Source: Government of India
Posted On: 02 MAR 2025 6:30PM by PIB Delhi
Very good afternoon all of you and I had the occasion to say it yesterday, there are no backbenchers in IITs, there are only backbenches. Am I right? Shri Jishnu Dev Verma, Honourable Governor Telangana, Honourable Member of Parliament, Shri M. Raghunandan Rao, Chairman, Board of Governors, IIT Hyderabad, Dr. B. V. R. Mohan Reddy, a man highly acclaimed, highly accoladed and I shared his thoughts with you, mincing no words.
When IIT Board of Governors is fully involved, things are in a different groove. Professor B. S. Murthy, Director IIT Hyderabad, watch out for him. He is not as he appears, a tough guy. He means business and he means two other things apart from business. Number two is business, Number three, is business. Brevity is the soul of wit, the soul of demonstration of it in his discourse. Every word was amplified, a thought process with which you all are involved. He indicated, we don’t only create ideas, we ideate, we innovate, we accomplish. When you monetise every second, every moment, you do justice not only to yourself but to humanity.
But you are greatly privileged when you happen to be in Bharat, home to one-sixth of humanity. We are privileged today to have presence of Honourable members of Parliament. Shri Vaddiraju Ravichandra, Shri S. S. Babu, I’ll face them in Rajya Sabha from my chair. You must have seen Rajya Sabha proceedings. They are good cholesterol. Soothing and make positive contributions. It was a great loss to the chairman of Rajya Sabha when Shri Vijay Sai Reddy ji, a very distinguished parliamentarian, ceased to be its member. I wish him great luck.
The director focused and so did the chairman of the board of governors. An Institution is defined by the infrastructure, but that is easily creatable. That is essential, but not the cutting edge. It is our 300 squad of faculty members with greater recognition who are giving everything to make you future leaders. And let me tell you, there can be no greater honour at the moment than a global benchmark to get such quality education as your Institute.
Amongst the IITs, in terms of time, you may not have been in the beginning, but by your achievements, by your accomplishments, you have reached that group. My congratulations to the entire faculty. The director must settle me, finding I have a political background of having been in parliament in 1989 when I ministered there, and also taking a vote without spilling out my role as Governor of the state of West Bengal. It reminded me I have to focus on innovation.
Innovation, boys and girls, is a panacea for what we need and what kills us. It is a one-stop solution to bring about progress, sustainable development, and solve our problems. When it comes to Bharat, a land of homogeneous, demonstrated to the world for over 5,000 years, an Indian mind has a DNA which speaks of genius.
Let me buttress it by one illustration. We are a nation of 1.4 billion people and we are well spread out. The landscape, rural, semi-urban, urban, metro, and top metros. But when it came to technological penetration and digitisation, just imagine, accessibility of technology and adaptability of those in the villages. Amazing performance, giving us global recognition. If our people-centric policies, if service delivery is so efficient, it is on account of adaptability to technology of our brothers and sisters in the villages. I am son of a farmer.
Imagine the kind of pride I have. Three times a year, about 100 million farmers get a direct amount in their bank accounts. The government or the system is not important. It is an achievement, but the farmers are equipped on their own to receive it. Now if you go to the base of it, this would not have been possible unless the Prime Minister of the country entertained the grandiose idea that they must have access to banking system.
And in the shortest space, when it comes to time assessment, over 500 million people have got banking vision. Second, the malice of nepotism, and that is highly unacceptable to our young people, because if patronage is password for an employment or opportunity, you will have a deep frustration.
And there was a time, not long ago, when power corridors were infested with corrupt elements. Decision-making was leveraged extraordinarily. Patronage was a password for success. There was in that country a privileged pedigree. They entertained the idea that we are above law. We are beyond the reach of law. Nothing could be more frustrating toyoung minds. I faced it during my time.
Imagine my pain, admitted to an IIT, had no money, couldn’t go. Imagine my pain, as an advocate, had to work very hard to get a loan of 6000 rupees for my digestion. Vividly I had before me the manager who said, I can give you without paying guarantee because I find you are a good lawyer, and look at the transformative change you are witnessing. Start-ups, unicorns emanating from tier 2 cities.
You are, and you try, Gen Z and Generation Next and those who are before me. You are the most vital stakeholders in democracy, in progress of this nation. Right now, if you have to see where we are heading, then we have to find the ecosystem. A nation’s state is fundamental because if the nation is let say at war, things go horizontally. So nation’s state is important. So is the national movement. Also its growth trajectory, the destination it has for itself, its ecosystem.
And when we examine these things, reality check, our nation is in a top global group. World technological leaders, when it comes to finer aspects of development like Quantum computing or Green Hydrogen mission or commercialisation of 6G, areas which will appeal you not to ordinary youth, but we are in the big league of nations.
Artificial intelligence is bringing about paradigm shift every moment. It is introduction of an era, a new kind of industrial revolution with greater potential, challenges and opportunities. This has a big basket of opportunities for boys and girls. Let me remind you one aspect. I had the occasion to face terrible panks of pain in 1990.
I was a Minister and our gold had to be shipped out by air to be placed to two banks in Switzerland to sustain our fiscal credibility because our foreign exchange could not last even for a few weeks, not to speak of months.
It was in doldrums, dangerously moving around 1 billion US dollars. This is not a concern to us at all at the moment. We are 700 billion, but concern to you is we are having trade deficit with a neighbouring country to the extent of 90 billion US dollars, and if I go by the figures recently released, the input is 17% year on year and the output is only 11%. Solution to that has to be found by you.
You will have to focus and only you can do it. I do agree that young minds like you have capacity to bring about big transformative change. But then you need some support. And one support is I seek to steer your minds, minds of the parliamentarians, minds of industry leaders, your chairman represents that group. Academia, your director represents it.
