Inspire universities, students to take social responsibilities: Prez to governors

President Ram Nath Kovind today asked students to engage with residents of villages to improve the status of cleanliness, literacy, immunisation and nutrition programmes.

In his concluding remarks at the two-day Governors' Conference here, he also suggested people adopt the 'Think Global, Act Local" approach for environment protection.

Today is World Environment Day.

Keeping in mind the Sustainable Development Goals, the Paris Accord and the International Solar Alliance, local and state-level contributions are very important to achieving national goals, Kovind said.

Governors can make efforts to develop Raj Bhavan complexes and state universities as an environmental ideal, he suggested.

Kovind said that governors can inspire universities towards "University Social Responsibility".

University students should visit villages at regular intervals. They should engage with residents of the village in regard to cleanliness, literacy, immunisation and nutrition programmes. Governors could hold discussions with Vice Chancellors to make the 'Swachhta Internship' programme more effective, the President was quoted as saying in a statement issued by the Rashtrapati Bhavan.

He urged governors to convene meetings of vice chancellors of state universities from time to time.

The Vice President, the Prime Minister and the Minister for Home Affairs also addressed the concluding session of the conference.

Earlier in the day, the conference discussed ideas on the commemoration of the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi.