Bangalore: Never before in the history of any country has human capital development been such a key focus area as 2011 was for India, marking the beginning of exciting times. Determined to leverage the demographic dividend and reach the goal of skilling 500 million, India created many ripples in 2011. Four themes dominated the year in the context of skills development: Private Industry participation in skills development: Skills development in India got a fillip when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh constituted the National Council on Skills Development in 2008 and the National Skills Development Corporation (NSDC) thereafter. For NSDC, this year has been one of the best -- a-one-of-its-kind public-private partnership formed to contribute significantly to the charter of skilling Indians. The corporation forged many new partnerships to train people, including joint ventures with the Bharti Group for 11.5 million, with Everonn for 15 million, with Future Group for seven million and with NIIT for another seven million. As of its last month's report, they have approved 34 training projects and eight sector skills councils, covered 177 districts, set up 2,427 centres, touched 20 sectors and have already set up the foundation required to train 58.6 million people in 10 years. In addition, under a special scheme, industry showed interest in joining hands with NSDC to induct youth from Jammu and Kashmir to train them in special skills at their facilities across India. Appointment of an industry veteran, former Tata Consultancy chief executive S. Ramadorai as an advisor to the prime minister in NSDC with the rank of a cabinet minister, is yet another path-breaking achievement this year. Private participation extended beyond NSDC and many companies came forward. Fiat India Automobiles launched "Diksha" to provide educational avenues and technical training for youth. Axis Bank and Bandhan jointly launched a 100-crore initiative on providing skills training and assets to the marginalised in West Bengal. Higher secondary education reform: The Ministry of Human Resource Development launched the revised centrally-sponsored scheme of vocationalisation of higher secondary education. To promote vocational training in schools, the government established a vocational education cell within Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE). The scheme also helps create a bridge between academia and industry. The National Occupational Standards (NOS) developed by the sector skills councils formed by NSDC will govern the activities in vocational education. In the area of higher education, Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal advocated the need for mobility of students from one university to the other. The number of engineering seats went up to 1.3 million in 2010-11 and the country initiated talks on how to make the selection process for Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and other engineering colleges more stress-free for the students.