Vikash Sharma

Bhubaneswar: All India Council For Technical Education (AICTE) on Friday directed all affiliated institutions to strictly follow the guidelines issued by the Ministry of Education for holding online/ virtual conferences, seminars and training programmes.

Earlier in January, the Ministry of Education had revised the guidelines for holding online/ virtual conferences/ seminars/ training etc in consultation with Ministry of External Affairs (MEA).

Here are the guidelines:

Approval procedure in respect of holding online/virtual International Conferences/ Seminars/ Training etc:

- Ministry or Department, Public Sector Undertakings, Central Educational Institutions, Public Funded Universities or an organization owned and controlled by the Government of India/ State Government/ UT, should take approval of its Administrative Secretary for the event as well as for the list of participants.

- While giving permission, the Ministry should ensure that the subject matter for online events is not related to security of State, Border, North East States, UT of J&K Ladakh or any other issues which are clearly/ purely related to India's internal matter/s

- Full compliance to India's existing provisions of IT data security, personal data, and protection to other sensitive information should be ensured.

- There should be judicious selection of IT application. / platforms/ medium for interaction; preference should be given to those apps having servers not controlled/ hosted/ owned by countries/ agencies hostile to India.

- Due care should be taken to ensure that India's map, flag, emblem, etc. are correct and rightly displayed.

The following cases will continue to require clearance from MEA for holding international conference/ seminar/ workshop/ training etc:

-AII events related to security of State, Border, North East States, J&K or any other issues which are clearly/purely related to India's Internal matter:

- Events having foreign funding the sponsorship;

-Events involving sensitive subjects [political, scientific, technical, commercial, personal) with provisions for sharing of data in any form; presentations etc.

- While seeking approval/ after approval, link to the online events/s should be shared by email at socoord@mea.gov.in

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