The President of India, Shri Pranab Mukherjee attended the Seventh Convocation of the Defence Institute of Advanced Technology (DIAT) today (May 31, 2013) at Pune.
Speaking on the occasion, the President said that the contribution of our armed forces in strengthening India’s democratic polity and pluralistic society is unique. He stated that India desires a stable and rule-based international system. He said that it is imperative for any modern armed force to be a knowledge-based entity. An increased use of science and technology in defence preparedness is a necessity today. There is need for domain knowledge, and to develop capabilities and strengthen systems through innovation. He said that policy making should be proactive to identify problems, highlight trends, develop scenarios, and recommend policy options, so as to avert any crisis. He stated that we must, therefore, have a pool of institutions in our country dedicated to raising the technological capabilities of our defence systems and expanding the knowledge frontier on issues of defence and security. He said that DIAT, as a specialized defence research and technology university, has a crucial role to generate state-of-art knowledge to fulfill the needs of our defence establishment.
This release issued at 1830 hrs