HARPREET SINGH LEHAL, JALANDHAR
HMV Innovation Cell attended Prime Minister’s Interaction with Startups hosted by DPIIT, Ministry of Commerce and Industry to mark the celebrations of the 6 th anniversary of the launch of the Start Up India initiative. The event formed part of the week-long (10-16 January) Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav, ‘Celebrating Innovation Ecosystem.’ Prime Minister Narendra Modi interacted with more than 150 Start ups across the country via Video Conferencing in order to appreciate the innovative ideas and solutions offered by the youngsters from the start-up world. Startup representatives expressed their thanks to the Prime minister and gave presentations on six themes.
Union Ministers Piyush Goyal, Dr. Mansukh Mandaviya, Ashwini Vaisnaw, Sarbananda Sonowal, Parshottam Rupala, G. Kishan Reddy, Pashupati Kumar Paras, Dr. Jitendra Singh, Som Parkash were also present on the occasion. The Prime Minister listed three massive changes introduced to strengthen the innovation ecosystem to liberate entrepreneurship from the rigmarole of government processes, to create an institutional mechanism to promote innovation and handholding of young entrepreneurs. He elatedly announced that as an outcome of Startup initiatives, India has moved from 81 st position to 46 th in the Global Innovation Index.
There is an exponential rise in patents from 4000 to 28000, trademarks from 70000 to 2.5 lakh and copyrights from 4000 to 16000 as compared to 2013-14. He declared that 16 January would be celebrated as National Start up Day. The session was attended by Dr. Anjana Bhatia, Incharge IIC, Dr. Rakhi Mehta, Lt. Sonia Mahindru, Lovleen Kaur, Navneeta, Dr. Meenakshi Duggal, Ashish, Vidhu, Harpreet, Protima, Dr. Simmi and Dr. Jaspreet along with the students. Principal Prof. Dr. Ajay Sareen motivated the IIC team to continue with their efforts and encourage students for innovative ventures.