Promise of golden era for tech-savvy

IN A BID to address the aspirations and concerns of India's young population, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman laid strong emphasis on the country's youth in the interim Budget.

Promising a "golden era" for tech-savvy youngsters, Sitharaman announced the establishment of a corpus of 1 trillion, meant to provide long-term financing or refinancing with long tenors and low or nil interest rates. The minister claimed this would encourage the private sector to "scale up research and innovation significantly in sunrise domains". She added, "We need to have programmes that combine the power of our youth and technology." The aim is to provide training and empower Indian MSMEs to compete globally, according to the government. The corpus will not just scale research and development in sunrise sectors but also boost employment and economic prosperity for the country, a statement issued by Nasscom said.