Referring to a rising country (an indirect reference to China) that intends to disturb the established world order, Governor R.N. Ravi on Thursday said India and the United States of America had a greater shared responsibility of safeguarding the existing global order from that country, which is hegemonic in its outlook.
Speaking at the 37th annual convocation of the Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT), Vellore, Mr. Ravi said India and the world were in a situation where the existing world order would soon change. Earlier, the U.S.A. took responsibility in maintaining the world order despite its ups and downs. However, the existing global order could be maintained only with the shared responsibility of India and the U.S.A. “The rising country seeks to encroach upon global commerce, which is common for the whole of humanity. They are trying to make it their own,” he said.
He further said the rising country thought humans were just easy disposable materials. Human dignity was not in the reckoning of their radar. This had reflected in the way they had spread the economy to control countries around the word and trapped them. “It’s not a jungle raj – those who have muscle can rule. This new global order is unacceptable,” Mr. Ravi said.
Calling the existing period in the country as a golden era of rejuvenation, Mr. Ravi said earlier, most of the initiatives were government-driven ones. Now, such initiatives are people-driven ones with the government playing the role of facilitator, removing any obstacles in their execution. For example, a few years earlier, only around 400 start-ups had come up in the country, whereas now there were more than 80,000 start-ups.
Highlighting the need for more funds allocation for higher education, VIT Chancellor G. Viswanathan said at present, only 3.5% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was allocated for education as against the required quantum of 6%. In higher education too, the country’s share in total GDP is only 0.65% when compared to Israel (4.9%) and South Korea (4%).
In fact, based on the 2011 census, it was found that only 3.5 crore students were enrolled in over 1,000 universities and 54,000 colleges as against the 14 crore eligible students for higher education, he said.
A total of 8,168 graduates (undergraduate and postgraduate), including 62 gold medallists and 215 research scholars, received their degrees. Mr. Sethuraman Panchanathan, Director, U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), was given a honorary doctorate. T.M. Venkatesan from the VIT Business School got his doctorate at the age of 75.
Judith Ravin, U.S. Consul General (Chennai); Srivari Chandrasekhar, Secretary, Department of Science and Technology, Government of India; and vice-presidents of VIT Sankar Viswanathan, Sekar Vishwanathan and G.V. Selvam took part.
