Nagpur: BTech students Abdul Sattar Mohammad Ashraf Mapara and Chetna Srivastava stole the show as Visvesvaraya National Institute of Technology (VNIT) awarded 1,134 degrees in its fanfare-less 18th convocation held in virtual mode on Monday. The prestigious Sir Visvesvaraya Medal was given to Abdul Sattar while Chetna bagged highest 10 prizes and medals.
The institute bestowed 61 PhDs, 268 Master of Technology, 94 Master of Science, 648 Bachelor of Technology in various engineering disciplines and 63 Bachelor of Architecture degrees. This year VNIT felicitated students and research scholars with 45 medals, prizes and awards for their academic excellence.
Union minister for education Dr Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’ was the chief guest while Union minister of state for education Sanjay Dhotre, JD Patil, whole-time director of L&T Limited, were the guests of honour.
Abdul Sattar got the Visvesvaraya Medal for getting highest CGPA amongst all disciplines of BTech programmes. He also received five other prizes and medals.
Chetna, a BTech civil engineering student, secured the highest (10) prizes and medals including the Institute Medal and newly constituted medal in memory of Vishram Jamdar, for 2nd highest CGPA amongst all disciplines of BTech programmes. The second Vishram Jamdar medal for 2nd highest CGPA in BTech was bagged by Sagar Kulkarni.
Pokhriyal, Dhotre and Patil addressed the convocation through video messages. Pokhriyal spoke about the 3Ds — democracy, demographics and demand — and appealed to the students to use these 3Ds and help the country become ‘atmanirbhar’ and attain the goal of 5 trillion dollar economy.
Dhotre asked the students to apply the concepts and ideas learnt during their studies while keep their values intact in the highly competitive world.
Appealing the students to ponder over what they owe to the institute for making them what they are today, Patil said, “Your pay back time starts now. Know your responsibilities and do what is right for the society and country.”
VNIT director Prof Pramod Padole presented the institute report where he mentioned about the MoU signed between VNIT and French Aircraft manufacturer Dassault Aviation, Siemens and AIIMS Nagpur.
Registrar Dr SR Sathey proposed a vote of thanks.