Society seems to celebrate the wealthy and the powerful without giving much thought about the ways and means employed by them to achieve such wealth and power. This unabashed celebration of wealth and power is the primary reason for changing values and this attitude has to change, said N. Santosh Hegde, former Judge of the Supreme Court and a member of the anti-corruption crusader Anna Hazare’s core team, at Crossfire 2014, a panel discussion on the “Role Of Youth In Politics” organised as part of Pragyan, the annual technical fest of the National Institute of Technology-Tiruchi here on Friday.
D.R. Karthikeyan, former director of the CBI, said the ways of achieving power and wealth had changed in “the knowledge era”. Citing the example of the former President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, Mr. Karthikeyan said Dr. Kalam was an illuminating example of what a man could achieve with hard work, honesty, and integrity.
Quoting investment guru Warren Buffet, Mr. Karthikeyan said people like Buffet, Bill Gates, and Azim Premji had not only created wealth but they also spent their hard-earned money happily on the less privileged across the world without consideration to nationality, language, religion, or community. This was the example youngsters should emulate, he said. Students of premier institutions such as the NIT and IITs should take a pledge to support at least one person from below the poverty line with life skills to help them lead a dignified life.
The demographic dividend was on India’s side and by tapping it appropriately the country could play a leadership role in the world.
G. Balakrishnan, former vice principal, St. Joseph’s College, moderator, said: “We have enough factors to divide us in caste, creed, religion and regional affinities, but not enough of them to unite us and it is the responsibility of the students of institutions such as NIT’s where more than 50 per cent of them are drawn from outside their respective States.”
Bhagwan Singh, Executive Editor of Deccan Chronicle, said that with the advent of social media the ‘I’ did not end with one individual.
