Budget Highlights – Education Sector

The much awaited Union Budget 2017 was presented by the Finance Minister Arun Jaitely on 1^st February 2017. Education is one of the key components for driving economical growth and acts as impetus for government schemes such as Make in India, Digital India and Skill India. Government should devise schemes to boost other sectors such as Automation, Artificial Intelligence, Textile, Energy etc. apart from focusing on the IT and applied IT sectors.

It is extremely important to pay attention on improving the quality of educational institutes for creating skilled workforce, ready to join the industry. The key budget highlights of the Education sector are as following –

• In year 2017, citizens will gain access to SWAYAM, a massive open online courses (MOOC) platform. This education portal, will be introduced with 350 online courses and will be providing high quality e-content to all the colleges and universities free of cost.
• Job-creating packages for textile sector
• Good quality institutions which will possess better quality and education
• 100 international centres will be launched across the country for providing assistance to the youth seeking jobs outside India
• PM Kaushal KendrasPM Kaushal Kendras to be extended to 600 districts
• 5 crore youth to be trained under Sankalp programme launched by government
• Quality and market relevance will be noted in vocational training
• Special scheme for employment has been launched in the textile sector
• National Testing Agency will be conducting major entrance examinations
• CBSE will be freed from conducting examinations, and will focus majorly on academics
• Skill strengthening to be implemented from this year with a budget of Rs 2,200 crore
• Greater autonomy will be provided to major institutes
• UGC will be reformed for higher education, colleges and institutions will give more autonomy
• Two new AIIMS to be opened in Jharkhand and Gujarat
• Big employment opportunities to come up in tourism sector
• Government will provide education through digital platform and the country will be turned into an electronics hub
• Additional opportunities for employment of women to open up through model shops and establishment bill
• The BHIM app has been downloaded 17 million times, and special cash back scheme for BHIM users

The main highlight of the budget in education sector was the introduction of 350 online courses and big employment opportunities to be introduced in textile and tourism sectors.

By Manisha Bhatia

Media & Communications, Fiinovation

MOBILE APP HELPING WOMEN IN SLUMS FOR SMOOTH PREGNANCY

As per the estimates by WHO (World Health Organisation), 5,29,000 maternal deaths occur in the world every year. Out of these around 1,36,000 or 25.7% of total deaths happen in India. Every five minutes, one Indian woman die during pregnancy and child birth.

In a statement released by WHO, it was stated that, “Two-thirds of maternal deaths occur after delivery and postpartum hemorrhage being the most commonly reported complication. The incidence of emergency postpartum hysterectomies is about 83/100,000 with a maternal mortality of 17.7 per cent and a perinatal mortality of 37.5 per cent”.

India carries the burden of around 17 per cent of the global maternal deaths and post-partum haemorrhage, accounting for as high as 37% of the maternal deaths. This situation will prove to be a major hindrance for India in achieving the goal of a healthy and developed nation.

Majority of women dying and facing complications during pregnancy and childbirth are from the lower income group and neither they are aware about reproductive health nor have the money to consult the doctors or afford appropriate healthcare facilities.

In order to improve the healthcare conditions of pregnant women for safe child birth, better health post delivery, the Maharashtra based NGO has started free mobile voice call service known as mMitra for giving free consultation to the women during their pregnancy. A voice message has been regularly sent to the enrolled women, reminding them continuously about the mandatory medicines, tests and scans required during their pregnancy.

Nearly 1.30 lakh women from the Nalasopara slum area of Maharashtra have enrolled for the service. Women have enrolled for this service and were guided through short voice messages like regular health checkups, ultrasounds, diet, etc. Many women have claimed multiple benefits from the service like better health, “uneventful” delivery which means without any complications such as diabetes, high blood pressure or bleeding during the childbirth. Inspired by the benefits, they are also encouraging the many other women in their area to register for the services.

The initiative is the brainchild of Dr. Aparna Hegde, alumna of a Sion Hospital in Mumbai. “The success of the initiative shows that there was a great need for an information medium. Women are now demanding iron and folic acid from hospitals, which was always available for free but they had no knowledge about it.

During a study conducted by the same NGO it found that there is a 36% increase in the knowledge of women listening to the voice messages consistently and 47% increase in women knowing about the three family planning methods. Looking at the success and popularity of the programme, the NGO is planning to extend services to other states of India like Delhi, Assam, UP, etc. to educate and help women during pregnancy and childbirth as well as maintain good maternal health post childbirth.

