Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya on Sunday inaugurated two new Departments and two new Research Centres at International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS) in Deonar, Mumbai. The newly inaugurated departments are 'Department of Survey Research and Data Analytics' and the 'Department of Family and Generations'. The new Centres are called 'Centre of Demography of Gender' and 'Centre for Ageing Studies'.The new departments and centres will work in line with the vision of taking Indian institutions to global level and making the country self-reliant. The focus areas of these new departments and research centres are well-being of girl-children, women and the elderly population."India has huge population of 1.4 billion and so, using data analytics and artificial intelligence, we may be able to synchronise this huge data into metadata. International Institute for Population Sciences has the potential of broad segment analysis and preparing reports on these data, which will be useful not just for India but the world", said Mandaviya while inaugurating the centres.
Dr Bharti Pawar, Minister of State for Health, present on the occasion, said that IIPS is playing a significant role in achieving the vision of making India Self reliant (Atmanirbhar). The data generated by IIPS helps legislators in policy-making.The Department of Survey Research and Data Analytics is meant for developing newer methods of data collection. The focus will be on developing innovative methods for analysing big data and building capacity of Indian students and professionals. It will look at developing AI and other scientific techniques for monitoring and ensuring the quality of data collected in household surveys.The Department of Family and Generations will work for understanding the life course changes in relation to childhood, youth, adulthood and older age with a focus on the age-structural transition happening across the world in general and India, and its socio-economic implications.
The Centre of Demography of Gender will carry out high-quality interdisciplinary teaching and empirical research on various aspects related to population, health and development in India and abroad. Developing gender related course curriculum which suits to the requirements of various stakeholders and capacity building, through tailor-made short-term courses is also an important agenda of the new Centre. The focus will be on providing timely policy inputs to the Central and State Governments and local administrative bodies for formulation of appropriate policies and programmes from time to time.The Centre for Ageing Studies will contribute in building scientific knowledge base on contemporary social, economic, psychological and public health issues facing ageing populations in India and elsewhere and disseminating this knowledge to the research community and policy makers, based on empirical evidence and scientific analysis, advising the governments in India and other organizations, including NGOs, on policy aspects, and monitoring and evaluation of ongoing welfare programs and social security schemes for elderly in India.