BENGALURU: Making a case for primary school education to be in the student’s mother tongue, Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu on Monday said that this would not mean that other languages would be opposed.He was addressing graduates at the 54th annual convocation of Bangalore University. “Mother tongue has to be promoted and everyone should protect the language. This does not mean that we should oppose other languages. Each one of us should know to respect other languages and be proud of our mother tongue,” Naidu said.
Talking about his term as the Chairman of the Rajya Sabha, Naidu said that he had made the provision for members to speak in their respective mother tongues. “It could be Kannada, Telugu, Hindi, Tamil or any other language, one must know how to express. Because of my efforts, now every member of the Rajya Sabha has the privilege to speak in their mother tongue,” he said.
Naidu also addressed the feeling of embarrassment that some feel while talking in their native language. “Never make fun of your mother tongue. Do not feel shy to speak in it. We must all promote these languages. Kannada is a great language with a great history of literature and those who speak it as their mother tongue, must be proud of being Kannadigas,” he said.
On the topic of the devastating bomb blasts in Sri Lanka, Naidu said that the time had come to end terrorism in the country. “It is proved that no country is safe. Terrorism is a big challenge for all the countries and in spite of efforts, it is our neighbour who is training terrorists, which is unfortunate.”
He called on all countries to come together to fight terrorism and ban organizations associated with terrorists.
Tight security leaves parents, students fuming
Strict security arrangements were in place for the convocation owing to the presence of the Vice President as well as the Governor of Karnataka. This meant that visitors were not able to carry in plastic water bottles, leaving them thirsty for more than 2 hours as the convocation progressed. What irked them more however, was the sight of Governor Vajubhai Vala being served water in a plastic bottle.
Gold coin brings cheer
Students who received gold medals were happy to see a glittering gold coin embedded into the silver of the medal. For the first time, Bangalore University gave real gold medals weighing in at 1.3 grams, embedded into a 20 gram silver disc. “I am very lucky as I am getting real gold medals,” said Vinutha KV, a awardee. Another student Varalakshmi R said, “Getting a real gold medal made me happy that the University has understood the aspirations of students.”
Army Col bags gold
The convocation was a dream come true for 50-year-old Colonel Swaroop S Lohit, an officer posted in Nagaland, who has taken a two year sabbatical to get an MBA degree. The Colonel, who hails from Konanur, a small village in Hassan, bagged three gold medals on Monday. He said, “I was initially apprehensive of whether I would be able to complete the course or not as I am a computer science engineer I had to start from the basics.” He will be rejoining his unit from today.