Educated should enter politics: Expert

BELGAUM: Money power, religion and caste based vote bank politics are doing much harm to the Indian democracy, said M R Srinivasan, former chairman of Atomic Energy Commission. He was addressing the 12th annual convocation of Visvesvaraya Technological University (VTU) here on Friday.
Lamenting over the uncivilized behaviour of several politicians in the assembly and Parliament houses, Srinivasan said such behaviour brings ignominy to the country.Expressing unhappiness over the acrimonious debates by politicians, Srinivasan said there is a need of educated people from different backgrounds including engineering and technology to enter politics.
Srinivasan pointed out that though Indian economy growth rate has slipped in the past two years, it is still the second fastest growing economy of the world. In the decade of 2000-2010, the country saw fastest growth that around 8%. No doubt China achieved 10% but India stood second. Now it has slipped to 6% and below. In order to eliminate poverty, a sustainable growth of 8% and more is required for several decades. Srinivasan said China also experiencing same type of economical crunch in the past couple of years.
Srinivasan said India has emerged as the largest importer of weapons systems and weapon platforms. The list includes field artillery, tanks, aircrafts, surface shifts, submarine and wide variety of communication system.
Governor H R Bhardwaj, Rajya Sabha member Rajeev Chandrashekar, registrar K E Prakash, registrar (evaluation) H G Shekharappa and special officer Dinesh Rangappa were present.