March 4, 2020
The institutional collaboration facilitates the promotion of technical education and training, including engineering courses and internship programmes in India and Japan.
An engineering course will be conducted by SMC and MSIL for the students of IITG, and the internship programme will be held at SMC in Japan and MSIL in India
A collaboration in skilling Indian youth has occurred due to the Technical Intern Training Program (TITP) in partnership with Japan, through which 44 interns have been placed there
In November 2019, India and Japan held their first 2+2 Foreign and Defence Ministerial Meeting with a focus on collaboration in technology and capacity building
A Memorandum of Understanding was signed on March 4, 2020, between the Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati (IIT-G), the Association for Overseas Technical Cooperation and Sustainable Partnerships, Japan (AOTS), Suzuki Motor Corporation, Japan (SMC) and Maruti Suzuki India Limited (MSIL), establishing collaboration for the promotion of technical education and training. Distinguished guests attending this signing included Satoshi Suzuki, Ambassador of Japan to India, and Ashok Kumar Chawla, Advisor-Japan, Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India.
This novel institutional collaboration facilitates the promotion of technical education and training, thus includes engineering courses and internship programmes in India and Japan. The resulting research of next-generation technologies from the programme will benefit both countries. The initiatives include an engineering course (primarily automotive engineering) to be conducted by SMC and MSIL for the students of IIT-G, as well as an internship programme at SMC’s Japan facility and MSIL in India, providing global and grassroots level exposure simultaneously.
Indo-Japanese relations have steadily improved over the past few years, in line with India’s Act East Policy. In April 2019, nine Indian care workers who were trained in basic Japanese language skills, had landed in Japan to work as nurse interns for the elderly in hospitals situated across the country. In Japan, the nurses were paid in line with Japanese wage norms. After completing their 3-5 year internship, they could return to work in a Bangalore-based hospital run by a Japanese company.
This kind of collaboration in skilling Indian youth has been made possible due to a unique initiative titled Technical Intern Training Program (TITP) in partnership with Japan established through an MoU in 2017. As of December 2019, 44 such interns had been placed in Japan and 24 ‘sending’ organisations had been empowered to facilitate training in India and act as intermediaries.
In November 2019, India and Japan also held their first 2+2 Foreign and Defence Ministerial Meeting in New Delhi, with a focus on collaboration in defence equipment, technology, and capacity building, indicating significant bilateral opportunities to come.