Inaugurates Indian Society for Training & Dev’s Jammu Chapter
Calls for citizen-centric administration
Jammu, Mar 25: Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha on Wednesday said education must go beyond imparting knowledge to preparing students for life’s challenges.
“We should focus on soft skills, research, entrepreneurship and a startup culture. The education sector must bring about broad transformation through mentoring and academia-industry collaboration,” he said while addressing the inaugural ceremony at Padma Shri Padma Sachdev Government PG College for Women, Gandhinagar.
Sinha said today’s challenges were complex and multi-dimensional and could only be addressed through collective effort.
The LG inaugurated the Jammu Chapter of the Indian Society for Training and Development (ISTD), calling for collaboration across sectors to build a professionally trained workforce and positioning Jammu as a regional hub for training and development.
“Today’s challenges are complex and multi-dimensional. Their solution is possible only through collective effort, and we must focus on this to actively drive Jammu Kashmir’s rapid growth,” he said.
The Lieutenant Governor asked the ISTD’s Jammu Chapter to focus on job creation, entrepreneurship and making local talent globally competitive, with special emphasis on training and research in industries, start-ups and the agriculture sector.
“The entire industrial ecosystem is changing. Jammu Kashmir’s industrial landscape must continually invest in new skills to enhance productivity,” he said, adding that farmers too needed training in modern technology, scientific methods and resource management to cope with climate change, water scarcity and soil degradation — and to market their produce more effectively.
On governance, the Lieutenant Governor said the administrative machinery must evolve to become completely citizen-centric. “Citizens expect transparency, accountability and efficiency. We must empower individuals and institutions to confront emerging challenges head-on,” he said.
He said the administration is the backbone of any nation, and today, citizens expect transparency, accountability, and efficiency from it. He said that the administrative machinery must also evolve with time and should become completely citizen-centric.
“We must empower individuals and institutions to confront emerging challenges head-on, so that India’s dream of becoming the world’s greatest nation is realised. Universities and institutions must join hands with the ISTD to give concrete shape to this resolve,” the Lieutenant Governor said.
The Lieutenant Governor observed that amid all transformation, one truth holds firm: the most powerful instrument of change available to any state, nation, or institution is not technology alone, nor capital alone, nor natural resources alone, but a trained, developed, and also awakened mind.
“The real instrument of change is a trained, developed professional mind. Trained human resources will become the foundation of our progress, the energy behind our inclusive growth, and a real vehicle for shaping the future,” the Lieutenant Governor further said.
The meeting was attended by ISTD National President Atul Shah; Vice Chancellor Cluster University of Jammu and ISTD Jammu Chapter Mentor Prof K.S. Chandrasekar; ISTD Jammu Chapter Chairman Prof Ashok Aima; Regional Vice-President (North) Ankita Sharma; Vice Chairperson Prof Hardeep Chahal; General Secretary Dr Shahid Mushtaq; other ISTD members; senior officials; heads of educational institutions and a large number of students.
