Innovate to make life easy, PM Modi tells Indian universities

​New Delhi: Indian universities and higher educational institutions need to give equal emphasis to innovation as they give to knowledge, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Saturday stressing that life would become a burden without innovations.

He was addressing the inaugural ceremony of 'Conference on Academic Leadership on Education for Resurgence' organised by the Ministry of Human Resource Development. The PM also emphasised the importance of character building over literacy and called for 'wholesome' education in the country. 

"Knowledge and education are not restricted to books. The purpose of education is to enable balanced growth of every dimension of a human being which is not possible without innovation," Modi said. 

"Innovation is very important because without it, life seems like a burden. In our ancient universities like Takshshila, Nalanda and Vikramashila, innovation was given emphasis along with knowledge. "I insist that students should gain knowledge in classrooms of college, university but they also add them to the aspirations of the country," he added. 

Stressing upon the need for "interlinking" the institutions, Modi said no country or person can live in isolation. "Our universities and colleges should be leveraged to find solutions to the challenges facing us. We should interlink institutions to innovate and incubate. The students should link their classroom learning to the aspirations of the country," he said. 

Modi also stressed upon the importance of character-building. "Ambedkar, Deen Dayal Upadhya and Ram Manohar Lohiya always emphasised on character-building over literacy. Swami Vivekananda stressed on wholesome education that makes us a human," he said.