Convocation Address at the Madras Christian College, Chennai, Tamil Nadu

Our Mission: Capacity Building for Societal Transformation

Learning gives creativity   
Creativity leads to thinking

I am delighted to participate in the Convocation Function of the Madras Christian College. It gives me great pleasure to be here in this College which has completed hundred and seventy years of service in meeting the educational needs of the students of Tamil Nadu. The College has implemented the choice based credit system which enables the students to pursue the courses in which he has special aptitude which will definitely enable him to achieve excellence in the selected area.

I take this opportunity to congratulate all the teachers, students and staff of this College and all those who have contributed in promoting good educational standards in this college during the last seventeen decades. I am very happy to see the mission statement of Madras Christian College, that the college is focusing on education with career training and value system for meeting the needs of our nation. My greetings to all of you. Today I would like to share with you few thoughts on ?Our Mission: Capacity Building for Societal Transformation?.

Capacity Building

A good educational model is the need of the hour to ensure that the students grow to contribute towards the economic growth of a nation. Normally, research, technology and performance in the three sectors namely agriculture, manufacturing and services lead to economic growth and prosperity of the nation. Can we sow the seeds of capacity building among the students? There will be continuous innovation during the learning process. To realize this, special capacities are required to be built in education system for nurturing the students. The capacities which are required to be built are research and enquiry, creativity and innovation, use of high technology, entrepreneurial and moral leadership.

Research and enquiry: The 21st century is about the management of all the knowledge and information we have generated and the value addition we bring to it. We must give our students the skills with which they find a way through the sea of knowledge that we have created and continue with life long learning. Today, we have the ability, through technology, to really and truly teach ourselves to become the life-long learners. This is required for sustained economic development.

Creativity and innovation: The management of knowledge in the 21st century is beyond the capacity of a single individual. The amount of information that we have around is overwhelming. The management of knowledge therefore must move out of the realm of the individual and shift into the realm of the networked groups. The students must learn how to manage knowledge collectively. When the information is networked the power and utility of the information grows as square as stated by Metcalfe's law. Information that is static does not grow. In the new digital economy information that is circulated creates innovation and contributes to national wealth.

Capacity to use high technology: Every student in our colleges should learn to know how to use the latest technologies for aiding their learning process. should equip themselves with adequate computing equipment, laboratory equipment, and Internet facilities and provide an environment for the students to enhance their learning ability. In the midst of all of the technological innovations and revolutions we cannot think that the role of the teachers will be diminished. In fact the teacher will become even more important and the whole world of education will become teacher assisted and would help in ?tele-porting? the best teacher to every nook and corner of the country and propagate the knowledge. There is a great opportunity and need for content generation in many fields of education which can be used in Madras Christian College, but also in other colleges in the state or in the country. I personally believe that content generation in the multimedia mode is very important.

Entrepreneurship: The aptitude for entrepreneurship should be cultivated right from the beginning and in the College environment. We must teach our students to take calculated risks for the sake of larger gain, but within the ethos of good business. They should also cultivate a disposition to do things right. This capacity will enable them to take up challenging tasks later.

Moral leadership: Moral leadership involves two aspects. First it requires the ability to have compelling and powerful dreams or visions of human betterment. Moral leadership requires a disposition to do the right thing and influence others also to do right things. In sum, inquiry, creativity, technology, entrepreneurial and moral leadership are the five capacities required to be built through the education process. If we develop in all our students these five capacities, we will produce ?Autonomous Learner? a self-directed, self controlled, lifelong learner who will have the capacity to both, respect authority and at the same time is capable of questioning authority, in an appropriate manner. These are the leaders who would work together as a ?Self-organizing Network? and transform any State as a prosperous State. The most important part of the education is to imbibe the confidence among the students is the spirit of ?we can do it?. These capacities will enable the students to meet the challenges of our national mission of transforming the nation into a developed country. I would like to share with you my thoughts on the ambience in 2020.

Ambience in 2020

If we perform in an integrated way with development politics as the focus, in mission mode with transparency, I visualize even before the year 2020, a prosperous India is possible. We expect the people below poverty line to come to near zero and our literacy must be nearly 100%. Human Development Index of India will be less than 50 against the present 127. Every Indian will have either a good university degree or quality training with globally competitive employable vocational skill. E-governance would be in position for all Government to Government (G2G) and Government to Citizens (G2C) transactions making the governance system transparent with National ID card in position. Tele-density will reach over 75%. All our villages will have reliable, uninterrupted quality electric power supply. The interlinking of the rivers and water bodies and use of technology for water collection, water recycling and water management will result in equitable distribution of water for drinking, irrigation, industry, navigation and as natural beauty. There will be no shortage of water in any part of the country nor there will be disasters due to floods, water logging etc. India would have realized energy security and will be working towards energy independence. Good sanitation facilities will be available at homes in every part of India and for all Indians and tourists. We will be using more of renewable energy such as solar energy, wind power, bio-mass, mini and micro Hydel and thorium based nuclear reactors, adding less to the pollution. Through responsive and innovative venture capital systems and entrepreneurial training both in schools and colleges, we will have more enterprises leading to large number of employment generators rather than employment seekers. A pro-active healthcare system delivered through innovative schemes will provide quality healthcare access at an affordable cost to all the people of the country including those living in remote areas. Everyone will have an opportunity to take up and complete courses of choice in higher education. I am sure you will all see prosperity in the country, which will replace scarcity and control. In addition to the above economic, social and human development, India will also have a visible global presence in strategic sectors and will contribute to world peace. All our technological and economical advances while enhancing our prosperity would embed our value system derived from our civilizational heritage. This unique combination will make our growth robust and sustainable and will lead to a peaceful, secure, happy and prosperous society. With the capacity built by Madras Christian College, I am sure you will definitely be able to become partners many of the missions leading to developed India by 2020 based on your specialization.

The nation needs persons of great heart, knowledge and above all capacity to share the knowledge and courage to meet the problems and succeed. Hence, I would like to share with you the uniqueness of two great minds, both of them Nobel Laureates, each one having a special trait which he symbolizes. They are Value of Science and Scientific Magnanimity. Friends, if you acquire any of one of them or both of them, you will be heading towards becoming a Nobel Laureate or you will make a difference to our Planet. Let us go into details.

The traits of Nobel minds

Value to Science: Since I am in the midst students, I thought of sharing with you an incident about Sir CV Raman ?a Nobel Laureate in Physics for discovering Raman Effect. Raman gives the view that the color of sky is blue due to molecular diffraction which determines the observed luminosity and in great measures also its color. This led to the birth of the Raman Effect. Raman was in the first batch of Bharat Ratna Award winners. The award ceremony was to take place in the last week of January, soon after the Republic Day celebrations of 1954. The then President Dr. Rajendra Prasad wrote to Raman inviting him to be the personal guest in the Rashtrapati Bhavan, when Raman came to Delhi for the award ceremony. Sir CV Raman wrote a polite letter, regretting his inability to go. Raman had a noble reason for his inability to attend the investiture ceremony. He explained to the President that he was guiding a Ph.D. student and that thesis was positively due by the last day of January. The student was valiantly trying to wrap it all up and Raman felt, he had to be by the side of the research student, see that the thesis was finished, sign the thesis as the guide and then have it submitted. Here was a scientist who gave up the pomp of a glittering ceremony associated with the highest honour, because he felt that his duty required him to be by the side of the student. It is this unique trait of giving value to science that builds science.

Scientific Magnanimity: Now, I would like to narrate an incident which took place during a function conferring Nobel Laureate Prof. Norman E Borlaug, a well known agricultural scientist and a partner in India?s first Green revolution, with Dr. M S Swaminathan Award, at Vigyan Bhavan, New Delhi on the 15th of March 2005. Prof. Borlaug, at the age of 91, was in the midst of all the praise showered on him from everybody gathered there. When his turn came, he got up and highlighted India?s advancement in the agricultural science and production and said that the political visionary Shri C. Subramaniam and Dr. M S Swaminathan, pioneer in agricultural science were the prime architects of First Green Revolution in India. Even though Prof Norman Borlaug was himself a partner in the first green revolution, he did not make a point on this. He recalled with pride, Dr. Verghese Kurien who ushered White Revolution in India. Then the surprise came. He turned to scientists sitting in the third row, fifth row and eighth row of the audience. He identified Dr. Raja Ram, a wheat specialist, Dr S K Vasal, a maize specialist, Dr. B. R. Barwale, a seed specialist. He said, all these scientists had contributed for India?s and Asia?s agricultural science. Dr. Borlaug introduced them to the audience by asking them to stand and ensured that the audience cheered and greeted the scientists with great enthusiasm. This action of Dr. Norman Borlaug, I call it as ?Scientific Magnanimity?. Friends, if we aspire to achieve great things in life, we need Scientific Magnanimity to focus the young achievers. It is my experience that great mind and great heart go together. This Scientific Magnanimity will motivate the scientific community and nurture team spirit.

Conclusion

With this background of unique traits of great minds, dear young friends, now it is time for all of you to have a great dream in life, dream transforms into thoughts and thoughts result into action. Now I would like to administer an oath on courage:

COURAGE

Courage to think different,

Courage to invent,

Courage to discover the impossible,

Courage to travel into an unexplored path,

Courage to share the knowledge

Courage to remove the pain

Courage to reach the unreached

Courage to combat the problems And Succeed,

Are the unique qualities of the youth.

As a youth of my nation, I will work and work with courage to achieve success in all my missions.

My congratulations to all the graduates who are passing out from Madras Christian College. My best wishes to all the members of Madras Christian College in their mission of providing quality education and capacity building among the youth of Chennai and the adjoining districts.

May God bless you.