President Murmu inaugurates IGNOU regional and skill centre in Odisha’s Rairangpur
Aatif Ammad | January 1, 2026 | 01:46 PM IST | 1 min read
New IGNOU centre in Mayurbhanj brings higher education and AI-linked skill training closer to tribal communities
President of India Droupadi Murmu today virtually inaugurated a new Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) regional centre and skill centre at Rairangpur in Odisha’s Mayurbhanj district. The initiative, in a predominantly tribal region, aims to bring higher education, skill development, and livelihood opportunities closer to local communities.
The centre will offer programmes in agriculture, food processing, tourism, hospitality, retail, IT and IT-enabled services, and entrepreneurship, aimed at creating sustainable careers and supporting local enterprise development.
The IGNOU regional centre at Rairangpur is expected to serve as a key hub for northern Odisha by strengthening employability through skill-oriented education and training support.
The event was held in the presence of union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan and Jayant Chaudhary, minister of state for skill development and entrepreneurship.
Also read HSSC Haryana police constable 2025 registration from January 11 for 5,500 posts
Focus on AI skilling and future-ready workforce
The programme, organised by the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (MSDE), reflected the government’s push to prepare India’s workforce for an AI-driven future.
During the event, President Murmu conferred artificial intelligence certificates on learners, including students and members of parliament, and launched the national awareness campaign #SkillTheNation challenge to encourage youth participation in future-ready skilling programmes. A special “AI for Beginners” session was also conducted at Rashtrapati Bhavan in collaboration with Google.
Addressing the gathering, Dharmendra Pradhan said India would host an AI impact conference this year and stressed the importance of integrating AI effectively into the education system.
President Murmu underlined that the growing impact of AI across sectors makes AI literacy essential, noting that Indian schools are increasingly promoting AI learning through dedicated labs and structured modules to equip students with future-ready skills.
Follow us for the latest education news on colleges and universities, admission, courses, exams, research, education policies, study abroad and more..
To get in touch, write to us at news@careers360.com.
Quick Watch
]Next Story
]‘Wanted my work to matter’: IIIT Delhi professor left ‘low-impact’ industry for prize-winning cancer research
Finding software engineering ‘too mechanical’ Sengupta ditched Infosys and IBM jobs to study computational biology. He’s won the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize
Pritha Roy Choudhury | 1 min readFeatured News
]- ‘Weaken universities’: Bihar teachers on month-long protest against plan to bring colleges under govt control
- ‘Have seen 8 suicides’: Why hundreds of IIT Delhi B.Tech students are protesting over Rishikesh Kumar’s death
- ‘Cover-up, conflict of interest’: Visva Bharati prof files RTI, VBUFA says facts buried in disciplinary cases
- University of Southampton Delhi to launch 30 courses over next decade, expand to STEM, health, arts: Provost
- Maharashtra’s draft coaching regulation law based on Kota-like centres, will harm small classes: Association
- ‘Cancel admissions’: Jamia Millia students allege lower rank-holders given seats over toppers, protest
- MGR Medical University releases faculty data of 13,000 teaching staff after TN group’s transparency push
- ICAR DDG: ‘NEP rollout priority; multiple entry-exit option helps bring students back to BSc agriculture’
- Removing deprivation points from admissions will change JNU’s character, make it elitist: Professor
- Tamil Nadu plans to strengthen Govt college libraries, polytechnics and diploma engineering courses