Fiinovation urges the leading hospitals and health consultancies to extend support for such initiatives through their CSR funds and technical expertise for creating a huge impact in the lives of millions of young women, focused on reducing maternal mortality rate and achieving universal access to the reproductive health care.

Manisha Bhatia

FIINOVATION REVIEWS: WHY INDIA NEEDS TO REVISE ITS ABORTION LAWS

The recent landmark judgment given by the Supreme Court of India allowing a woman to terminate her 24-week old pregnancy has opened up the doors of discussion on obsolete pregnancy laws, need to increase awareness about abortion and change the pregnancy laws as well as end stigma prevalent in the country. On Monday, Supreme Court relaxed the 20-week legal ceiling on abortion, allowing a woman to abort her 24-week baby diagnosed with Anencephaly, a life-threatening congenital defect in which a baby is born without the parts of the brain, skull and scalp.

India’s Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) Act legalises abortions upto 20 weeks only under certain circumstances such as threat to mother’s or child’s physical or mental health or if the unborn baby is diagnosed with severe physical or mental abnormalities or both.

As per the data revealed by the Union Ministry of Health & Welfare and World Health Organisation, there are 56 million induced abortions in the world every year from which around 22 million are unsafe abortions. The practice leads to 47,000 deaths and an estimated 5 million women develop some form of disability. In India, 10 women are killed everyday due to abortions as an estimated 6.8 million choose unsafe methods of abortion due to lack of knowledge and laws. Being responsible for 8% of the overall maternal deaths, unsafe abortions is the third biggest reason of the women dying due to child-birth related causes in India. Lack of skilled medical staff is also another big reason for women falling to the prey of unhealthy abortion practices. The weak and marginalised section of the society suffers the most due to lack of knowledge and stigma associated with the medical practice.

“Vulnerable groups including women with disabilities or mental health problems, rape and incest survivors and widows and single women who may need more support because of the tremendous social stigma may prevent them from seeking legal abortion services in the early stage of pregnancy”, says Mumbai-based Dr. Nozer Sheriar, former secretary-general of FOGSI (Federation of Obstetrics and Gynaecologist Societies of India), who was also part of the Union Health Ministry’s expert panel that drafted the amendments.

Looking at the appalling figures and gaps observed in abortion laws, the Union Health Ministry has proposed certain amendments from relaxation in law to increasing the number of skilled workforce. “The amendments are women-centric as opposed to the provider-centric provisions in the MTP Act. The proposed bill aims to give each woman control over decision-making related to her life and body,” said a Union Health Ministry official.

The key changes proposed by the expert panel recommends widening the network of service providers through training so that nurses, village health workers and Auxiliary nursery midwives (ANMs), ayurveda, unani and homeopathy practitioners can use the medical methods to terminate the pregnancies by relaxing the norms from 20-week to 24-week for the “vulnerable” groups who may have delayed in seeking services due to lack of knowledge or stigma. After the completed training, the ANMs can terminate pregnancies upto 7 weeks, nurses and alternative practitioners upto 9 weeks through drugs. However, the surgical abortions can only be done by the registered physicians.

Other proposed amendments include the inclusion of confidentiality clause which will be helpful for the PROCSO (Protection of Children from Sexual Offences) Act, which requires all the pregnancies involving minors should be reported to the police. The clause under the Act states that minors need consent from their guardian before seeking abortion. It also recommends to change the restrictive terminologies and make a uniform law for “women” irrespective of their marital status and changing the preference from “husband” to “partners”.

Fiinovation also supports the proposed amendments as they are in-line with the changing scenarios and will provide incredible benefits to women in advancing their rights on their own bodies and health. The lack of support and relaxation in norms have often forced women to resort to desperate measures falling to unsafe abortion methods leading to numerous health problems.

By Manisha Bhatia

Media & Communications, Fiinovation

India Celebrates – The 68th Republic Day

The Constitution of India came into force on 26^th January 1950 and the day is marked as the Republic Day which gave power to the people from the hands of a few. It was in 1930 on January 26^th when the most powerful political entity in India, the Indian National Congress declared ‘Purna Swaraj’ opposing the Dominion status offered by the British, suggesting another importance of selecting the date as Republic Day.

