NEW DELHI: WITH India moving up 15 positions in the Global Innovation Index for 2016, to 66th position from 81st in 2015, the government has decided to set up a panel on innovation to suggest ways to improve the country’s performance further.
The Commerce and Industry Ministry will soon set up the team of experts to consider wasy to improve on India’s ranking.The report had called for more transparent policies if the country aspired to become a global driver of innovation.
“I will form a group to look into the results of this report. It will go in depth as in what is there in it. Not just ranking, but the identified weaknesses and challenges,” Nirmala Sitharaman, Commerce and Industry Minister said at an event here on Friday.
Sitharaman also added that the team “quickly advise the government on where we should take a step back or where we should move forward”.
The group will have representation from outside the government too and will be formed in a matter of days. “It is more to look at the report in depth, identify the challenges in order to solve those issues and advise the government as to which direction we have to move (in),” she said.
The report had noted that India showed weakness in two sub-pillars — business environment and education.
The Global Innovation Index ranks innovation performance of 128 countries and economies around the world, based on 82 indicators. Sitharaman also commented on jugaad or frugal innovation as a inevitable in a country with scare resources.
But, to references that Indian innovation is capable of only jugaad, the minister said, “I am sorry. No, that was only a survival technique.”
She also asked policy think tank Niti Aayog to look at a system where children are not driven to perform only in a predictable examination.