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NITI Aayog has proposed setting up of a National Apprenticeship Mission (NAM) and National Apprenticeship Portal (NAP) as part of a strategic framework for streamlining apprenticeship training in the country.Further, it has suggested Apprenticeship-Linked Incentive Scheme (ALIS) with incentives to promote apprenticeship engagement among aspirational districts, North East states, and for supporting women apprentices.For apprentices and aspirants, the recommendations prioritize improving stipend adequacy and retention, facilitating travel and accommodation support, expanding insurance and social security coverage, strengthening early awareness and counselling systems, enabling international mobility and exposure and advancing women’s inclusion across sectors and geographies.The Aayog also calls for relaxing thresholds to allow more businesses and a higher number of apprentices in all sectors. Under the existing Apprenticeship Act, 1961, all establishments with a workforce of 30 or more, including both regular and contractual employees, are mandated to engage apprentices ranging from 2.5% to 15% of their total manpower annually. The recommendations are part of a comprehensive roadmap laid out by the Aayog in its report titled ‘Revitalising India’s Apprenticeship Ecosystem’ released on Friday.“An emphasis on apprenticeships is necessary for developing a workforce capable of propelling India’s economic expansion,” the Aayog said.Currently, the apprenticeship training in the country is imparted under two schemes, the National Apprenticeship Promotion Scheme (NAPS) under the administrative control of the ministry of skills development and entrepreneurship and the National Apprenticeship Training Scheme (NATS) under the ministry of education. At the policy and systemic level, the Aayog also recommended seamless mobility between education and skilling pathways, and formal alignment with National Credit Framework (NCrF) and National Education Policy (NEP) 2020. On structure and governance, the report proposes the introduction of an Apprenticeship Engagement Index to benchmark performance; standardizing training and assessment protocols; strengthening post apprenticeship benefits, and accelerating adoption and upgradation of Industry 4.0 aligned ITIs. “Promote a Startup Apprenticeship Programme (SAP); expand apprenticeships into the gig and platform economy; and reduce regulatory frictions that deter employer participation,” it said. The report also underscores the need to build institutional capacity among training providers and intermediaries to deliver quality, demand-driven training.Citing government data that shows India will have a youth population of approximately 345 million by 2036, the largest in the world, the Aayog reiterated India must ensure that its young population is equipped with the necessary skills, education, and employment opportunities.

The India AI Impact Summit 2026 has attracted investment commitments of over $250 billion related to infrastructure, Union IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said on Day 5 of the event, underscoring the scale of global and domestic confidence in India’s artificial intelligence push.Addressing reporters, Vaishnaw described the summit as a “grand success”, noting that it saw participation of over five lakh visitors and drew significant interest from global technology players, investors and startups.The minister said the investment commitments are largely linked to infrastructure required to power India’s AI ecosystem -- including data centres, semiconductor facilities, high-performance computing capacity and digital connectivity.Also read: L&T Vyoma to invest Rs 25,000 cr for green AI-ready data center campus at Dholera, GujaratHe added that the government would soon begin work on AI Mission 2.0, which will focus on developing “a totally new level of models, common compute, safety” and expanding foundational capabilities across the AI stack.“Our journey so far has been very meaningful and methodical, working through all layers of AI stack and creating that foundational level of work,” Vaishnaw said. “Now, getting entire world to come, deliberate and interact with our industry, we will take next step of our AI mission.”The minister also reiterated that India is building a strong institutional base for AI safety, with 12 institutes working in a network mode on safety frameworks and standards.He said there was “huge consensus” around the summit declaration, adding that the government aims to expand the number of endorsing stakeholders in the coming weeks.On the infrastructure front, Vaishnaw announced that the foundation for the next semiconductor plant in Uttar Pradesh will be laid soon, and commercial production from the Micron facility is set to begin on February 28.AI Impact Summit: PM Modi gives MANAV vision, pitches ‘develop in India, develop for the world’He further said the government would ensure that the benefits of AI reach the last person in society, drawing a parallel with the 5G rollout. “We will put the same effort in making AI benefit reach the last person in society like we did with 5G rollout,” he said, adding that inclusive growth remains a core political philosophy guiding the AI mission.Vaishnaw also hit out at the Congress, claiming that any attempt to disrupt the summit was rejected by India’s youth and that immediate action was taken against anyone who tried to “demean” the event.“The world has confidence on India’s role in new AI age,” he said, positioning the summit and the investment commitments as a signal of India’s emergence as a key player in the global AI landscape.