The day’s highlight has always been the celebrations at Rajpath before the President of India. The Republic Day Parade in Delhi showcases the nation’s Defence Capability, Cultural and Social Heritage. The celebrations goes on for a period of 3 days and ends with the Beating Retreat conducted on the evening of 29^th January.

Being a high profile event, a lot of thought goes into choosing the Chief Guest for the Republic Day Parade. The first Republic Day Parade in 1950 was attended by the Indonesian President followed by the King of Nepal in 1951. In the past two years of the present government, the former US President Barack Obama and French President Francois Hollande were invited with a motive to have the best possible ties with the western powers. This year, the chief guest for the Republic Day is Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed of UAE. Last year, French troops marched along with the Indian troops in the Republic Day Parade. This time troops from UAE are expected to lead the Parade. Clearly, the focus have shifted towards India’s neighbourhood, especially the Gulf region. The Comprehensive Strategic Partnership which has been spoken about in 2015 will materialise this time with major focus on joint defence production.

With such high profile guests including Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Pranab Mukherjee at the venue, Delhi is likely to be under ground-to-air security cover with more than 60000 armed personnel keeping a tight vigil. From anti-drone technology to prevention from chemical attacks, the national capital region is expected to be on high alert with Delhi borders being sealed and cars entering being thoroughly checked.

The Republic Day Parade will showcase aerial fly-past by the Indian Air Force with Light Combat Aircraft making its debut in the Parade. The Indian Navy will highlight the indigenously built Kolkata class destroyer along with Kalvari class next generation attack submarines. Audience will also be witness to tableaux from 17 states and union territories and 6 Union Ministries. There will be tribute to Lokmanya Tilak on his 160^th birth anniversary with the ‘Swaraj Rath’, other than promotional tableaux of Skill India, Digital India and Beti Bachao Beti Padao which the pet schemes of the central government.

As citizens, the Republic Day enables us to re-think on the lines of our founding fathers who wanted to make this country a sovereign, secular and democratic republic. It is a day to be proud of ourselves who have given each other the constitution by having solemnly resolved our differences and pledging to secure all the citizens of Justice, Liberty Equality and Fraternity. The day reconfirms our faith on the fact that all the power emanates from the people and the political system will always be accountable and responsible to the people of the great country.

Swaraj is everyones‘ birthright, and everyone must have it.

Happy Republic Day

By Rahul Choudhury

Corporate Social Responsibility – In Context of 2017

The year 2017 brings new hopes in the social development sector with more businesses contributing towards improving the standard of living of the people. With praises across the country for their contributions, the businesses are now more focused on strategising CSR rather than doing charity. However, there are several questions which are not answered as CSR projects are not good parameters for judging societal welfare. Today, it is unclear whether CSR spending by businesses have increased or not as compared to the days before the mandate, with not much available information.

However, data from the last two years suggest an increase of CSR funding with Indian businesses spending INR 9,309 crore in 2015-16. This is INR 163 crore more than what was required by the law and INR 703 crore more than 2014-15. The major focus areas for businesses have been Education and Health and they are likely to remain one of the most favoured sectors for CSR investments.

Understanding the present situation, Fiinovation, a global CSR consulting company analyses the trends in CSR for the year 2017.

1. Environment – After the successive droughts that nearly crippled the rural economy, it is expected that businesses will look to invest their CSR funds in projects that mitigate the climate change risks. Keeping focus on water, businesses will look to implement CSR projects for natural resource conservation, rain water harvesting, safe drinking water, watershed development and irrigation. Organic agriculture, climate smart agriculture, grain production with new innovative methods, etc. will also receive adequate focus. Several companies are looking to reduce their harmful environmental impacts.

2. Education – Several businesses will rather not look to diversify and stick to their CSR projects in education. It is expected to remain the favourite sector when it comes to CSR expenditures. Although, there might be a shift towards digital literacy, digital education and higher education to meet the current demands of the nation.

3. Health – Similar to Education, investments in health projects is likely to continue even this year. Focus will be on preventive healthcare along with healthcare infrastructure facilities including ambulances, digital check ups, diagonistic centers etc. Several businesses will also look to invest in public health in a public-private partnership model working in tandem with the government initiatives.

4. Skill Development – The Indian Government is currently committed towards providing skill development trainings to the youth. The government also provides additional support for entrepreneurship of the SC, ST and women. The government has also urged the businesses to contribute their CSR funds towards skill development trainings to ensure that the emerging workforce is formally skilled. It is expected that businesses will also look to boost infrastructure in the ITIs and Training Institutes to support the government. There are several businesses who are also investing in Sustainable Agriculture projects by providing trainings to the farmers.

