-Mita Mukherjee
IITs (Indian Institute of Technology) need to be taken to the next level from Indian Institutes of Technology to “institutes of indigenous technologies” to meet the changing demands and aspirations of new India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said addressing the 66th annual convocation of IIT-Kharagpur on Tuesday.
“ India has changed in the 21st century. The demands have changed, the aspirations have changed. Now an IIT is not just the Indian Institute of Technology. ITTs will have to be taken to the next level–institutes of indigenous technology. The more our IITs conduct researches to find the solutions to our own challenges, the more the IITs will become the medium of global applications,” the Prime Minister said.
He addressed the convocation through a video conference.
The Prime Minister urged students to adopt the mantra of “self-3”—“self- confidence, self- awareness and selflessness” to overcome their “self-doubts” and obstacles in the future.
The Prime Minister in his 20 minutes speech offered a number of advises to students.
He said there is no place of hastiness when it comes to science and technology. “ You may fail to achieve complete success in the innovations you are working on. But failures can be considered as success as well as you can learn something even from failures,” he said.
The Prime Minister lauded the efforts of IIT Kharagpur to transform academic research related to Artificial Intelligence (AI) at an industrial level, the Internet of Things (IoT) and modern construction technology.
He said IIT Kharagpur’s software solutions were also useful in the fight against Corona. He urged the institute to work fast on futuristic solutions in health technology. He said a huge market for health and fitness related equipment is also increasing.
The Prime Minister said Disaster Management is a subject that the world has looked up to India. During the major disasters, along with life, infrastructure is the most affected. Two years ago, India took the initiative of establishing the Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure in the United Nations.
The convocation was held in virtual mode keeping in view the safety measures during the post-pandemic situation.
However, 75 students including nine Institute Gold Medal winners and 65 Institute Silver Medal winners were invited to the Kharagpur campus receive the medals in person.
More than 2800 students were awarded degrees in online mode. The institute also conferred DSc (Honoris Causa) IIT Kharagpur Life Fellow Award and Distinguished Alumnus Award.
Talking about the e-convocation, IIT-Kharagpur director Professor Virendra K Tewari said: “ This is a unique occasion for us. While we are welcoming the 2020 batch of alumni, we also feel for the students who would have to miss the cherished occasion. Being a former student myself, I can feel their disappointment and it was an extremely hard decision which I had to take keeping in mind the welfare of the students. We will plan to organize an event to bring back this batch together at a later date when the pandemic subsides completely to let them have their moment of glory.”
Watch the 66th annual convocation of IIT-Kharagpur here.
Courtesy: Narendra Modi’s YouTube channel.
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