INNOVATION YATRA (Syllabus: GS Paper 3 - Sci & Tech)

Context:  A 11-day innovation yatra spanning across 14 States and UTs - Gujarat, Rajasthan, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Chandigarh (UT), Punjab, Jammu and Kashmir (UT), Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, will sensitize common people about innovations, especially the grassroots innovations and student creativity based innovations by illustrating and demonstrating such technologies and disseminating information about a lot more.

Key Points

• The innovation yatra is being organised by the National Innovation Foundation - India (NIF), an autonomous body of the Department of Science and Technology (DST), Govt. of India in different parts of the country in association with the Ministry of Culture, Govt. of India from 5th August 2023 to 15th August 2023 to celebrate atmanirbharta under Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsava, through Rural Innovations of the country.
• Through the yatra, it is envisaged that important socio-economic pillars of the country like rural employment generation, drudgery reduction, problem-solving, sustainability, and atmanirbharta will get a huge impetus. 
• In addition, technological ideas and innovations will also get mobilized from the rural population of the country and it will strengthen the supply side of technologies for the nation. 
• Some of the eligible amongst them may be taken up by NIF for further incubation. 
• This yatra also provides an excellent platform to disseminate region-specific literature on sustainable practices for agriculture and also to facilitate the diffusion of grassroots innovations through line departments, grassroots-level functionaries, and district administration, among others.