“Humility and faith in god are the two limbs for intuitive revelation needed for indefinite progress of human life,” said M. S. Ananth, former Director, Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, here on Sunday.
Delivering the 29th convocation address at the SASTRA University, he drew inspiring examples from the lives of the teacher-turned President Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan and the President-turned teacher Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam who were humble and faithful in their quest for intellectual accomplishment.
He stressed the need for unity among natural and social sciences for the highest form of enlightenment. Complementing the progress of education and research in natural sciences like engineering and medicine, he called for a transformation in the neglected areas of social sciences and humanities. An integrated approach was key to explore the lawful material world outside - both human and natural.
The conventional teaching-learning approach must concentrate on diverse approaches to solve a problem than solving diverse problems, said Prof. Ananth counselling students to reduce problems to a solution. Such creative experiments could not happen in theoretical steps but only through leaps in the thought process using the best of both the left and right brain assets. He laid emphasis on the three components of education - knowledge, knowhow and character building - pursuing all the three embedded with a deep sense of nationalism.
Ph.D. degrees were awarded to 50 and graduate and post-graduate degrees were awarded to over 3,500 students belonging to various disciplines of engineering, sciences, management, law and humanities.
The best doctoral thesis in engineering was awarded to K. S. Suganthi for her work that resulted in seven publications with a cumulative impact factor of 26 and for sciences to Ganesh Kumar Mani for his work leading to eight publications with a cumulative impact factor of 31. The best doctoral thesis in the discipline of humanities was awarded to Swami Santatmananda from Rishikesh for his work on Dvaita and Advaita Comparative Philosophies. The Lord Selvamuthukumaran Award for the Best Outgoing Student of the graduating batch of 2015 was awarded to R.V. Trilochan, a B.Tech. mechanical engineering graduate.
Chancellor R. Kandaswamy presided and Vice-Chancellor R.Sethuraman welcomed the gathering.
