Students should help India rise and realise its full potential to become a superpower, said Vijayamohanan Pillai, director of Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) - Central Electrochemical Research Institute (CECRI), Karaikudi, while delivering the 48th annual convocation address at Madurai Kamaraj University here on Tuesday.
“Be creative and compassionate towards fellow human beings and promote academic entrepreneurship. Climate control, food security, clean and green environment and health, energy and clean water are areas that need focus for a bright future,” Dr. Vijayamohanan Pillai noted.
According to him, knowledge creation and knowledge utilisation must occur concurrently in universities. Facilitating commercialisation of research and development efforts, employing patenting and licensing will pave way for more visible interactions with industries, ensuring more employability of students, he said.
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Governor K. Rosaiah presided over the ceremony and conferred degrees on 58,060 graduates, 342 in person and 57,718 in absentia. A total of 67 candidates were presented prizes and medals. Two professors received Doctor of Science and Doctor of Letters degrees.
Minister for Higher Education P. Palaniappan said Tamil Nadu was evolving as the knowledge capital of the nation thanks to the initiatives of the State government.
“Twenty-four constituent colleges, 13 government colleges, four engineering colleges and 11 polytechnic colleges have been established by the State in the past three years. The overall Human Development Index of the State is 0.736, higher than the national value of 0.619,” he said.
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Mr. Palaniappan further urged the graduates to utilise knowledge imbibed from the university to become socially responsible citizens.
Presenting the annual report, Vice-Chancellor Kalyani Mathivanan said that a 100 KW solar power plant was set up in the university to make the university a green campus, established central instrumentation centre and modern kitchen in women’s hostel. Scientific equipment such as High Resolution Transmission Electron Microscope and Scanning Election Microscope were installed, she said. The university inaugurated Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) system in the library and launched e-learning portal in the distance education mode, she added.
“The directorate of distance education introduced 79 programmes from the academic year 2013,” Dr. Kalyani Mathivanan further said.
The Governor also declared open the new research trainees hostel of the Networking Resource Centre, School of Biological Sciences.