5. Other Sectors – It is also expected that several other sectors will receive CSR funding but not at a very large scale. Swachh Bharat, Clean Ganga, Digital Literacy, renewable energy, etc. are some areas which will receive contributions.

The impact of the CSR law can be better understood after the end of this year, when experts review the first three years after the enforcement of the law.

By Rahul Choudhury

Media & Communications, Fiinovation

Fiinovation’s Take on Health Sector Problems

The world’s second most populous country is currently facing a triple-disease burden of maternal and child health, infectious and non-communicable diseases. Despite significant efforts, India has been unable to provide affordable healthcare solutions to the masses. With India being the third-largest economy in the world, it isn’t being able to deliver world-class healthcare services to the 800 million people residing in the rural areas.

Fiinovation, a global CSR consulting company, suggests that India’s tax-based funding of healthcare is not adequate and barely support the healthcare system. India annually spends approximately Rs 6 trillion on healthcare to cater to 1.3 billion population. With an experience of over eight years in health projects, Fiinovation understands that over 60 per cent of healthcare expenditure in India is being incurred by individuals themselves. Indians usually spend a lot of money on healthcare services.

Indians have the innate tendency to ignore health issues until we are really sick. This is the reason why Indians don’t opt for health insurances. The health insurance covers less than 5 per cent of total health expenditure. Apart from this, formal private network is a small portion of India’s health sector. The people usually suffer due to such circumstances and spend heavily on hospitals, completely ignoring primary care and early diagnosis.

Understanding the situation, Fiinovation believes the sector needs a complete revamp to achieve the health targets of the nation. Like several other countries, India too needs to on taking the path of free markets and build high-performing health systems. There needs to be a push towards health insurance. Countries, such as Japan, Britain, Germany and Thailand have given a lot of emphasis on providing universal health coverage. Fiinovation believes that the government will play a crucial role in designing and supervising the entire health system of the country, instead of just focusing on state-owned hospitals and public health centers.

Equally, the private sector should join hands with the government, take cognizance of the loopholes and establish an effective healthcare system in the country along with mechanisms for early diagnosis and universal health insurance coverage. If adequate healthcare services are provided in the rural areas, it will reduce the burden of hospitals and clinics in the urban areas. A lot of lives can also be saved, if facilities for early detection and diagnosis are available. With health being a favourable sector for CSR expenditures in the country, businesses should definitely look to organise health camps and provide other infrastructural facilities to curb the prevailing health problems in India. There has always been a need to spread more awareness about the preventive measures of diseases.

At present, it seems to be an uphill task for India, however, countries such as Thailand, Brazil and South Korea had similar health statistics which they managed to turn around in the last two-three decades. India can take note from these countries and start planning for re-designing the healthcare system of India.

By Rahul Choudhury

Media & Communications, Fiinovation

Fiinovation – How MNC’s are Contributing Towards Women Empowerment in India?

In the last two decades, their has been significant emergence of MNCs. The fast food outlets such as Mc Donald’s, KFC, Dominos, Pizza Hut, Burger King, etc. are now present even in smaller cities. Their emergence has led to an unique method of empowering women of the country.

For these MNCs, recruitment of women is almost necessary as they don’t want to run their businesses with only men. In this regard, they hire women to maintain a gender balance among the employees. Although, the plan seems to be good, but in a country like India, it is not that easy to find good women employees. It is a nation where women are not encouraged much to work outside their homes. Therefore, several MNCs are going off track to attract women employees by providing them with activities which ultimately helps them to get empowered.

The difference can be witnessed easily. A visit to the Delhi’s malls will make you witness women workforce in the outlets, whereas in a market place the women’s clothing stores are manned by men. Ironically, we do not observe women at these stores. Despite years of progress, India still has a skewed sex ratio and its tough place to be a women. There is a vast difference in the way things use to be and specially now after the emergence of MNCs.

Understanding the situation, the American food chains are doing a bit more than expected to ensure that they are able to employ more women. From allowing their parents to see the workplace to even taste the new burger about to be launched, these companies are doing a lot to attract women employees. Fiinovation, a global CSR consulting company understands that people around the world would be unaware about the hardship that these companies are putting in to cultivate female employees.

