DEHRADUN: Uttarakhand Assembly Speaker Prem Chand Aggarwal on Saturday said raising of slogans like "Bharat tere tukde honge" on a university campus shows how "misguided" the country's youth are and underlines the importance of inculcating right values in them during adolescence.
Describing adolescence as a formative period in everyone's life, he said the responsibility of guiding adolescents in the right direction rested on the shoulders of their parents and teachers.
"Inculcating the right values in youth is the need of the hour when vested interests are out to misguide them by fanning anti-national sentiments," Aggarwal said addressing a symposium on "Adolescence: A Period of Bumps and Humps" at the ONGC auditorium here.
Expressing concern over youth being influenced in the internet era, the Speaker said symposiums like this are needed to help them distinguish between good and bad.
"Adolescence is a phase when one's life stands at the crossroads. This is the point from where one's life can take the wrong or right direction.
This is the time when parents and teachers should deal very carefully with their children and students so that their energies are not channelised in the wrong direction," the 59-year-old said.
The Speaker asked the youth to develop a healthy lifestyle and a positive mindset besides focusing on their studies and keeping love of their nation alive in their hearts.
Aggarwal congratulated the organisers for holding a symposium on a relevant topic and asked them to organise more such programmes across the country.
Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat could not make it to the event due to engagements in Delhi where he is campaigning for the forthcoming polls there.
In a message read out in absentia, the chief minister congratulated Advance Healthcare Foundation, the organisers of the symposium, for the initiative as it will help young minds think in the right direction.
National Advisor of Advance Healthcare Foundation Ratnajyoti Dutta said such symposiums will be held in different parts of the country to help young students deal with problems like stress, depression and sexual abuse.