Smriti Irani for chairs in Swami Vivekananda’s name in universities

Human Resource Development (HRD) minister Smriti Irani on Thursday made an appeal to all the vice chancellors of the universities to establish a chair in the name of Swami Vivekananda.

Human Resource Development (HRD) minister Smriti Irani on Thursday made an appeal to all the vice chancellors of the universities to establish a chair in the name of Swami Vivekananda.

She made the appeal while listing her ministry’s achievements during the first three months of NDA government’s tenure.

“Since on this day in 1893, Swami Vivekananda gave his historic speech in Chicago, I take this opportunity to appeal to all vice chancellors across all central, state and deemed universities that the University Grants Commission (UGC) has proposed a plan whereby chairs can be set up in the name of Swami Vivekananda so that his philosophy, teachings and life can be researched upon and studied.”

Prime Minister Narendra Modi also invoked Vivekananda to convey the message of universal brotherhood on Thursday, on the 12th anniversary of the terror attack on twin towers of World Trade Centre.

The PM felt that if the world had followed Vivekananda’s message of universal brotherhood, 9/11 would perhaps have never happened.

“There are two images of 11th September — one of the trails of destruction in 2001 and the other — the message of Swami Vivekananda in 1893.

Had we followed Swamiji’s message, history would never have witnessed such dastardly acts as we saw on 11th September 2001 in USA,” the PM said.