Bhubaneswar, April 29: India’s youth have the talent and ability to take the country to great
heights with proper encouragement and guidance, Odisha governor Mr. Raghubar Das said on Monday.
“The youth today are closely linked to the country’s development and have been proving their
mettle in different spheres on the global stage,” Mr. Das said while speaking at the inaugural function of
the Odisha chapter of Youth for Nation (Y4N) at the SOA Deemed to be University here.
The governor, who was the chief guest on the occasion, said the launching of the state chapter
of Y4N would go a long way in encouraging the young people to excel in various fields and help inculcate
the spirit of nationalism in them.
Stating that India was the youngest country in the world with an average age of 29 years, he said
65 per cent of India’s population was below the age of 35 years.
The program was attended, among others, by Prof. Damodar Acharya, former Director of IIT-
Kharagpur and President of the Odisha chapter of Y4N, Prof. Durg Singh Chauhan, former Vice-
Chancellor of Uttar Pradesh Technical University and Working President of Y4N, Commander V.K. Jaitly,
National Coordinator of Y4N, Prof. Pradipta Kumar Nanda, Vice-Chancellor of SOA, Mr. Arvind Tripathi,
Secretary of Y4N and Prof. Jyoti Ranjan Das, SOA’s Dean (Students’ Welfare).
A book titled ‘100 Great IITians’ edited by Commander Jaitly was also released by the governor
on the occasion.
Commander Jaitly said the book focused on those IITians like Nandan Nilekani, Naryan Murthy,
Damodar Acharya and Gopal Chandra Mitra who did not get lured by great careers abroad but chose to
serve their motherland with distinction.
In his speech, the governor said the New Education Policy (NEP) enunciated by the government
was designed to skill and equip the students to face future challenges and create more opportunities for
them. “Swami Vivekananda’s dream was that India should lead the world and the young people need to
be guided in that direction,” he said while pointing out that India had already become the 5 th largest
economic power in the world leaving behind the British who ruled the country for 200 years.
In a competitive world, the country which has knowledge and competence will go forward, he
said.
Addressing the gathering comprising mostly students and faculty members, Prof. Acharya said
the biggest need today was to skill the young people to empower the country. While in the eligible age
group only 30 per cent of about 150 million students were in the higher education system, the
remaining were outside it, he said.
“We have to make them skilled and productive. These students with right type of attitude,
training and ethics can accelerate national growth and make India the third largest economy in the next
ten years,” he said adding national pride has to be inculcated in them.
“Y4N will infuse in our youth the right values and ethics along with knowledge from our culture
and history,” Prof. Acharya said.
Prof. Chauhan said the Y4N initiative would be reaching out to students in all universities to
connect with the students and help them imbibe the nationalist spirit. He said that people in their 70s
were also involved in the Y4N movement to provide experience. The organization, which has senior
people drawn from the ranks of retired bureaucrats, technocrats, academicians and entrepreneurs, was
working on the principle ‘Old for Youth, Youth for Nation,’ he said.
Prof. Nanda said the universities were contributing to nation building with the youth being in the
forefront. “Creativity is inbuilt in the young people which needs to be harnessed by the institutions,” he
said adding SOA was engaged in this work.
Prof. Acharya, presently Chairman of the Advisory Board of SOA, Dr. Arun Kumar Shukla, an
alumni of IIT-ISM, Dhanbad and late Gopal Chandra Mitra, an alumni of IIT-Kharagpur, who featured in
the book ‘100 Great IITians’, were felicitated by the governor on the occasion. Prof. P.K. Parhi, who
represented the late Gopal Chandra Mitra, was felicitated. He said late Mitra had hugely contributed to
the development of Odisha.