PIB Delhi – Dharmendra Pradhan, Union Minister of Education and Skill Development today launched a textbook on ‘Introduction to Indian Knowledge Systems: Concepts and Applications”. Subhas Sarkar, Minister of State for Education along with K Sanjay Murthy , Secretary Higher Education, A.D Sahasrabudhe, AICTE Chairman and representatives from AICTE, IKS Division and Ministry of Education attended the programme. Dharmendra Pradhan expressed his happiness that the authors have given an academic framework to Indian Knowledge System in this book. Pradhan spoke about the global footprint of Indian knowledge, culture, philosophy and spirituality. He spoke about the ancient Indian civilisation and how it has positively impacted the world. Speaking about Vedas, Upanishads and other Indian texts, he said that our ancient heritage is full of treasures which need to be preserved, documented and propagated. He also spoke about various examples of science-based practices and knowledge from ancient India which we can find relevant still in the modern world.
The Minister said that Indian education system is being decolonised under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. While we adopt the good things from our ancient past, we must also be mindful of the problems in our society and build a future which which creates synergy between knowledge from the past and contemporary issues . Solutions to many of world’s problems lie in Indian Knowledge System, he added. This book seeks to fill in the gap for offering a required course on IKS, recently mandated by AICTE. Moreover, the New Education Policy (NEP) has also provided a clear trajectory for imparting IKS in the higher education curriculum, necessitating a book of this kind in several higher education institutions in the country in the days to come. Although the book has been primarily developed for use by the Engineering institutions, the structure and the contents lend itself easily to address the requirement in other University systems (Liberal Arts, Medicine, Science and Management) for such a book. The newly released IKS textbook will enable the students to bridge the divide between traditional and modern education system by providing students with an opportunity to reconnect with the past, build holistic scientific temper and utilize it for carrying multidisciplinary research and innovation.
