Address At The 2nd Convocation Of Nagaland University

Vision for Nagaland and the Missions for University

"Capacity building among students ? the mission of University"

I am indeed delighted to participate in the 2nd Convocation of the Nagaland University. I greet the Chancellor, Vice Chancellor, professors, staff, students and other distinguished guests. I am happy to note that this University has started contributing to the development of higher education in Nagaland during the last 13 years. I congratulate the students graduating from the University for their Academic Performance and greet the Faculty Members for shaping the young minds.

Nagaland and Me

Friends, when I see you all, I recall my visit to Nagaland on 26th Oct 2002. It was a unique experience for me at Khuzama village to meet tribal village council members and discuss with them the village progress and the dream of village citizens. I was very happy to see the empowered village council was functioning and taking decisions with financial powers. I saw a prosperous village with fruits and vegetables production. Of course the visible problem was lack of marketing facilities. The marketing facilities have to be accelerated through proper infrastructure.

Another great experience for me was when I addressed the Tuensang and Man people organization. I saw the sea of people with multi-colored costumes and it was a festival of music and dance. What impressed me was, Nagaland is indeed a beautiful land of multi-culture representing our national ethos. Then I visited the church organization in Tuensang, where I had interaction with the members of Eleutheros Christian society and the school children. Here, I was really impressed with the mission against HIV/AIDS disease. I got the message how serious the problem was. I have asked NACO (National Aids Control Organisation) to take all steps to prevent this disease in Nagaland. In Kohima area, I met large number of students including the students from the neighbouring rural areas. I have received more than 25 questions in about one hour after my talk. All of them were directed towards Education, Employment and how Nagaland can be transformed into a beautiful, happy and peaceful state. With this background, I was thinking, what thoughts I can share with you. I am going to talk to you on ?Vision for Nagaland and the Missions for University?.

On Dec 26th 2006, Nagaland completed 43 years of Statehood. The dream of the youth has to be the dream of Nagaland. Nagaland is the land of the young. At least 50% of the people are below 25 years. It is a beautiful state with unique tradition of tribal structure, community organization and strong bonds that connect people to people. I understand the society has strong social bonding and community spirit. I visualize Nagaland to be an economically developed state well before 2020 with its natural environment well maintained. What are the tools for economic development? Most importantly six areas which can promote economic progress of the state are:

a. Specialised Tourism development including hotel industry, training of the people by expanding the infrastructure. 
b. Promotion of handicraft products with value addition obtained through technology infusion 
c. Agriculture with herbal, aromatic plants, horticulture and floriculture. 
d. Industrial growth with processing of select high value agri products. 
e. Bamboo and value added products 
f. The knowledge products utilising core competence in English and special nature of environment. 
Nagaland University has the mission to partner in the development of Nagaland, particularly, by building the capacity among the students, to meet the economic challenges as discussed in the sub-paras ?a? to ?f? above.

I would like to discuss the capacities that are to be built among the students for contributing towards the development of the State.

Capacity Building

A good educational system is the need of the hour to ensure that the students grow to contribute towards the economic growth of a nation. Normally, research, technology, application and investment in the three sectors namely agriculture, manufacturing and services lead to economic growth. 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 or a single group. The amount of information that we have around is overwhelming. The management of knowledge therefore must move out of the realm of the individual or single group 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 should learn to know how to use the latest technologies for aiding their learning process. Universities 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.

Entrepreneurship: The aptitude for entrepreneurship should be cultivated right from the beginning and in the university 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 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 by 2020.

Our National mission - challenges

Our nation is going through a major challenge of uplifting of 220 million people who are below the poverty line and also to give better life for many millions who are on the border line of poverty or just above the poverty line. They need decent habitat, they need work with reasonable income, they need food, they need health care, and they need education and finally resulting into a good life. Our GDP is growing at more than 8% per annum on an average. Whereas, the economists suggest that to uplift the people from below the poverty line, our economy has to grow at the rate of 10% per annum consistently, for over a decade.

Integrated action: We have the mission of transforming India into a developed nation. For this we have identified five areas where India has core competence, for integrated action:

(a) agriculture and food processing; 
(b) education and healthcare 
(c) information and communication technology 
(d) reliable and quality electric power, surface transport and Infrastructure for all parts of the country and 
(e) Self reliance in critical technologies. These five areas are closely inter-related and will lead to food security, economic security and national security.

Rural Development Enterprise

The total number of villages in Nagaland are over 1,046 with a population of around 20 lakhs based on the 2001 census. Development of these rural areas will need the creation of 20 clusters of villages having an average population ranging from fifty thousand to one lakh. This could be achieved through the Provision of Urban Amenities in Rural Areas (PURA) programme for these clusters. This would involve the identification of a cluster of 40 to 50 villages with growth potential and creating physical connectivity, electronic connectivity, knowledge connectivity and thereby market connectivity. I would recommend the University to undertake project work for creation of at least 11 PURAs in the 11 districts in Nagaland. The objective of these PURAs will be:-

