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Bhubaneswar: President Pranab Mukherjee’s two-day visit to the State has been abruptly cancelled midway through after his wife suddenly took ill today. According to sources, Mukherjee returned to Delhi immediately after getting the information.
Earlier during the day, the President attended the golden jubilee function of Rameswar High School in Khurda district. Addressing the students there, Mukherjee stressed that India must reap its demographic dividend improving the quality of teaching and honing its youth's latent talents by imparting skill-based training.
India is a mine of human resources that could cater to the global needs, for which the rich repository of young minds, which accounts almost half of the India's population, should be trained adequately, he added.
He expressed concern over the Indian educational institutes not featuring among the top 200 global institutions and urged the country's premier institutions to step up efforts to join the league of the best.
"We have 723 universities, 35,000 colleges, 16 IITs, 30 NITs and a number of institutes of management. But, unfortunately none of them find their place among the top 200 universities of the world," he rued, adding primary education needs be strengthened to help enhance quality education at higher level.
Later, the President visited Puri to have ‘darshan’ of Lord Jagannath and his siblings in Srimandir during the evening hours. Special arrangements were made for his visit at the temple which gets a large number of devotees daily, officials said.
Authorities restricted the general public from visiting the temple for some time to facilitate smooth 'darshan' by the President. Mukherjee spent about half an hour in the temple which has deities of Lord Jagannath, Balabhadra and Subhadra in their new embodiment after Nabakalebar.
Later in the evening, Mukherjee visited Puri beach to see a sand sculpture made by famous artist Sudarshan Patnaik. The President appreciated the art named 'World Peace' depicting the picture of Lord Buddha and other signs of peace.