Economic nationalism. Much of the trade deficit that is draining out our foreign exchange to the tune of hundreds of billions. If one country is around 90 billion US dollars, you can imagine when we cumulatively assess it.
Why should this country import what is available? Number two, if it is avoidable, can’t our genius find a solution by way of substitution? and three, our raw materials leave our shores, pronouncing on our inability to add value to the raw material. In the process, we deprive our people of work on both accounts, avoidable imports and export of raw material. The blunt entrepreneurship, this mindset has to dominate us.
The role of the people is crucial, but then the greater role is of those in industry, commerce, business and trade. Can’t they sit on one table through their associations and take a call? That, I would urge, should be taken.
While I was examining your motto and logo, both are critical, and I am happy by what I have gathered on my own and what has been asserted by the director and chairman. Motto: Inventing and innovating in Technology for Humanity.
Logo: Expansion and Growth of Knowledge, and this is drawn from Telugu. Let me reflect on some changes that are worrisomely alarming, concerning. India is a land of rich languages.
Sanskrit, Bangla, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, several languages. Even in Parliament, simultaneous translation takes place in 22 languages. Our civilisational ethos tells us inclusivity. Should there be confrontational stance on language in land of Bharat?
What a moment of pride for everyone when languages were put in the classical language status recently. We have to nurture every language. Our languages have global outreach. They are gold mine of literature, and the literary pieces have knowledge and wisdom. Vedas, Puranas, our epics, Ramayana, Mahabharata, Gita.
And therefore I call upon youth of the country, Social media has given you the power to take a call. If there is deviation from our commitment to nationalism, if there is assessment of development through partisan prism, we need to be watchdogs.
Use the power to blunt the narratives that emanate from forces that are financially fuelled only to injure Bharat. Because you are at the moment living in times that indicate hope and possibility. Your basket is limitless.
Look at sea surface, deep sea, ground, underground, sky or space. Your opportunities and challenges are there. Mid-blue economy or space economy.
Let me pose a question to you. If the International Monetary Fund has asserted that India, Bharat at the moment is a hotspot, a global centre, most attractive one for investment and opportunity, is it for government jobs? Certainly not. Therefore, that opportunity is for you also.
Investment, these days I can tell you with my exposure in governance, is not a problem at all. You would have seen in start-ups investment, apart from the governmental affirmative policies, innovative framework, top business leaders investing in start-ups. The hierarchical succession mechanism in industrial business has collapsed.
Tech tycoons are emerging. There was a time when we could not see a single Indian soul working in global top corporates at any level, and now boys and girls, there is not a single global corporate of consequence where an Indian genius is not contributing at the top level.
When that is the scenario, you have to make a difference. You have to catalyse the change which you think is best for the nation. And I would say, don’t just catalyse, be the epicentre of change.
Another centre of change, never ever keep a brilliant idea in your mind. Your mind is not a parking space. What a parking place.
You do greatest injustice to you and to humanity that an idea has occurred to you and you fear experimentation. You fear failure. Boys and girls’ fear of failure is a myth.
Chandrayaan 2,I was governor of the state of West Bengal. It was September, I think, 2019. I think 2019, and I was in the company of about 500 school-going children, young boys and girls. Chandrayaan 2 landed close but could not touch the lunar surface. For some who are recipe for chaos, some would define nothing but negativity. For some who see nothing but only taint in your white cloth, they said, failure, so much money, but if you examine success of Chandrayaan 3, was rooted in the foundation laid by Chandrayaan 2, you all will realise first attempt success has eluded most great innovations.
Let me focus on reality of research and innovation. First our corporates. I am not critical of them, I am critique. They must invest in research. They must invest in research for development and innovation. They must compete with global giants, because this investment is not for the beneficiary student, boy or girl of your Institute or other Institutes.
It is for benefit of our present, our future. And trust me, we have had a big change in our strategic system globally. Conventional war system has collapsed. It is diplomacy that defines. Innovation and research give us great cutting edge in soft diplomacy. We become a great power. Therefore I appeal from this podium. Corporates, examine what your peers are doing in the West. Please come closer to them.
Second, look at global Universities. Their endowment funds in billions of US dollars. I had the occasion to glance. Oh my god, crossing in 50 billion US dollars. If you see the top list, why don’t we have it? I hope, Governor of the board, we started in 2008.
We have Alumni. Let our alumni plow in the corpus. Amount doesn’t matter. It is the spirit of contribution that will generate a connect with the Institute.
A pride for them also. I have mooted an idea. I hope someone takes it.
We have institutes of excellence, IITs, IIMs and other institutes. Their aluminium associations must form into a confederation of associations of aluminium. It will be a top world benchmark think tank for policy making.
It can spur research and innovation. All I am indicating is that these thoughts which I have shared are only indicative, because you are discerning minds, you can on your own work about it.
If a man like me, who had such a successful career, I can say so, now I am not a senior advocate anymore, to be designated senior in less than 10 and a half years of my practise. No one has done it. I still feel the void of not getting admission to IIT. You are there. I still have the void.
The position of the Governor or Vice-President does not compensate it. And therefore, I am your Eklavya. I am trying to persuade you.
I would conclude, I invite in batches students of the IIT and the faculty to be my guests for a visit to Indian parliament, and I would have the occasion and I would gather some people who need to be educated. No pun intended.
We will have luncheon, brainstorming sessions. I will depute an Officer from my secretariat to be in touch with the Registrar, and this will be done before I take off in my helicopter. I hope you will respond to me. I go with a deep sense of satisfaction, optimism and confidence.
Though I have not been able to share my thoughts in completeness, but I know, I may have sent or short changed you. But you have received what I mean to convey.
Thank you so much for your time.
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JK/RC/SM
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