National Science Day 2019: HRD Ministry Launches STARS Scheme
The HRD Minister inaugurates the scheme STARS on National Science Day, in association with the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. The scheme will sponsor over 500 science projects with an approved fund of Rs. 250 crores.
Prakash Javadekar, the Union Human Resource Development Minister (HRD) of India, has launched a scheme called STARS on the occasion of the National Science Day on 28th February 2019. STARS stands for Scheme for Translational and Advanced Research in Science. Its aim is to provide funds for projects related to science. The ministry has agreed to finance this scheme with funds of about Rs. 250 crores.
More than 500 projects are expected to benefit from the funds of this scheme. Competitions will be held to decide which projects will qualify for being sponsored by STARS and the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore (IISc) will be coordinated with. The candidates who are interested in participating will be required to submit applications. The HRD Minister tweeted informing that these applications are estimated to release in the first week of the month of April.
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The National Science Day was the most appropriate opportunity to announce the launch of the scheme, STARS. It is celebrated on the 28th February every year to commemorate Sir C. V. Raman. Sir Raman was an Indian physicist who went on to win a Nobel prize for his remarkable work in physics. He was awarded a Nobel prize in the year 1930 for his discovery of the ‘Raman Effect’. He proved that light scatters when passing through a transparent medium. The amplitude and wavelength of a part of the deflected light changes, thus ‘scattering’ it on coming in contact with molecules.
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The HRD Ministry also collaborated with the National Skill Ministry and Labour and Employment Ministry to launch SHREYAS for the empowerment of non-technical courses. SHREYAS is an acronym for Scheme for Higher Education Youth for Apprenticeship and Skills. This scheme will be launching professional courses that will include 1,000 hours of extra coursework. Out of these 1,000 hours, 250 hours each will be devoted to soft and ICT skilling and the remaining 500 hours will be assigned for some particular skill courses. These courses are expected to start from the academic session of 2019-2020 onwards.