President Pranab Mukherjee delivered his New Year message on Tuesday to the faculty and students of Central Government institutions of higher education, using the video conferencing facility.
He exhorted the institutions to make a ‘New Year Resolution’ to set a definite road-map for achieving higher standards of academic excellence. It was a unique programme that had the President address all the institutions live, on line, using the National Knowledge Network (NKN) and National Informatics Centre (NIC) facilities. The participating institutions were all Central Universities, IITs, NITs and other Central Institutions.
By delivering the New Year Message using the NKN and NIC facilities, the President was highlighting the importance harnessing technology for education. The NKN has developed into a very powerful tool to share information and knowledge. location disadvantage, lack of study material or even good teachers should not anymore be issues for higher education institutions after being networked through the NKN. Thanking the President for the New Year message, Prof Anand Mohan, Director, NIT Kurukshetra said that the President had laid out a clear agenda for action. It is now for the institutions of higher education to implement the agenda and become active participants in India’s growth story.
The NIT Kurukshetra had made elaborate arrangements for the live address of the President. Ten halls were equipped with video conferencing facility for the faculty and students to listen to the President. The Virtual Classroom, with two-way communication facility, was used by the Director to deliver the vote of thanks. Prof Brahmjit Singh and Prof JS lather of NIT Kurukshetra, and Kamal Tyagi and Vinod Singla of NIC Kurukshetra, were mainly responsible for the flawless technical support.