Google can never replace guru, says M Venkaiah Naidu at PU convocation

CHANDIGARH: Google can never replace guru and the youth should respect their gurus, said M Venkaiah Naidu, Vice-President and chancellor, Panjab University, at the 67th annual convocation of the university here on Sunday.
“No one can teach anybody. Within one there is all knowledge, even in a child it is so, and it requires only an awakening, and that much is the role of a teacher,” Naidu said.The universities should become centres of excellence, the need of the hour is to reform, perform and transform, he said.
Naidu had an advice for the senate and syndicate of PU: “Academic discussions and deliberations should happen not only in the university but also in the senate and syndicate. The senate and syndicate are the forums where advice should be given to the young and the two should also take interest to see that the revenue of the university goes up.”
He said earlier there was a trend of people going abroad. He, however, pointed out he was not against people going abroad, but those days there was not good infrastructure available. “Even if people still want to go abroad, they should go, learn, earn and return,” Naidu said.
Beginning his convocation address with Sat Sri Akal, Naidu urged students to master the mother language and to work hard to achieve heights. He said every state should make its respective mother tongues a mandatory subject for the students to learn. Moreover, he added that there is no substitute for ethics and value system. “Panjab University is a great and one of the oldest institutions in the country. The felicitations on the occasion works as an inspiration to others to do well,” Naidu said.
He added that it is appreciable that PU is continuing with its commendable tradition of honouring some of the outstanding Indian scientists, doctors, writers, educationists and leaders from the industry. Many illustrious leaders and makers of the nation in many fields have been associated with PU, including colleagues of national and international stature. Such intellectual heights are achieved when “the mind is without fear and the head is held high”, when people of a nation, free from colonial domination, build their own frameworks of thought, Naidu said.
He further explained that each discipline is valuable, if pursued with intellectual rigour and integrity and each has its own methods of investigation. But each discipline is also connected with another. The division between the areas of science and humanities is an artificial one, made for convenience sake, which we have adopted in the process of creating the institutions of academia. “How can science not be human, if it is an activity carried out by human beings? How can humanities not be scientific if it has to properly observe its subjects? In the words of Vivekananda, it is in the balanced mind that understanding comes, it is the calm, forgiving, well-balanced, equable mind that does the greatest amount of work,” Naidu said.