America is having a collective freakout about jobs — specifically, that soon AI will do everything and leave everyone unemployable. This concern is not necessarily misplaced, but it is better understood as part of a larger worry: that one of the country’s most critical resources, human capital, is eroding.A large, diverse and highly skilled labor force is what made the US an economic powerhouse. Now both the stock and value of its human capital is degrading, and almost no one is doing anything to stop it.The biggest threat to America’s human capital is fewer humans. As the population ages and migration declines, the size of the labor force is shrinking. More broadly, a shrinking population means fewer workers and consumers — and, in many rich countries, more young people working to pay for the costs of older workers’ retirements and the government’s debts. This is a big threat to economic prosperity that the US has usually mitigated though immigration, which is not a likely solution this time. 128605061 There is another way a country can get by with a shrinking population: if its workers become more productive. If a young worker is so smart and skilled he can produce the output of three workers, then an aging workforce is less of a problem. In the 20th century, as technology made workers more efficient and people became more educated, human capital in America became much more valuable.There are some preliminary signs that productivity is rising now. After years of middling numbers, labor productivity increased in 2025. But these encouraging numbers aren’t providing much comfort, because people are worried that AI will be so productive that the need for human workers will decline anyway. If technology displaces workers, then the value of their human capital can we wiped out entirely.Again, I am not saying this isn’t a valid worry — only that it is as old as time. In the past, technology not only made labor more productive, it also increased the demand for labor. Some jobs were lost, but new and better ones were created; wages and employment went up. Some people who work in technology argue that this time is different, but it is way too early to know for sure.First, widespread AI-induced job loss, or even a lack of hiring, can’t yet be seen in the data. Many industries that use AI are the same ones doing the hiring. It is true there is less job growth overall, but much of that can be explained by cyclical changes to the economy and a fall in migration.Second, a lot of the speculation about the end of jobs is coming from people who’ve never worked in the jobs they presume will disappear. You never know what a job entails and what it takes to be good at it unless you’ve done it. A wealth manager, for example — one of the jobs said to be on borrowed time — doesn’t just write reports and pick stocks. They (the successful ones, at least) cultivate relationships and function almost as therapists. Those softer skills may become even more valuable as AI becomes more prevalent, freeing up time to spend on deeper relationships and more clients. In that case, AI could make human labor more valuable, and people will still have jobs.As in the past, the most important question may be how we manage the transition to a new technology, which is often long and difficult. A mismatch between skills and technology could mean a short-term decline in human capital, even if productivity numbers increase.Historically, the mismatch was addressed through education, which improved with each generation, enabling workers to work with new innovation. But education may no longer be serving the same purpose — as more of the population goes to college, it may be reaching a point of diminishing returns. Even more concerning is that educational standards are weakening at both the secondary and post-secondary level. Too many graduates have weak critical thinking skills and are facing technology that is getting smarter faster than they are.Paul Krugman famously said, “Productivity isn’t everything, but in the long run it is almost everything.” That “almost” is crucial: Even if US productivity increases, if its human capital degrades, it will be in trouble. Even high productivity numbers may not be enough to pay the government’s debts, and there will be many people unhappily and under-employed.That scenario is not inevitable. AI cannot by itself improve America’s economic and demographic growth. That will require better education that trains students to think rigorously, as well as immigration that prioritizes highly skilled migrants. What’s required, in other words, is a strategy to improve our human capital.The views expressed here are the author's own, and not EconomicTimes.com's.