The State government is reconstituting the Karnataka Knowledge Commission (Jnana Ayoga) and Karnataka Innovation Council (KIC) after receiving the Chief Minister’s assent.
The Higher Education Department will issue official orders on reconstituting the two bodies on Saturday. Confirming the development, official sources in the Higher Education Department said Jnana Ayoga will be headed by Dr K Kasturirangan while KIC will be headed by Prof H P Khincha, who, incidentally, were in charge of both bodies earlier.
According to officials, the announcement was supposed to be made on Friday. “We are finalising members for the bodies and this delayed the process. Higher Education Minister R V Deshpande will announce it officially,” said a source.
Interestingly, there will be some changes in focus areas of the two bodies. As per the draft prepared by the department, areas like sports has been included under Jnana Ayoga’s purview.
“To name a few members, we have included Rahul Dravid and Prakash Padukone. We are doing it to systematically push Jnana Ayoga to focus more on young minds,” a source explained.
The previous BJP government had constituted the Knowledge Commission in the State along the lines of the National Knowledge Commission (NKC) headed by Sam Pitroda. The term for the body fixed by the government was five years. Following the completion of their tenures, the Commission members, on March 28 this year, handed over charge to the Higher Education Department.
The main focus areas of the Knowledge Commission were teachers’ development, higher education policy, public health, skills development, community knowledge and practices and geographic information systems.
The Commission submitted reports/recommendations to the government in four sets in five years. The final report was submitted to the then Chief Minister Jagadish Shettar on January 21.
Previous members of the commission included M S Thimmappa, Professors Sadagopan and Padma Sarangapani.