be invited from all government or private schools throughout the country, irrespective of their educational boards (national and state) to send original and creative technological ideas/innovations.

Prize: The winning students will be awarded Rs.10,000 which will be disbursed directly into bank accounts under the Direct Benefit Transfer scheme.

About INSPIRE Scheme

INSPIRE is an innovative programme sponsored and managed by the Department of Science & Technology for the attraction of talent to Science. 

Objective: To communicate to the youth of the country about the excitement of the creative pursuit of science, attract talent to the study of science at an early age. Thus, build the required critical human resource pool for strengthening and expanding the Science & Technology system and R & D base.

Significance: A striking feature of the programme is that it does not believe in conducting competitive exams for the identification of talent at any level. It believes in and relies on the efficacy of the existing educational structure for the identification of talent.

Programs: The scheme covers students in the age group of 10-32 years and has three programs and five components. They are a) Scheme for Early Attraction of Talents for Science (SEATS), b) Scholarship for Higher Education (SHE) and c) Assured Opportunity for Research Careers(AORC).

Source: This post is based on the article “Union Minister presents the 8th INSPIRE – MANAK Awards during a virtual ceremony” published in PIB on 8th September 2021.