President Ram Nath Kovind on Friday urged student community to become job creators rather than remain just job seekers and advised them to follow the path of ethics and principles to attain true success in whichever walk of life they chose.
While addressing the convocation of the Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar University here, the President said there should be no ambiguity or scope for argument on ethics. “Relativity applies to physics, not ethics,” he pointed out. On the occasion, he inaugurated Ambedkar Bhawan on the university campus. Kovind noted with satisfaction the rapid progress the country was making, but said we needed to do more on specific social and economic challenges as well as in the areas of science and technology. When the country moves forward, he said, every citizen benefits and gets opportunities for personal development.
The President noted that the Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar University had taken various steps to highlight social concerns and provide access to the disadvantaged. It also provided for reservations for single girl children as well as students with serious ailments. The university has adopted villages near the campus and worked with the local community on education and development, and connected local people to the University’s Innovators’ Club. He appreciated such efforts, calling them an example of the students’ sensitivity and sense of responsibility.
He said visit to Bhim Rao Ambedkar University is journey down the memory lane.
“I was the member of the member of the board of management of this university in 2002-03. Moreover Dr Ambedkar also had a link with lucknow as Guru Bhadant Pragyanand was a native of lucknow’’, said the President. He said its indeed a matter of pleasure that there are two auditorium named after Dr Ambedkar and Atal Bihari Vajpayee and he had the opportunity to honour both on Friday.
The President specifically praised two student’s 13 year old Sushma Verma pursuing doctorate degree and Neelu Sharma who has been awarded Swami Vivekananda child fellowship. “The two students have left a lasting impact on my mind and the two girls have added to the honour of the university. As the country attains new strides in development, I am sure everyone will get equal opportunity to move forward in life. President also remembered the iron man of India Sardar Patel. “I pay my tributes to Bharat Ratna Sardar Patel on his birth anniversary’’, said Ramnath Kovind.
President was accompanied by his wife Savita Kovind, Justice Pramod Kohli, UP Governor Ram Naik, technical education minister Ashutosh Tandon and chairman of the University grants commission VS Chauhan.
Addressing the convocation State Governor Ram Naik said “the convocation ceremony marks the end of the studies in the University and the struggle of life has begun but one should pursue the path of knowledge lifelong’’. The Governor said the girls outnumber the boys in winning medals. He said out of 192 medals the girls won 122 medals while the boys got only 70 medals.
Earlier, on arrival at lucknow’s Chaudhary Charan Singh Airport, President Kovind was received by UP Governor Ram Naik and CM Yogi Adityanath. From the airport, he went straight to Buddha Vihar in lucknow to pay homage to Buddhist monk Bhante Pragyanand, who died on November 30. Pragyanand was among the seven bhiksu who gave ‘dhamma deeksha’ to Dr BR Ambedkar on October 14, 1956 in Nagpur.
After the convocation programme at Bhim Rao Ambedkar University, President left for Allahabad. On arrival at the Bamrauli airport, he was received by deputy chief minister Keshav Prasad Maurya, health minister Siddharthnath Singh and Allahabad mayor Abhilasha Gupta.