Cabinet approves continuation of agriculture education development plan
New Delhi, June 13: The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs on Wednesday approved continuation of the Three Year Action Plan (2017-2020) of the scheme for Agricultural Education Division and ICAR Institutes to strengthen and develop higher agricultural education in the country.
"The scheme is aimed to generate quality human resources from the institutions of higher agricultural education," Union Finance Minister Piyush Goyal told reporters after the Cabinet meeting, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The total outlay for the scheme is Rs 2,225.46 crore including the states' share of Rs 27.95 crore.
According to a release, the scheme encompasses several new initiatives including steps to attract talented students, reducing academic inbreeding and addressing faculty shortage.
"It will also take care of green initiatives, mitigating faculty shortage, international ranking, alumni involvement, promoting innovations, inspired teacher network, reducing inbreeding, academia interface, technology enabled learning, post-doctoral fellowships, agriculture education portal, scientific social responsibility," said an official statement.
"Support for strengthening and modernization of infrastructure related to student and faculty amenities and capacity building of both faculty and students in cutting edge areas through niche area of excellence programme will improve teaching and encouraging holistic development of the students," it said.
It will lead to generation of competitive and confident human resource, it added.
"In addition, research on gender issues in agriculture and allied fields, formulating gender-equitable agricultural, policies/programmes and gender-sensitive agricultural-sector responses will be undertaken by ICAR-CIWA and capacity building needs of the human resources and stakeholders of the entire National Agricultural Research & Education System (NARES) will be catered leading to enhancing of competencies and capacities of the stakeholders including farmers, young scientists, students and agri-industry in NARES by ICAR-NAARM," said the statement.
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Jhansi fire: Nurse's heroic efforts helped save over dozen babies
Lucknow/Jhansi (UP), Nov 17: Nurse Megha James was on duty when the fire broke out at the Jhansi hospital and she threw herself headlong into the rescue efforts, playing a hero's role by saving several babies.
Even when her salwar got burned, she refused to give up and was able to evacuate 14-15 babies with others' help.
"I had gone to take a syringe to give an injection to a child. When I came back, I saw that the (oxygen) concentrator had caught fire. I called the ward boy, who came with the fire extinguisher and tried to put it out. But by then, the fire had spread," James said.
Ten babies perished in a fire that broke out at the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit of the Maharani Laxmi Bai Medical College in Jhansi Friday night.
Faced with an enormous blaze, James's mind worked with a frenetic speed, to the extent she cared little about burning herself.
"My chappal caught fire and I burned my foot. Then my salwar caught fire. I removed my salwar and discarded it. At that time, my mind was virtually not working," she told PTI Videos.
James just wore another salwar and went back to the rescue operation.
"There was a lot of smoke, and once the lights went out, we could not see anything. The entire staff brought out at least 14-15 children. There were 11 beds in the ward with 23-24 babies," she said.
Had the lights not gone out they could have saved more children, James said. "It all happened very suddenly. None of us had expected it."
Assistant Nursing Superintendent Nalini Sood praised James's valour and recounted bits from how the rescue operation was carried out.
"The hospital staff broke the glasses of the NICU ward to evacuate the babies. It was then Nurse Megha's salwar caught fire. Instead of caring for her safety, she stayed there to rescue the babies and handed them over to people outside," she said.
Sood said James is currently undergoing treatment at the same medical college. She said she did not know the extent of her burns.
"The rescued babies were shifted to a ward very close to the NICU ward… When I recall the scene, I feel like crying," she said.
Dr Anshul Jain, the head of the anaesthesiology department at the medical college, explained the standard rescue operation and claimed the hospital followed the protocol to the T.
"In the triage process during an ICU evacuation, the policy is to evacuate less-affected patients first. The rationale behind this approach is that patients requiring minimal support can be relocated quickly, enabling a larger number of evacuations to be completed in a shorter time.
"In contrast, patients on ventilators or requiring high oxygen support demand more time and resources for evacuation," he said.
"This principle was successfully implemented in Jhansi, playing a significant role in saving many lives," Jain said.
A newborn rescued from the fire died due to illness on Sunday, Jhansi District Magistrate Avinash Kumar said.
