CJI urges youths of India to cultivate strong character, acquire knowledge

Bhiwani, April 25: Chief Justice of India Surya Kant on Saturday said the future of India rests in the hands of today’s students and youth, urging them to cultivate strong character, acquire knowledge and become responsible citizens to help the country scale new heights.
Addressing the 5th convocation ceremony of Chaudhary Bansi Lal University, CJI Kant said academic degrees alone do not define success. He said it is achieved through discipline, diligence, optimal use of time and a continuous willingness to learn.
Emphasising the broader purpose of education, Justice Surya Kant said it should strengthen character, self-confidence and moral values rather than just ensuring employment.
Students’ success should not be gauged solely by examination results; rather, one must observe the kind of citizens they have evolved into during the educational process, he remarked, adding that qualities such as integrity, sensitivity and a spirit of service are equally important as knowledge.
“Many young students describe their degree as a ticket to employment, to status, to a better life. And perhaps rightfully so. But tickets are useful only so far as it takes you from one place to another, because once that’s done, their utility ceases to exist.
“If your degree were merely a ticket, its value would peak the moment you handed it to an employer but it would diminish with every passing year thereafter, which certainly cannot be the desired outcome.
“So, allow me to state very briefly what I believe it truly represents: your degree is worth precisely as much as the habits of mind it has formed in you: no more, and no less. The information you memorised will be superseded. The frameworks you studied will evolve. But the discipline of rigorous thought, the instinct for honest inquiry, the capacity to keep learning when no one is asking you to, those do not expire,” he told the students. (PTI)