IIM Raipur celebrated India’s 72nd Independence Day with zeal and enthusiasm. The faculty, students, and non-teaching staff gathered under the temperate Wednesday morning sky and paid their respects to the heroes who made India’s freedom a possibility at the stroke of midnight on 15th August 1947.
The day’s proceedings began with the inspection of the Guard of Honour by the Director of IIM Raipur, Prof. Bharat Bhasker. The inspection was then followed by unfurling of the tricolour by the Director and the National Anthem.
Following the flag hoisting, Prof. Bhasker took the opportunity to address the students. He started with a brief history of India’s independence and remembered the valiant men and women, such as Mahatma Gandhi, Bhagat Singh, Mangal Pandey, Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose and countless others who laid down their lives in providing the country with its independence. He further extended the same courtesy to the soldiers protecting our borders, and thanked them for their service and urged everyone to keep them in their thoughts and prayers.
Professor Bhasker then proceeded to deliver a powerful address that covered a wide range of topics, from India’s past to its future, the people who shaped what India is, and the people who are going to shape what India is going to be. He stressed how India’s growth was severely hampered by British colonization, and how India missed out on an industrial revolution of its own. Consequently, India’s growth rate slowed down tremendously, and a once flourishing nation was brought to its knees by centuries of foreign rule.
Some of the more impactful points in Prof. Bhasker’s rousing speech included how digitization of the economy is the new revolution. Professor Bhasker then linked it to how IIM Raipur is on the roadmap to becoming a leader in management studies of digital economy and providing competent management professionals who will be shaping India going into the future. He further connected it to being economically independent and urged the students to be a part of the new modern digital economic independence.
Professor Bhasker then talked about the intellectual dominance of Indians across the world by giving a powerful example, that of Intel’s chips, whose development was spearheaded by IIT Delhi. He used this point to exemplify the importance of development, and stressed how it is the youth of the nation that will bring forth this development going forward.
Prof. Bhasker concluded by quoting former President Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam, “The day we correct ourselves is the day the nation will correct itself”.
Following the morning’s programme, to stir up the moral and ethical conscience of the students, IIM Raipur’s CSR club, Kartavya, held an oath-taking ceremony. The oath-taking ceremony, Pratigya, was met with a rapturous reception and concluded the day’s proceedings with a lighting of flying lanterns.
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