The Ministry of Science of Technology will look into initiating Centres of Excellence with participation of private educational institutions, said Harsh Vardhan, Union minister for science and technology and earth sciences, on Tuesday.
He was delivering the 10{+t}{+h}convocation address at SRM University, Kattankulathur. He conferred honorary doctorates on A.S. Kiran Kumar, chairman, Indian Space Research Organisation, Pradeep K. Khosla, chancellor of University of California, and Ashutosh Sharma, secretary, Department of Science and Technology.
Dr. Harsh Vardhan told students that commitment to values, together with sincerity and dedication, would help them as they charted their futures.
“To be successful, you will have to nurture a dream today. If you have a dream and are sincere about fulfilling it, you will have the help of God, society and everyone,” he said.
The Union minister recalled how some two decades ago, a small group of persons came up with the dedicated dream of making India polio free.
“If you can give a ballot to every single person, why would it not be possible to reach out to the people with a vaccine?” said Dr. Harsh Vardhan, pointing out to the fact that today India is polio free.
P. Sathyanarayanan, president of SRM University, and T.R. Paarivendhar, founder-chancellor of SRM University, also spoke the programme.
The convocation witnessed 90 scholars receiving their PhD. degrees in various disciplines, and nearly 165 students getting gold medals for securing first rank in their courses.
Union minister Harsh Vardhan said his ministry would look into participation of private universities
