President Pranab Mukherjee today took a trip down the memory lane when he visited a college here where he had taught 53 years ago before joining politics.
Mukherjee said that he has had a "long and memorable" association with Vidyanagar college where he spent five years teaching political science in the 1960s.
"Whenever I come to this college I am overwhelmed by a sense of nostalgia," Mukherjee said.
He had visited this institution in South 24 Paragans district in January 2013 when he laid the foundation stone of the new buildings which he inaugurated today.
Mukherjee said that just about a month after joining as a teacher, he was elected as teachers' representative to the governing body and later became vice-principal. Eventually he went on to become its officiating principal.
In 1968, encouraged by the college founder president late Harendranath Majumder, Mukherjee resigned from his job and joined politics.
The President recalled that when he started as a teacher, the college hardly had 40-50 students and said now it has become a big institution.
Stressing that educational institutions play a pivotal role in inculcating in the youth core civilisational values, he said that this will go a long way in surmounting the contemporary moral challenges which the country is facing.
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Stating how education has grown in India, the President said that there were 712 universities and over 36,671 colleges across the country.
Mukherjee thanked Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee for her vision in expanding education in the state and said she laid stress on improving general health of the people.
He also thanked UGC Chairman Professor Ved Prakash for his commitment towards the expansion of the college and also helping in cutting the red tape of bureaucracy.
He said that the college has been providing yeoman's service to society with perseverance and dedication.
West Bengal Governor Keshari Nath Tripathi, Deputy Speaker in the Assembly Sonali Guha, state Education Minister Partha Chatterjee and Abhisek Banerjee, MP from Diamond Harbour attended the function.
The college governing body president, Dr Kartik Chandra Adhikari and principal, Dr Surja Prakash Agarwala were among others present.
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Later, the President inaugurated the 200th birth
anniversary celebration of Pandit Madan Mohan Tarkalankar, whom he termed as a 'great scholar, social reformer, educationist and a pioneer of women's education'.
Speaking at the programme at Bilwagram in Nadia district, Mukherjee said a man of humble origin, Pandit Tarkalankar had produced a number of Bengali textbooks for children.
Along with Akshay Kumar Datta, one of the initiators of Bengal Renaissance, and writer Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, Tarkalankar added a new dimension to modern Bengali literature.
State Governor K N Tripathi, Congress MP and his son Abhijit Mukherjee and state minister Ujjwal Biswas were also present on the occasion.
