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Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday attended the 57th Convocation Ceremony of IIT Delhi as the chief guest and inaugurated ‘Param Pragya’, an AI-powered high-performance supercomputing facility at the institute’s Sonipat campus.
The Prime Minister also honored meritorious graduating students, presenting the President’s Gold Medal, Director’s Gold Medal, Shankar Dayal Sharma Gold Medal and Perfect Ten Gold Medals.
Harish Salve, Chairperson of IIT Delhi’s Board of Governors, and Institute Director Prof Rangan Banerjee felicitated PM Modi and Union Minister Prahlad Joshi during the ceremony.
Addressing the graduating students, PM Modi said the convocation marked the beginning of a new journey for the country’s talented youth. He described the occasion as a memorable moment for the students and said it was special to be part of an event filled with enthusiasm, zeal, dreams and emotions.
PM Modi said the students’ families were proud of their achievements and added that he was also proud of them. While congratulating the medal winners, he said he would have liked to see a few more women among them.
He said the students were graduating at a time when the world was advancing rapidly and the global balance of power was shifting rapidly. He said the speed of technology was driving this change.
“Unicorns, digital payments, and the fintech revolution have provided a platform for millions of the country's youth to do something significant,” he said.
PM Modi inaugurated Param Pragya at IIT Delhi’s Sonipat campus. The AI-powered high-performance supercomputing facility is aimed at strengthening the institute’s capabilities in artificial intelligence, advanced computing, data science and interdisciplinary research.
The facility comes as AI and high-performance computing become increasingly important for research, innovation and technology development.
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Union Minister Prahlad Joshi said more than 45 million students are currently enrolled in higher education. He said the number of universities has increased by nearly 70 percent since 2014.
According to Joshi, more than 650 new universities, 14,000 new colleges and over 4,000 new Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs) have been established during this period.
He also highlighted the expansion of premier institutions, saying nine new IIMs, seven new IITs and 13 new AIIMS have been set up.
On women’s participation in technical education, Joshi said women now account for nearly 44 percent of enrollment in STEM disciplines, which he described as one of the highest proportions anywhere in the world.