Fiinovation believes, going off track food chains such as Burger King teaches self defense to its women employees. Similarly, Pizza Hut, KFC and Taco Bell run a mentorship program to help the women employees. Even Mc Donald’s appoints a “Female Confidant” at every outlet to ensure the women talk more freely about their lives and family problems. Apart from these, steps are even taken to give mothers flexible working hours.

These things are changing the way businesses operate in India. With more females joining the workforce, the societal hurdles are bound to reduce in the coming years. Fiinovation also believes that these affirmative action initiatives by the MNCs is a significant step towards empowerment of women in this country. With India being a prominent member of G20, it should lead by example for other emerging economies to follow.

Therefore, let us hope that in future, other businesses will implement similar initiatives that will help the country grow inclusively.

By Rahul Choudhury

Media & Communications, Fiinovation

Fiinovation – The Future of Impact Investing in India

Impact investments is not something new to the world anymore. It might have started on a similar concept back in the 1980’s when Bill Drayton’s Ashoka started funding social enterprises. The term impact investing was coined in the year 2007 at the Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Center. The term was given to investments which are made with the intent of generating both financial and social and/or environmental returns.

In the last decade, India has become one of the world’s biggest impact investment market. The global investors are looking at India as a bright spot which is likely to grow rapidly in the next two-three decades. Along with this, there are several social and environmental issues which India would like to resolve while it continues to grow.

It is expected that with all the growth in several sectors, India could absorb $6-8 billion of capital annually by 2025. In the past six years, there has been $4.1 billion worth of cumulative investments with an annual growth of 15%. It is believed that impact investments has touch at least 60-80 million lives in the country focusing on sectors such as financial inclusion, agriculture, healthcare and education. Last year, impact investments touched the billion mark for the first time.

Understanding the present situation, Fiinovation believes that there is a huge importance of impact investors in helping socially relevant enterprises grow and prosper. There is need to focus on increasing investments to promote financial inclusion, clean-technology solutions, education, healthcare and agriculture. Fiinovation comprehends that the potential of impact investments needs to be unlocked as it provides vast opportunity for social and financial dividends.

With the impact investments growing at fast pace, it will be necessary to keep track on the returns. Fiinovation believes that there is a need for guidelines and monitoring frameworks to strengthen the entire investment process. The bottlenecks related to policies and government regulations need to be managed keeping in mind the adequate measures that can help the impact investment market expand. Fiinovation also understands that increase in investments will lead to requirement of professionals and therefore, government policies promoting skill development in sectors such as clean-tech, healthcare, education, digitalisation, financial inclusion, agriculture, etc.

In future, the struggle with access to capital will be done with and the massive challenges, which the sector is still facing, is expected to be addressed. It is also expected that the limited number of investors need to grow over a period of time. Fiinovation expects that better governance and talent will be required to provide support in the market expansion process. For bridging the gap between priviledged and the marginalised, it is important for impact investing to become mainstream.

By Rahul Choudhury

Media & Communications, Fiinovation

TOP 5 HEALTH STORIES OF 2016

India has seen some major policy reforms in the year 2016. The central government has allocated budget worth billions to bring radical change and upgrade the healthcare sector as we believe that a developed economy can be build on the foundation of a healthy nation.

• The Big Health Budget

Realising the requirement of funds for upgrading the infrastructure to meet the increasing healthcare demands of the country, the Niti Aayog has allocated Rs. 37,490 crores under the 12^th Five Year Plan to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. The current budget is about three times the actual expenditure under the 11^th Five Year Plan. The share of healthcare in total plan allocation is set to increase by 2-5% of the GDP in the 12^th plan from 0.9% in the 11^th plan. The major portion of the allocated budget was sent to the Rural Health Mission which support the health developments of less privileged states.

• CSR Contributions on Health

A report released by KPMG on the CSR spending of firms states that from the total outlay of Rs. 6,490 crores, Indian companies have spent a total of Rs. 5,115 crores in 2015 and the heath sector tops the spending accounting for 20% of the total CSR spend. The spending on health sectors comprises the availability of safe drinking water, combating HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases.

