Break new ground: Naidu's mantra to biz students

Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu today urged the young to think out-of-the-box and break new ground, but not to forget the "ethical dimension" when they built up "physical, material and intellectual wealth".
India had a vast pool of human talent, he told a gathering of business students here, stressing that they were a part of the intellectual wealth of the country.
"We are also endowed with a vast array of natural resources. We have a long tradition of accepting and absorbing the best from all corners of the world," he said at the 15th edition of the Indian School of Business Leadership Summit 2017 here.

Giving a pep-talk to the young gathering, Naidu said one should ask oneself, "Can we do things differently?" and "Can we do different things simultaneously"?
"First and foremost, we must break new ground. Innovation, thinking outside-the-box and accessing knowledge from across the globe and adapting it to our country's context would be crucial," he said at the meet, where Punjab Governor and Chandigarh Administrator V P Singh Badnore and Union minister Jayant Sinha were also present.
The vice president urged students to also keep ethics in mind.

"While you are building up the physical, material and intellectual wealth, be mindful of the ethical dimension as well," he said.

The young should not just be efficient and effective business leaders, but also look at the possibility of accelerating India's growth through wealth creation and wealth distribution, he said.
Growing inequalities and exclusion of certain sections of the people were areas of concern, he added.
He said it was a favourable time to capitalise on the demographic dividend by "enthusing, equipping and empowering" the youths who constitute 65 per cent of the population.
The vice president said it was estimated that in order to accommodate 300 million people who will join the country's workforce between 2010 and 2040, India needed to create roughly 10 million jobs a year.

He also said that while more than half of India's population was poor at the time of independence, only one in five Indians were poor today.
"From a 16 per cent literacy rate in the 1950s, around 75 per cent of our population today can read and write. More than 95 per cent of children are in school. Our institutions of higher learning have produced outstanding men and women who are occupying many leadership positions across the globe," he said.
The vice president also urged people to communicate in their mother tongue.