President calls for intensive moral and value-based education to fight against social crimes like atrocities on women

Updated on: Friday, June 21, 2013

President Pranab Mukherjee on Thursday called for intensive moral and value-based education to fight against social crimes like atrocities on women. He said this while addressing the 10th convocation of Tripura University.

"It pains me like fellow citizens when I come across incidents of attacks on women and I appeal to academicians to sincerely take part in imparting moral education to youngsters," said Pranab.

He added that physical infrastructure of the academic institution has expanded over the years and at present about 2.6 crore students are studying in 659 universities and 33,000 colleges in India. Despite having immense development, none of the Indian universities or NIT got a place in the list of Top 200 world class institutions of learning.

"I feel disappointed with the statistics that only 7 students between 18-24 years of age out of 1000 get higher education in India, which is 21 in Germany and 34 in US. I request the academicians to ponder over the issue," he added.

He said India had already proved its excellence in education and had been dominating the world in research and values over 1800 years since 600 BC. But the reason behind the sudden fall in academic brilliancy needs to be found out.

"India took eight decades to get another Nobel laureate (Amartya Sen) after 1930 when CV Raman won the Nobel. It proves there is no problem with the students' skill and zeal as well as the talent of our teachers. But it is needed to integrate all aspects," said the President.

While praising Indian universities, he said Nalanda and Takshasila dominated the world in education well before Harvard, Oxford, Cambridge and MIT. He pointed out that 50 brilliant students, who passed out from Calcutta University, established the Indian National Congress in 1885 and it's become an issue after 66 years of Independence to identify why the country failed to achieve any institutional excellence even though many of us have been able to achieve excellence individuality.

When Pranab came out of the university hall at 5.30 pm, hundreds of people were waiting to say 'hi' to him outside the campus and beyond the bamboo fencing. Suddenly, Pranab walked on the road keeping aside his security to reciprocate to their sentiments. Mukherjee was later accorded a civic reception at Agartala Town Hall by the city administration.

He is scheduled to inaugurate the first unit of the 726-MW gas-based combined cycle power project on Friday noon and attend the 5th convocation of NIT, Agartala, before leaving the state capital in the evening.

President calls for intensive moral and value-based education to fight against social crimes like atrocities on women

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