• Back to Roots

India is known to be the land of Ayurveda and has been developing branded as well as generic quality medicines since ages. It has evolved from a industry of Rs. 1500 crores in 1980 to a whopping Rs. 1,19,000 crores in 2012 and it continues to grow by leaps and bounds. Even though the medicines are priced competitively, still a major chuck of the poor people have either no or low access to the medicines. Hence, to ensure that the quality medicine reaches to everyone at affordable prices, the government has initiated the opening of 3,000 Jan Aushadhi Stores (JAS) under Pradhan Mantri Jan Aushadhi Yojana (PMJAY) across the country by the end of March 2017. The government has allocated the budget of Rs. 39,532.55 crore budget for this initiative.

• Tech Savvy India

The E-health initiative, which is a part of Digital India drive launched by the Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi, aims at providing effective and economical healthcare services to all citizens. In order to ensure greater transparency in information sharing and access to healthcare facilities and experts by every citizen of the country, the Ministry of Health has decided to expedite the digitalization of the healthcare sector. The programme aims to make use of technology and portals to facilitate people to maintain health records and book online appointments with various departments of different hospitals using eKYC data of Aadhaar number.

The technology plays an important role to cure the chronic diseases like cardiac arrest, cancer, and TB etc. It helps in saving countless lives, who may have otherwise succumbed to death due to lack of these services. As per the Ministry of Health, development of 50 technologies has been targeted in the FY16, for the treatment of diseases like Cancer and TB. Medical technology is an area where technology plays an important role in creating sustainable health.

• National Health Protection Scheme (NHPS)

The government has alloted Rs. 1,500 crore under the National Health Protection Scheme (NHPS) an increase of 152% from the previous year, reflecting its continued commitment towards providing health insurance to the middle class and marginalised sections of the society. A cover of Rs. 1 lakh per family was introduced under the NHPS with an additional coverage of Rs. 30,000 for the senior citizens.“It looks like insurance is the direction that universal health coverage and NHM are taking. There is clear emphasis on insurance,” said K. Srinath Reddy, President of the non-profit Public Health Foundation of India.

Compiled By:

Manisha Bhatia

Media & Communications, Fiinovation

5 Big Things in the Education Sector in 2016

The education sector in India is currently at a crucial transformational stage. It is likely to grow leaps and bounds due to India’s demographic advantage presenting huge opportunities for investors. Among several things, these are the five big things that happened in the education sector.

1. The National Educational Policy Debate

The education sector in India had grown because of the first National Education Policy in 1968. The new draft NPE 2016 aims to bridge the gap between the growing population and quality education for all. It plans to put India’s education sector in the global map by making the country a global knowledge hub. The policy also plans to bring must needed reforms such as technology enabled education, skill education, teacher training support and compulsory quality audits for educational institutions. However, the draft policy has been widely criticised by teachers and institutions due to factors such as issues of commercialisation, massively open online courses (MOOCs), internationalisation and recruitment policies.

2. Education Sector & CSR

The education sector continues to be one of most favoured sector receiving CSR funds from businesses. In a recent report by Nasscom, it was highlighted that on an average 70% of the CSR funds of business is directed towards the education sector. Even, private educational institutions have been quite vocal about their wish of receiving CSR funds. The spending of the Nifty listed companies increased this year by more than 20% and education remained their priority sector.

3. Swachh Vidayala

Sanitation have become an important instrument to ensure there is no dropouts from schools. After the PM’s call to construct toilets and make the nation open defecation free, several companies under CSR contributed towards construction of toilets. Within a year, 4.07 lakh toilets were constructed out of which 2.66 lakh were new toilets whereas the rest were repaired. The aim was to have a separate toilet for girls and boys at every government school thereby reducing the drop-out rates of girls because of unhygienic facilities.

4. More Firms But Few Offers at IITs

The campus placements are always in the news, especially because of the highest offered packages from US based companies. This year, although more companies visited IIT campuses, it seems number of offers per company has dipped from last year. Students picked by leading finance and consulting firms have also reduced. The reason for such maybe the changing global dynamics and the slowdown of the developed economies.

5. Improved Rankings

The rankings of the Indian Universities improved from the last year. In the newly expanded Times Higher Education BRICS and Emerging Economies University Rankings, India was the 2^nd most represented country, with the Indian Institute of Science becoming the first Indian institute to enter the top 15. In the list of 300, India has 27 universities. In 2015, 16 Indian universities had made it to the top 200. China continues to dominate with 52 places in the top 300 and six in the top 10.

There might be several other impactful things that happened in 2016 related to the education sector, but these were the few which garnered much media attention.

By Rahul Choudhury

Media & Communications, Fiinovation

**The above article is based on the author’s personal views and analysis of the sector.