Vice President of India, Venkaiah Naidu recently addressed the presentation ceremony of AICTE-ECI-ISTE Chhatra Vishwakarma Awards and AICTE- SAGY Initiative awards in New Delhi.

While addressing the ceremony he said, “Awards would challenge young students to come up with novel ideas that have great potential to impact life in villages through technological interventions at the grass root level."

Highlighting the importance of redeeming agriculture sector which is still the main stay of rural economy, the Vice President said that we have to constantly innovate and reinvent our agricultural practices to make farming much more rewarding, profitable and sustainable.

Expressing his firm conviction that development and environmental conservation are not mutually exclusive goals but are complimentary, the Vice President urged young technocrats to consider the environmental cost of their innovations on a priority basis while calculating feasibility. ‘We can no longer afford to neglect our ecological footprint’, he warned. 

Expressing his anguish at the dual challenges of malnutrition and hidden hunger on one hand and obesity and lifestyle diseases on the other, that India faces today, he urged young people to maintain a balanced diet and lead a healthy life style and said, “Only a healthy nation can be a wealthy nation.”

Calling for balanced development, the Vice President said that our approach to development must have a dual focus, it must be comprehensive and must keep both urban and rural realities in view.

“Our urban spaces were becoming increasingly congested and suggested that distress migration could be prevented by providing livelihood, connectivity, health services, infrastructure and avenues for recreation in rural areas”, he added.

The Vice President said that 3 ‘D’s - Demography, Demand and Democracy are making the India of today outshine other countries in the world and added that he had full faith in the vision and capabilities of India’s youth who make up 65% of the country’s population.

He congratulated the All India Council of Technical Education’s endeavour to catalyse rural development in association with the Engineering Council of India (ECI) and the Indian Society for Technical Education (ISTE).