Nishikant Khajuria
JAMMU, May 28: Maintaining that there should be zero tolerance on matters of national security and unity, the Vice-President of India, M Venkaiah Naidu today said that India wants good relations with Pakistan but the neighbouring country must give up its policy of supporting, aiding and abetting terror.
“India wants peace and good relations with all and we are also willing to have dialogue with the neighbouring country but it must honour the commitment of not allowing its territory to be used for training terror,” he said while addressing the scientists, students and staff of the Indian Institute of Integrative Medicine (IIIM) at Jammu today.
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The Vice-President stressed that peace was prerequisite for progress and attention could not be paid to developmental activities if there was tension on borders. “Peace and progress go together and benefits of developmental activities worth Rs one lakh crores being spent by the Centre and State must reach people of Jammu and Kashmir,” he added.
Stating that health and wealth are interlinked and health of a State is known from indicators like law and order, peace, harmony and attention towards development, Mr Naidu called upon people of the State to introspect the reasons for lagging behind. “When the world is progressing, country is progressing and other parts of the country are also progressing, why should J&K lag behind? This question should be put to ourselves and find out an answer,” he said.
Besides appreciating first Prime Minister of India Pt Jawahar Lal Nehru for his vision and contribution towards linking Science and Technology with progress of India, the Vice-President also took a dig at the section of so called ultra nationalists displaying patriotic jingoism.
“Patriotism does not mean garlanding the portrait of Bharat Mata or guarding the land only but guarding and taking care of the people, fellow countrymen,” he said and added that people must focus on social order harmony by discarding all artificial creations in between.
“Share and care is the core of our philosophy but unfortunately now under the guise caste, region and religion, sometimes we try to fight with each other and politicians take advantage of the same. Irrespective of caste, creed, sex and religion, we are Indians and we should have that feeling,” the Vice-President stressed.
Governor N N Vohra, Union Minister Dr Jitendra Singh, Deputy Chief Minister of J&K, Kavinder Gupta, Minister for Science and Technology, J&K, Sajad Gani Lone, Minister for Higher Education, J&K, Imran Raza Ansari and others were present on the occasion
Naidu informed that he was on a mission going around the country as Vice-President of Indian and interacting with student community of various universities, scientists of various research institutes and Technology experts of Technology Institutes.
“Idea is to understand what is happening in all these prestigious laboratories, Research Institutes and universities to upgrade myself and also communicate to them about expectations of people from them, understand their problems, try to know the solutions and pass on this information to the Government,” the Vice-President said and also informed that he was now planning to interact with farmers from next month.
Asserting that the attitude of research must become integral to our education system, the Vice President said the quality of research in the country’s resource institutions determines the pace of nation’s development.
“If we want to transform our country into a knowledge economy, into a country that harnesses the power of knowledge to transform people’s lives, we must focus more sharply on research, which is the springboard of human progress,” he explained.
Suggesting that there should be regular interaction between the research institutes across the country, he asked the Scientists to also co-opt private sector. “There should not be hesitation in aligning with private sector. The country and the State must seriously think about private sector participation. We can become number one in world provided all universities and research institutes work together,” he said and asked the scientists to develop drugs to cure diabetes and prevent diseases like malaria, chikungunya and dengue etc.
The Vice-President opined that both science and religion are the tools in the hands of the people in their quest for prosperity and internal peace. “Scientific advancements may illuminate our understanding of the universe. But it is the religion which provides answers to the unexplored universe. The issues of mind and soul and the relentless internal unrest and lack of internal peace constitute this vast unexplored universe. It is the religion which provides some answers to these raging issues,” he explained and termed religion as a body of values and moral prescriptions for its followers to abide by.
The Vice President, in his speech, also appreciated the efforts of CSIR-IIIM, Jammu in the scientific development of the country and said, “Science has played a major role in the growth of our great nation and the achievements in the areas of affordable medicine, food security, milk production, space, atomic energy and Information Technology, among others, are a testimony to this fact”
Earlier, Dr Ram Vishwakarma, Director IIIM, Jammu, made a detailed PowerPoint presentation and described the major research domains of the institute. He also threw light on history of the IIIM Jammu, erstwhile Regional Research Laboratory Jammu, which was founded way back in 1941. He informed that world class research was being carried out here despite the disadvantageous location of the institute.
The Vice-President also visited different laboratories of the Institute where the Scientists had put on exhibition the types of research going on there.
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