‘If the world is your oyster, it is also your source of competition’: Bharat Forge CMD tells IIT graduates

Kalyani said, "Ten years ago, your competitors would have been your classmates or students from similar educational institutions in India.

Sounding gung-ho about the Modi government’s ‘Make in India’ initiative, Babasaheb Kalyani, CMD of Bharat Forge Ltd – one of the largest forging manufacturers in the world urged 173 graduating students at IIT Gandhinagar’s fourth convocation to consider the world their oyster, but also a source of competition.The industrialist presided as the chief guest at the IITGN’s fourth convocation that was held for the first time at its new 400 acres permanent campus at Palaj in Gandhinagar on Saturday.

Kalyani said, “Ten years ago, your competitors would have been your classmates or students from similar educational institutions in India. Today things are quite different. Your competitors are equally talented young people in Beijing, Boston or Birmingham. Therefore on the one hand if the world is your oyster, it is also your source of competition.”

Invoking former President APJ Abdul Kalam’s vision for making India a developed country by 2020, he added, “From a manufacturing industry perspective, the opportunities that are arising out of honorable PM’s game changing ‘Make in India’ initiative are significant. The emphasis of the government is to make India self-reliant in a wide range of products that are presently being imported. Take for example the aerospace and defense sectors in which as much as 75 % of our requirements are being met through imports. Several capital goods required by key infrastructure industries continue to be imported in spite of capabilities being available domestically. When some of these products begin to be manufactured indigenously they would help increase the share of manufacturing in national GDP, save precious foreign exchange and create new employment opportunities in the country.”

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The convocation saw the Indian Institute of Technology, Gandhinagar confer degrees to 105 BTech, 25 MSc, 31 MTech and 6 PhD degrees 6 PGDIIT students, while additionally around 40 medals and awards for academic, sports, leadership and community service were awarded to graduating students.

IITGN Director Sudhir K Jain said, “The 4th Convocation of IITGN is a landmark event for a number of reasons: it is the first convocation to be held on our permanent campus. The graduating batch of BTech students is the first to have undergone our unique and innovative curriculum. Also, the first batches of the two-year MSc programmes in Chemistry, Mathematics and Cognitive Science are being awarded degrees today. With this, IITGN becomes the first IIT to award an MSc degree in Cognitive Science.”

Jain added that IITGN that has been the mentoring the Ahmedabad-based Institute of Infrastructure Technology, Research and Management (IITRAM) has created its academic program and curricula, designed laboratory infrastructure and aided in recruitment of faculty and technical manpower.

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