a) To provide dwelling units to all village citizens with clean water supply and sanitation facilities, 
b) The village complex will have 100 percent literacy. 
c) Apart from upgrading existing schools, the complex will have a few colleges, world class vocational training institutions in construction, carpentry, welding, natural art; computer maintenance and services, IT Enabled Services, BPO and a Call Centers. The "Sakshat" programme and portals like Skiksha India can be used through internet for capacity building in this region. 
d) People in the PURA complex will be able to get quality healthcare through tele-medicine via Primary Health Centres and also through mobile clinics. They will be brought under a corporate medical healthcare scheme, 
e) Each PURA village complex will be free from diseases like polio, HIV Aids, TB, leprosy and malaria and other waterborne diseases. The infant mortality rate will be less than 10, 
f) The PURA complex will promote horticulture and floriculture products, and products from herbal and aromatic plants apart from agriculture in collaboration with Agricultural experts in the region. 
g) Creation of dairy and fish farms in each PURA complex for providing additional non-farm revenue to farmers. They can also produce other dairy products. 
h) Revival of all existing water bodies in the PURA cluster and create new water bodies in low lying areas for storage of water. 
i) Provision of employment to all employable people of the village through additional jobs in dairy, agro-processing, construction, handicraft, lifestyle products and tourism enterprises. 
j) Overall the per capita income of the PURA cluster should increase by three times and people living below the poverty line should come down to zero in six years. 
I am sure many of the graduates from Nagaland University will create enterprises in many PURA complexes in Nagaland and improve the lifestyle of our village community and be an active partner in the Developed India Mission.

Friends, India is indeed a multi cultural nation, absorbing many cultures from many parts of the world. I see in you, Nagaland is a part of our great cultural tradition. Indeed Nagaland is the gateway between one billion plus people to 0.5 billion people of ASEAN countries. This 1.5 billion people have to play a great role in the progress of various societies in the 21st century. Nagaland is indeed in the front line in India?s Look East policy. Fortunately, you have mastered in English language and acquired creative skill. English language is connecting the progressive economic and technological world. Therefore, Nagaland is one of the states which can play a very important role in India?s programme of World Knowledge platform.

World Knowledge Platform

"World Knowledge Platform", will integrate the core competencies of the partner countries to develop knowledge products. This platform will enable joint design, development, cost effective production and marketing of the knowledge products in various domains based on the core competence of partner nations to international market. World knowledge platform is a meeting place for science, technology, industry and management.

Missions of World Knowledge Platform: The convergence of Bio, Nano and IT is expected to touch every area of concern to the humanity. The ?World Knowledge Platform? will take up the missions, in some of the areas discussed further, which are of utmost urgency to all of us to make our world a safe, sustainable, peaceful and prosperous place to live:

1. Energy: Leading to Energy independence using various types of energy systems; solar power using high efficient CNT solar cells, thorium based nuclear reactors and energy from bio-fuel such as bio-diesel and ethanol and hydrogen based fuel cells. 
2. Water: Desalination, channelization and networking of rivers, layered wells for water storage in hill regions and flood control, water harvesting, water recycling, treatment and water management. 
3. Healthcare: Diagnosis, drug delivery system, development of vaccines for HIV/TB, Malaria and Cardiac diseases, detection and cure of diabetics. 
4. Agriculture and Food processing: Increased production of food grain in an environment of reduced land, reduced water and reduced manpower; preservation of food; food processing; cost effective storage and distribution. 
5. Knowledge products: Hardware, Software and Networking and Storage Products including handheld micro and nano electronic devices. 
6. Transportation systems: Fossil fuel free transportation systems using renewable energies, safety systems, Hardware and embedded software integration. 
7. Habitat: Energy efficient, water efficient, pollution free habitat 
8. Disaster Prediction and Management: Earth quake forecasting, assessing the quantum of rain for particular cloud condition 
9. Capacity Building: Quality human resource development for all the above areas including the development of personnel with world class skills.

The world knowledge platform will also evolve a virtual design centre with the participation of collaborating countries. India and EU countries can jointly take certain missions in the World Knowledge Platform. World knowledge Platform will be the launch pad for many innovations that are waiting to be unearthed only by the combined power of partnering nations. For achieving all these missions, we need to generate a Human Resource which is globally competitive. Dear young friends, all of you have tremendous opportunity to contribute for the World Knowledge Platform.

Conclusion: Develop the spirit: ?I can do it?

Dear friends, Nagaland University has to become partner in the development missions of Nagaland by knowledge planning, knowledge creation and knowledge dissemination among the students who will be executing the missions after completing their education. I have found that when the students graduate, approximately 10% of the students take up research or some specialization. The remaining 90% graduates are looking for jobs and they have to come out with the spirit ?I can do it?. The education system should inspire the young to achieve this capacity. Graduates with such a prepared mind can definitely take up the leadership of small enterprises with the assistance of venture capital provided by banks. This will enable the nation to have number of employment generators rather than employment seekers. It is important for Nagaland to structure the university education system which will empower the young people of Nagaland to take up entrepreneurial careers.

Now I would like to administer a seven point oath for all the university students. Are you ready?

1. I realize, I have to set a goal in my life. To achieve the goal, I will acquire the knowledge, I will work hard, and when the problem occurs, I have to defeat the problem and succeed. 
2. As a youth of my nation, I will work and work with courage to achieve success in all my tasks and enjoy the success of others. 
3. I shall always keep myself, my home, my surroundings, neighbourhood and environment clean and tidy. 
4. I realize righteousness in the heart leads to beauty in the character, beauty in the character brings harmony in the home, harmony in the home leads to order in the nation and order in the nation leads to peace in the world. 
5. I will lead an honest life free from all corruption and will set an example for others to adopt a righteous way of life. 
6. I will light the lamp of knowledge in the nation and ensure that it remains lit for ever. 
7. I realize, whatever work I do if I do the best, I am contributing towards realizing the vision of developed India 2020.

Once again I congratulate the graduates who are passing out from this University today and my best wishes to the members of Nagaland University for success in their mission of providing value based quality education to the youth of Nagaland.

May God bless you.