Wednesday, November 13, 2019

Students should help improve country’s economy: Smriti Irani
1,701 graduands receive degrees at convocation held in VIT


13/11/2019, SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT,CHENNAI


From left, VIT chancellor G. Viswanathan, Union Minister Smriti Irani, Indian Bank MD Padmaja Chunduru and VIT vice-president G.V. Selvam at the convocation in Chennai.M. Karunakaran

Students should make the best use of the knowledge they acquire to improve the country’s economy, said Smriti Zubin Irani, Union Minister of Textiles and for Women and Child Development, during her convocation address at the Vellore Institute of Technology’s Chennai campus on Tuesday.

Ms. Irani, cited research studies by the students of the institute and said, “Artificial intelligence in healthcare is slated to grow by 40% and value of of AI in healthcare will reach US$6.6 billion in India in 2021.”

“The market for AI in agriculture will grow to $2.6 billion in the next two years. In education technology, it is set to grow to $252 billion,” she said. Earlier, she opened an auditorium on the premises.

Padmaja Chunduru, Managing Director, Indian Bank, said students had many options unlike in the past. She urged graduates to take a decision after weighing the pros and cons of their decision. The bank has been the pioneer in the self-help group movement with around six lakh SHGs comprising 42 lakh women, mostly in Tamil Nadu and the southern States, Ms. Chunduru said.

VIT chancellor G. Viswanathan said if the government wants to increase the gross enrolment ratio of higher education then it should invest at least 6% of the GDP in the sector.

Women empowerment

The concentration of women in the workforce has fallen. Representation of women in the country’s administrative sectors (currently 15%) and judiciary (11%), policy making (Assembly 9% and Parliament 11%) must be increased to enable women participate in economic development. For this to happen, the government should offer free higher education to women, as it was being done in over 30 countries, he said.

As many as 1,701 graduands received their degrees, including 64 Ph.D students.

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