Girls walk away with 14 of 19 gold medals of AKU toppers

Patna: Girls outsmarted boys once again by bagging as many as 14 of the 19 gold medals awarded to toppers of different courses at the second annual convocation of Aryabhatta Knowledge University (

AKU

) at the S K Memorial Hall here on Saturday.

The gold medal recipients included Anjali and Shweta Shalini (MBBS), Indira Priyadarshini (MD in anaesthesiology), Syed Altamash (MS in general surgery), Nidhi (DA in anaesthesiology), Priya Ranjan (MS in orthopaedics), Priya Verma (MD in paediatrics), Shubham (MD in anaesthesiology), Anumeha and Shubhra (M Ed), Abhilasha Kumari and Monica ( BEd), Aditi Shail, Srishti Raj and Nidhi Kumari (BTech), Sangya Kumari (Bachelor of Business Administration), Krishna Murari Kumar (Bachelor of Computer Applications), Vivek Kumar Parsurampuriya (Diploma in orthopaedics) and Ankita (community college).

Presenting gold medals to the toppers, governor-cum-chancellor Ram Nath Kovind emphasised the need of value-based education for ensuring all-round development of the country. "Students must concentrate on their moral uplift along with their skill development while pursuing their education so that a value-based society is established," he said. He said AKU has been established not only for bringing out a change in the field of higher education in the state but also for raising the moral standards of the youth. Efforts should be made to enhance the standard of education by linking the university with the premier institutions of national and international repute, he said.

Kovind expressed happiness over the satisfactory progress made by AKU in a very short period and lauded its efforts for modernising its office work. The process of online admission has already been started and a move is afoot to conduct online examinations. He appealed to the students to serve the society sincerely and honestly wherever they go after completion of studies.

State science and technology minister Jai Kumar Singh said the pass-outs of the university should not hanker after jobs, but should be job-providers. They should make the best use of their education in creating job opportunities for others, he said.

Altogether 7,330 scholars, who passed their final examinations of different courses of AKU during the last two sessions, were conferred degrees at the convocation. More than 450 of them received their degrees in person.

AKU vice-chancellor A K Agrawal presented the annual report and highlighted the academic activities of the university. AKU founder VC S N Guha, pro-VC S M Karim, registrar Ajay Pratap and VCs of some other universities also attended the convocation.