There will soon be an IND-SAT exam to be held in Asian and African countries for foreign students to come and study in Indian universities. Presenting her second budget on Saturday, February 1, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said that under the government's Study in India programme an IND-SAT exam is proposed to be held for benchmarking foreign candidates, who received scholarships for studying in Indian higher educational institutes.
She added that as India should also be a preferred destination for higher education, this decision was taken by the government. "By 2030 India is set to have the largest working-age population. Dialogues have been held with state education ministers, other stakeholders about education policy. NEP will be announced soon, over 2 lakh suggestions were also received," she also said while speaking at the Parliament.
The Finance Minister had already announced the ‘Study in India’ programme in her maiden budget speech on July 5, 2019. According to union budget speech last year, top 25 per cent of foreign students will get a 100 per cent waiver for tuition fees and Rs 150 crore had been allocated for the Study in India scheme.
The FM kicked off the Union Budget on February 1, 2020, at 11 am. Sitharaman reached the Parliament an hour ahead of time with the budget document folded in a red traditional cloth sealed with the government seal. This budget is Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s second opportunity in seven months to refresh policy priorities to support an economy on a downward spiral. The Economic Survey that was released on January 31, a day before, projected India's economic growth at 6 per cent to 6.5 per cent in the next financial year starting April 1, saying growth has bottomed out. The growth in 2020-21 compares to a projected 5 per cent expansion in 2019-20.
Weak global growth impacting India, as well as investment slowdown due to financial sector issues, had led to growth dropping to a decade low in current fiscal, said the survey, adding 5 per cent growth projected for 2019-20 is the lowest it could fall for now.
The survey that sets the premise of the Union Budget, said that along with efforts for generating additional employment, special focus has been on improving quality of jobs and formalisation of the economy. The share of regular wage or salaried employees has increased by 5 percentage points from 18 per cent in 2011-12 to 23 per cent in 2017-18. In absolute terms, there was a significant jump of around 2.62 crore new jobs with 1.21 crore in rural areas and 1.39 crore in urban areas in this category.
The survey also introduced Thalinomics to Indians — the affordability of Thalis vis-à-vis a day’s pay of a worker, which has improved over time, indicating improved welfare of the common person. The survey stated that affordability of vegetarian Thalis improved 29 per cent from 2006-07 to 2019-20 while that for non-vegetarian Thalis by 18 per cent.
