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Philips, Smile Foundation launch Skill India programmes
Bengaluru: Philips Innovation Campus (PIC) and Smile Foundation NGO on Monday announced a long term partnership to reach out to the underprivileged sections of society to skill and facilitate employment.
Aligning the partnership with the government of India’s Skill India programme, both the partners have embarked on three programmes: Empowering Women, Skilling engineering students and Skill acquisition for support staff.
“Through the Skill India campaign, we would like to touch lives of more people by creating platforms for skilling themselves and getting employable,” said PIC chief executive M.R. Srinivas.
Under the Empowering Women programme, more than 250 women will be trained annually from urban slums at Smile Twin e-Learning Program (STeP) centres in Bengaluru and Delhi in basic finance, retail management, communication and other necessary skills.
“Smile saw an opportunity in the retail boom in India in 2006 and started STeP. The training has enabled several women to find jobs in F&B outlets like Pizza Hut, Coffee Day and Dominoes and Pantaloons, Westside, PVR, Big Bazaar and others,” said Vikram Singh Verma, COO, Smile Foundation.
Women centric STeP targets prospective candidates in the age group of 18-25 who dropped out of school, junior college and sometimes even graduates without the requisite skills needed for employment.
“An entrance exam is conducted to assess the candidates abilities and at what level they are to ascertain their training needs,” said Verma.
He added that nearly 20,000 women were trained since the STeP programme was started, employing about 16,000 with an average monthly salary of Rs.12,000.
PIC employees will visit engineering colleges on a voluntary basis under the Skilling engineering students programme to impart knowledge on big data analytics, digital healthcare and technical training with an aim to bridge the industry – academia employability gap.
And in the Skill acquisition for support staff programme, PIC support staff at its facilities will receive soft skills training along with additional skills to enable them to earn extra income.
PIC, manned by 3,000 employees in Bengaluru, develops innovative products and solutions at a global level while Smile Foundation founded in 2002 works with the underprivileged communities for their upliftment with grassroots level initiatives.
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What monkey fled with a bag containing evidence in it: Read full story
The court, generally, considers a person who commit a crime and the one who destroys the evidence, as criminals in the eyes of law. But what if an animal destroys the evidence of a crime committed by a human.
In a peculiar incident in Rajasthan, a monkey fled away with the evidence collected by the police in a murder case. The stolen evidence included the murder weapon (a blood-stained knife).
The incident came to light when the police appeared before the court and they had to provide the evidence in the hearing.
The hearing was about the crime which took place in September 2016, in which a person named Shashikant Sharma died at a primary health center under Chandwaji police station. After the body was found, the deceased’s relatives blocked the Jaipur-Delhi highway, demanding an inquiry into the matter.
Following the investigation, the police had arrested Rahul Kandera and Mohanlal Kandera, residents of Chandwaji in relation to the murder. But, when the time came to produce the evidence related to the case, it was found that the police had no evidence with them because a monkey had stolen it from them.
In the court, the police said that the knife, which was the primary evidence, was also taken by the monkey. The cops informed that the evidence of the case was kept in a bag, which was being taken to the court.
The evidence bag contained the knife and 15 other important evidences. However, due to the lack of space in the malkhana, a bag full of evidence was kept under a tree, which led to the incident.