Respect your motherland: CM urges IIT graduates
Kharagpur: Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Friday appealed to the graduating students of IIT Kharagpur to respect the soil of the motherland and feel proud to be born in a country that has produced so many eminent persons.
"Please don't forget your country, please don't forget your state, your parents and your teachers. Wherever you are, please always respect the soil of the motherland and feel proud that you belong to a country that has produced eminent leaders like Mahatma Gandhi, Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, Rajendra Prasad, Swami Vivekananda and Rabindranath Tagore," Banerjee said, addressing the 64th Convocation of IIT Kharagpur.
She was invited as the guest of honour at the event and happened to be the second Chief Minister of the state after Dr. Bidhan Chandra Roy to attend the convocation ceremony of the premier institute.
She urged the students to hold their heads high and be brave and confident to leave their mark on the world in the days to come.
"We are proud of IIT Kharagpur. It is the number one IIT in India since independence. It is a centre of excellence and you, who are being conferred degrees today, I believe will be winners of the world tomorrow. It is united India and it belongs to all castes, creeds and religions," Banerjee said amidst a thunderous applause of around 2,616 graduates, who were awarded degrees at the convocation.
IIT KGP director Partha Pratim Chakrabarti said that a special MHRD grant of Rs 151.9 crore has been sanctioned for research and infrastructure development, with focus on attracting young talented academicians and post doctoral fellows from across the country.
"Work has already started to build lab infrastructure of global standard technological convergence domains like manufacturing, transportation, VLSI design, cloud computing, smart infrastructure and affordable healthcare among others. A significant part of the funding will also be used to offer challenge grants and equipment for the Central Research Facility of the institute, making them accessible to both faculty and students for research work," he said.
Governor Keshari Nath Tripathi was also present as a guest of honour in the convocation.
