President Droupadi Murmu urged students to always maintain humility and the spirit of inquisitiveness within them while addressing them at the 13th graduation ceremony of the National Institute of Science Education and Research (NISER) at Bhubaneswar.

She also asked them to consider their knowledge as a social enterprise and use it for the development of society and the country.

President Mrumu said, “Meaningful education and knowledge are the only ones that can be used for the betterment and upliftment ofhumanity.”

Urging the students to discharge their social duties with full accountability, President Murmu said that Mahatma Gandhi had defined seven social sins, one of which was merciless science. “That is, promoting science without sensitivity towards humanity is like committing a sin,” she said.

The President said: “I am happy to note that NISER is moving forward by synchronising the rationality of science and the values of tradition,” she said.

The President said that along with the boon of science, there is always the danger of its curse. “Today, very rapid changes are taking place in the field of science and technology. New technological developments are providing capabilities to human society but at the same time they are also creating new challenges for humanity,” she said.

She spoke about how CRISPR-Cas9 has made gene editing very easy. “This technology is a huge step towards solving many incurable diseases. However, problems related to ethical and social issues are also arising due to the use of this technology. Similarly, due to the advances in the field of generative artificial intelligence, the problem of deep fake and many regulatory challenges are coming to the fore,” she said.

The President said that experiments and research in the field of fundamental science often take a lot of time to yield results. Many times breakthroughs have been achieved after facing disappointment for many years. She told students that they may go through such a phase at times when their patience is tested. But they should never be discouraged.

Governor Raghubar Das also spoke on the occasion.