-Divvy Kant Upadhyay, Manipal
Manipal, Nov 18: "Manipal University and its allied constituent institutions have been offering world class education and capacity building programmes for six decades" said Prof VN Rajsekharan Pillai, Vice Chancellor of the Indira Gandhi National Open Univeristy(IGNOU) at the Convocation of the Manipal University held at the KMC Greens this evening.
Prof Pillai, who was the Chief Guest at the occasion in which more than 1000 students of the Manipal Univeristy from different fields graduated, stressed that "the very purpose of education is to improve the quality of life and life management systems". He added that the "growth and development are the keys to unlock the divide between developing and developed sections of the society within the country'. According to Prof Pillai who was also the former vice chairman of the University Grants Commision(UGC), Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) are the most powerful tools for building sufficient productive capacity for India.
He praised the role of media to harness the new globalised and digitalized modes of delivery of education. "Rural development has to be addressed with the alternative visions provided by technology" he advised the graduating youth advising them to perceive the needs of rural people .
It was announced that Dr Ramdas Pai made a generous contribution of Rs 100 crores to the university towards research and social causes.
Mr BS Baswan, Director, Indian Institute of Public Administration and former senior consultant of the Planning Commission was the guest of honour at the event. Dr Aggarwal, Secretary of the world Heamato-oncology society was also present.
Manipal University President and Chancellor Dr Ramdas M Pai declared the convocation open and presented mementos to Prof VN Rajsekharan and BS Baswan.
Pro Chancellor of the Manipal University, Dr HS Ballal welcomed the gathering and Vice Chancellor Dr Raj Warrier gave an overview of the university. They hoped that the graduates turn out to be responsible and smart citizens of the country. Senior administrators of all constituent colleges were present along with a large number of students and their parents.
Registrar of the Manipal Univeristy, Dr H Vinod Bhat administered the oath to the graduates. More than 430 students from the Manipal Institute of Technology graduated.