Luca1
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This country is going through a demographic dividend. If we utilize India's young population and convert it into human resource with the right training and skills, India will be a superpower. Your generation will take us to superpower status." Maharashtra's new chief minister Devendra Fadnavis's words were met with rousing ovation from a very young audience on Friday morning. He was not addressing the youth wing of a political party but an auditorium packed with a thousand-odd school-goers who are a part of Times NIE Newsmakers' Meet '15-16, organized in association with Cello Pens, held to select young journalists for TOI's student edition.
The CM's eager audience hung on to every word he said, as he dished out a good deal of gyaan to the budding journalists. "I have been interacting with journalists for a long time," said Fadnavis and added that several of them were "so probing" and "asked questions that were more on the negative side". He advised his audience, whose outstretched hands suggested they had a volley of questions for him, to ask "more positive questions".
"Media is a mirror to society. One good news can change the entire day. I would want every newspaper and channel to carry one good news every day, so that people realize that everything is not bad in this world. This will help people learn of Good Samaritans who are doing a good job," said Fadnavis.
You are a tech generation, growing up in the information technology era. But while you must have information, knowledge is more important than information. Information is something you get and forget, but knowledge is for a lifetime."
The chief minister played fairy godmother to the students, promising them a better Maharashtra in the next couple of years. From regional inequality to infrastructure and from education to open spaces, the CM said he was working on it all.
When Melissa Fernandes from Fatima High School in Ambarnath pointed to the near absence of parks and playgrounds in her area, Fadnavis acknowledged the lack of open spaces and spoke of government projects to decongest the city and create more green spaces. He spoke of plans to create areas with higher density that would leave more open spaces around them.
When a youngster asked him his top priority for Maharashtra, he said he wanted to provide quality education to the vast swathes of people who could not access it. "While you can be certain of the quality of education you receive at your schools, 70% of students do not get quality education. We want to blend skills and quality so that young people are employable and can contribute to society and the development of the country," said Fadnavis, airing his concerns over regional imbalances in the state. "Once we free 20,000 villages from drought, Maharashtra will be the best state in the country."
As for Maharashtra being viewed through the lens of Mumbai, a Class VIII student, Aditya Singh from DAV Public School, Airoli, wanted to know what was happening to other parts of the state. "Mumbai is important as it is the capital city, but Maharashtra exists outside Mumbai. Unless all parts of Maharashtra are developed, we cannot call Maharashtra a developed state," he said and added the new government's flagship program involved making Maharashtra drought-free.
He detailed the proposed infrastructure projects aimed at decongesting local trains, as well as plans to digitize Maharashtra's villages.
As for dilapidated monuments, Fadnavis pointed to the great architecture of Shivaji's forts and spoke of how keen the state government was to preserve them. The problem, he said, was that these monuments were under the jurisdiction of the Archeological Survey of India, which worked at a rather slow and conservative pace. He said he was looking at working with ASI.
Reya from Podar School wanted to know what the government was going to do to ensure students were safe, in the light of the Peshawar school attackl. Fadnavis said safety could not be left to the government alone. "We can provide more CCTV cameras and policemen but we need schools and students to be vigilant, too."
The CM's eager audience hung on to every word he said, as he dished out a good deal of gyaan to the budding journalists. "I have been interacting with journalists for a long time," said Fadnavis and added that several of them were "so probing" and "asked questions that were more on the negative side". He advised his audience, whose outstretched hands suggested they had a volley of questions for him, to ask "more positive questions".
"Media is a mirror to society. One good news can change the entire day. I would want every newspaper and channel to carry one good news every day, so that people realize that everything is not bad in this world. This will help people learn of Good Samaritans who are doing a good job," said Fadnavis.
You are a tech generation, growing up in the information technology era. But while you must have information, knowledge is more important than information. Information is something you get and forget, but knowledge is for a lifetime."
The chief minister played fairy godmother to the students, promising them a better Maharashtra in the next couple of years. From regional inequality to infrastructure and from education to open spaces, the CM said he was working on it all.
When Melissa Fernandes from Fatima High School in Ambarnath pointed to the near absence of parks and playgrounds in her area, Fadnavis acknowledged the lack of open spaces and spoke of government projects to decongest the city and create more green spaces. He spoke of plans to create areas with higher density that would leave more open spaces around them.
When a youngster asked him his top priority for Maharashtra, he said he wanted to provide quality education to the vast swathes of people who could not access it. "While you can be certain of the quality of education you receive at your schools, 70% of students do not get quality education. We want to blend skills and quality so that young people are employable and can contribute to society and the development of the country," said Fadnavis, airing his concerns over regional imbalances in the state. "Once we free 20,000 villages from drought, Maharashtra will be the best state in the country."
As for Maharashtra being viewed through the lens of Mumbai, a Class VIII student, Aditya Singh from DAV Public School, Airoli, wanted to know what was happening to other parts of the state. "Mumbai is important as it is the capital city, but Maharashtra exists outside Mumbai. Unless all parts of Maharashtra are developed, we cannot call Maharashtra a developed state," he said and added the new government's flagship program involved making Maharashtra drought-free.
He detailed the proposed infrastructure projects aimed at decongesting local trains, as well as plans to digitize Maharashtra's villages.
As for dilapidated monuments, Fadnavis pointed to the great architecture of Shivaji's forts and spoke of how keen the state government was to preserve them. The problem, he said, was that these monuments were under the jurisdiction of the Archeological Survey of India, which worked at a rather slow and conservative pace. He said he was looking at working with ASI.
Reya from Podar School wanted to know what the government was going to do to ensure students were safe, in the light of the Peshawar school attackl. Fadnavis said safety could not be left to the government alone. "We can provide more CCTV cameras and policemen but we need schools and students to be vigilant, too."
