Moily Awards Medals to Rank Holders at SAC Graduation Ceremony
Pics: Dayanand Kukkaje
Daijiworld Media Network – Mangalore (PS)
Mangalore, May 28: The first graduation ceremony of St Aloysius College (Autonomous) was held in Loyola Hall, St Aloysius P U College in the presence of union minister for law and justice M Veerappa Moily as chief guest on Saturday May 28.
Fr Francis Serrao, provincial, Karnataka Jesuit Province declared the graduation ceremony open.
Medals, cash awards and certificates were distributed to rank holders of graduate and postgraduate levels on the occasion. In addition, the former also received wrist watches sponsored by Titan. Daijiworld's Anisa Fathima was one of the awardees who was presented with a gold medal for securing the first rank in MA English.
Delivering the graduation address, Moily urged the students to reach out to the lesser privileged sections of the society and become harbingers of change. "You need to reach out and connect India physically, technologically and socially," he said.
He lauded St Aloysius College (Autonomous) for living up to its social responsibility, especially by focussing on the fields of science and humanities which are not essentially lucrative. He entreated the gathering to 'embrace change' and face the challenges posed by the field of higher education in a rapidly changing world.
Noting that girls had outshone the boys in terms of securing top ranks at the ceremony, he said that it was a matter of pride to the girls and to St Aloysius Institution which for a long time had been a men's college. The comment was received with loud applause from the audience.
Outlining the issues related to autonomy, like designing of curriculum, undertaking innovations, research, adopting choice courses and so on, he said that the College has excelled in all these areas, especially in terms of innovation.
"The total allocation for higher and technical education in the 11th allocation recorded a nine-fold increase over the 10th Plan allocation, from Rs 9,600 crore to Rs 84,943 crore," he informed, while speaking on government's grant to higher education.
He stressed that being technically skilled and intellectually competent is the need of the hour in this globally developing world.
The education system must focus on the holistic development of the youth of the country and must aim at strengthening the virtues of secularism, inclusiveness and pluralism, he said, and called upon the students to contribute their best to cultural, literary and social aspects of their community.
He summed-up his message with a quote by Dr Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan: "The end-product of education should be a free creative man, who can battle against historical circumstances and adversities of nature’’.
Fr Francis Serrao, presiding over the programme, said that educational institutions leave indelible impressions on the lives of students and encourage them to walk on the path of success.
Fr Joseph Rodrigues, rector of St Aloysius Institutions who graced the occasion administered the oath to the graduating students.
Fr Swebert D’Silva, principal of the College welcomed. Dr A M Narahari, registrar and convener of the graduation day ceremony was present, along with members of the College governing council, staff and students.
About 650 students, both graduates and postgraduates, received their certificates.
Law will take its own course in Afzal Guru Case: Moily
Speaking to the media on the sidelines of the programme, he said that the draft of Jan Lokpal Bill will be ready by June 30 and will be presented in the parliament for approval.
On Afzal Guru's case he said that law will take its natural course, insisting that the central government has not intervened in the issue.
He refused to comment on BJP leader Sushma Swaraj's claim that she had no hand in the making of Reddy brothers politically, saying it was an internal matter of the BJP. However, he did add that BJP is on shaky grounds at the national level, having lost power in five states in the recent elections.