Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: India has emerged as the second-biggest Start-up hub in the world, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Tuesday.
It has achieved mostly this with the help of students from the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), he said.
Addressing the 54th convocation ceremony of the IIT-Kanpur, he said, “In this 75th year of Independence, we now have over 75 unicorns, and over 50,000 Startups. Of these, nearly 10,000 have come up only in the last six months.”
He applauded the IIT-Kanpur’s contribution in developing 5-G technology, which has been recognized globally.
India is set to roll out the 5-G technology across 13 cities in 2022, official reports said on Tuesday.
Modi said India will acknowledge the contribution of the student community when it celebrates the 100th year of Independence in 2047.
“In the last six years, the Centre has introduced several programs for the students. The youth is being readied to face bigger challenges more efficiently with the help of National Education Policy,” he said.
Modi exhorted the people to strive to achieve the goal of an Atmanirbhar Bharat.
“We should have achieved a lot of things by the time India completed 25 years of Independence. Unfortunately, we could not do much. Now, we do not have even two minutes to waste. We must strive religiously for a self-reliant nation,” he added.
Without being self-reliant, how will India succeed and scale ultimate heights? he asked. The youth alone can do it only.
“This century is completely technology-driven. Students have invested the most important years of their lives learning technology. This will make it impossible for any other force to stop you from excelling,” the Prime Minister said.
At the convocation, all the students were issued digital degrees through an in-house blockchain-driven technology developed at the IIT-K under the National Blockchain Project.
The PM also launched blockchain-based digital degrees, which can be verified globally and are unforgeable.