Niraj Dubey
The vision of Digital India is to transform the country into a digitally empowered society and knowledge economy. It would ensure that government services are available to citizens electronically. It would also bring in public accountability through mandated delivery of government’s services electronically. National Knowledge Network (NKN) is a state-of-the-art multi-gigabit presence across nation Indian resource-sharing networkand a revolutionary step towards creating a knowledge society without boundaries aimed at digitally connecting all national universities, colleges and research establishments to create “country-wide virtual classrooms”. This project was initiated in the year 2009at an outlay of INR 5990 crore, the NKN will usher a knowledge revolution in the country with connectivity to 1500+ institutions. It was developed to connect all the knowledge and research institutionsincluding govt. aided engineering colleges, IIMs, ISRO, DRDO, central universities, libraries, agricultural institutions and medical colleges in the country using high bandwidth / low latency network. The idea is to bring together all stakeholders from science, technology, higher education, healthcare, agriculture and governance to a common platform. The project was launched for a period of 10 years. Currently, this programme is a component of umbrella “Digital India”programme.Through National Knowledge Network (NKN), a high-speed broadband network, the initiative is going to benefit over 50 million students and researchers in the South Asian countries by sharing information and ideas across major fields.India is soon going to connect its educational, medical and research institutes with other institutes in South Asian countries, thanks to the Union Ministry of Electronics and IT (Deity) for taking such initiative. The NKN connectivity to the SAARC countries such as Maldives, Nepal, Bhutan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh will be done through undersea cable and is under process.”The NKN with its high-speed connectivity will enable knowledge and information sharing. It will also enable collaborative research, development and innovation as well as facilitate advanced distance education in specialized fields such as Engineering, Science, Medicine,” the official added.This project is aimed at establishing a strong and robust Indian network which will be capable of providing secure and reliable connectivity. Globally, frontier research and innovation are shifting towards multidisciplinary and collaborative paradigm and require substantial communication and computational power.By facilitating the flow of information and knowledge, the network addresses the critical issue of access and creates a new paradigm of collaboration to enrich the research efforts in the country. The network design is based on a proactive approach that takes into account the future requirements and new possibilities that this infrastructure may unfold, both in terms of usage and perceived benefits. This will bring about a knowledge revolution that will be instrumental in transforming society and promoting inclusive growth. Globally, research and development activities and innovations are increasingly becoming multidisciplinary and collaborative, and require substantialcommunication/computational power. For India to emerge as a significant R&D hub, it has to become a part of this wave of collaboration and co-creation. The idea of setting up of a NKN was deliberated at the office of Principal Scientific Advisor to the Government of India and the National Knowledge Commission engagements were held with key stakeholders including experts, potential users, telecom service providers and educational and research institutions. These discussions have yielded a consensus on the optimal approach to be adopted for setting up such a network, to provide a unified high speed network backbone for all the sectors.The concept which formed one of the key focus area of the National Knowledge Commission strongly feels that to optimally utilise the potential of institutions engaged in generation and dissemination of knowledge in various areas, such as research laboratories, universities and other institutions of higher learning, including professional institutions, it is important to connect them through a high speed broadband network. The purpose of such a knowledge network goes to the very heart of the country’s quest to build quality institutions with requisite research facilities and create a pool of highly trained persons.
Role of NKN:-Establishing a high-speed backbone connectivity which will enable knowledge and information sharing amongst NKN connected institutes. Enabling collaborative research, development and innovation amongst NKN connected institutes. Facilitating advanced distance education in specialized fields like engineering, science, medicine etc.Facilitating an ultra-high speed e-governance backbone. Facilitating connection between different sectorial networks in the field of research.
Technical Mission:-NKN is designed to provide high availability, Quality of Service, security and reliability. The purpose of NKN goes to the very core of the country’s quest for building quality institutions with requisite research facilities and to create a pool of highly trained professionals. The participating institutions at the edge would seamlessly connect to NKN at gigabit speed. NKN shall be a critical information infrastructure for India to evolve as a knowledge society. NKN is a significant step which will enable scientists, researchers and students from across the country to work together for advancing human development in critical and emerging areas.The NKN is a platform for delivering effective distance education where teachers and students can interact in real time. This is especially significant in a country like India where access to education is limited by factors such as geography, lack of infrastructure facilities etc. The network enables co-sharing of information such as classroom lectures, presentations and hand outs among different institutions. The Virtual Library involving sharing of journals, books and research papers across different institutions, is a natural application for NKN.
High-performance computing is critical for national security, industrial productivity, and advances in science and engineering. The network enables a large number of institutions to access high-performance computing to conduct advanced research in areas such as weather monitoring, earthquake engineering and other computationally intensive fields. NKN also provides an opportunity to test new hardware and software, vendor interoperability etc. NKN acts as a super highway for integrating e-Governance infrastructure such as Government data centres and networks. NKN provides bulk data transfer facility required for e-Governance applications. The author like to conclude this article by this quote, “We must ensure that technology is accessible, affordable and adds value.
(The author is Sr. Faculty & Warden (GCET)- Jammu)
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