Chennai: India has emerged as an attractive destination for global investors and educational institutions should maintain high standards and foster academic excellence, said Vice-President M Venkaiah Naidu.
Addressing the convocation of Great Lakes Institute of Management here Tuesday, he said India was poised to become $5 trillion economy in the next few years and stressed the need for removing economic imbalances, urban-rural divide, end gender and social discrimination and enhance the prestige of all the institutions, including the Supreme Court, CAG, CVC, EC, Parliament and State Legislatures.
He said nobody should say or do anything to undermine the sanctity of these institutions. “There are appropriate forums to redress grievances, if any,” he added.
Observing that management was not confined to corporate sector alone, Naidu said the scope of management studies should cover the rural economy, agriculture and allied industry and provide solutions to make these sectors viable and vibrant.
Stating that agriculture was in distress, the Vice-President said there was a need to introduce structural changes and come out with new strategies and programmes to make agriculture profitable and sustainable.
He also urged Indian management institutions to adopt globally accepted teaching practices, methodologies and curriculum to ensure that students were duly recognised in the global job
market.
“Indian institutions have to adopt globally accepted benchmarks to achieve global prominence and align with other management institutions,” he said and added that such academic alliances with institutions of international repute, were a great way to provide learning experience to students.
Stating that India was the largest Parliamentary democracy in the world and has a track record of effective electoral system and conducting elections on a regular basis, he termed the elections as ‘Festival of Democracy’ and complimented the Election Commission for conducting the stupendous exercise in a peaceful and orderly manner.