Mir Farhat
SRINAGAR, Sept 22: Union Minister of State for Human Resource Development Shashi Tharoor today admitted his Ministry received a lot of complaints from students and parents regarding the Prime Minister’s Scholarship Scheme in Jammu and Kashmir.
“Several students studying in colleges outside the state under the scheme complained they were asked to pay the fees and other dues or else their admission would be cancelled, but HRD Minister Pallam Raju has relaxed the rules of the scheme and improved it further to enable more students of the State to take advantage of this. I assure you that every complaint and application is being reviewed and will be addressed,” Tharoor said while addressing the convocation of engineering graduates of National Institute of Technology, Srinagar at SKICC here.
Tharoor said the Valley holds a special place in his heart and in every right-thinking patriotic Indian, and is the crown of the country. “My wife Sunanda is a proud daughter of Kashmir. Every visit to the State has left me enchanted and made me want to come back over and over again. It is literally and metaphorically the crown of India that adds legal luster to the idea of India,” he said.
Tharoor said though Kashmir had been hit by a “terrible assault on the idea of India”, which destroyed thousands of lives and brought immense suffering to the Valley and rest of India, hope is a “resilient sentiment that continues to glow” here.
He said Kashmir is essential to the wholeness of India and expressed hope that Kashmiriyat would prevail to “embrace the place as a crown in the idea of India”. “For reasons of a shared history and culture that no violence can erase, I say without hesitation that Kashmir is as essential to the wholeness of India as India is essential to the fulfilment of Kashmir’s aspirations”, he added.
“Since ancient times, the political, economical and cultural history of Kashmir has been inextricably linked to the Indian subcontinent. What is popularly called Kashmiriyat draws heavily from the culture and traditions of the rest of India,” said Tharoor.
He said two generations have suffered in the “senseless struggle” in the last two decades in the state. “The radicalisation of Kashmiri youth, first on the basis of political exceptionalism and now on the basis of religious fundamentalism, is a trend which is inherently contradictory to the values of Kashmir. Two generations have already lost so much to this senseless struggle. But I am sure, eventually the humanism and secular elements of Kashmiriyat would prevail and once again Kashmir will enthusiastically embrace this place as a crown in the idea of India,” he said.
Tharoor presented 10 gold medals and degrees to toppers of the 2013 batch of NIT and 52 gold medals to toppers of batches from 2003 to 2011.
Chairperson of the National Commission on Minorities, Wajahat Habibullah, said NIT Srinagar would one day become an institution of global importance. “NIT has been playing a significant role in making engineers of tomorrow,” he said.
Minister for Higher Education, Muhammad Akbar Lone, told the graduates they were the future of the nation. “An engineer is a source of development. You are our future engineers,” he told the engineering graduates. No engineer would be jobless. It is a vast field.”
Rajat Gupta, Director of National Institute of Technology, Srinagar, said authorities were striving hard to make NIT a globally-acknowledged institution.
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