Gandhinagar: Union Minister of Law and Justice Ravi Shankar Prasad today expressed happiness about the outstanding academic performance of the girl students of one of the highly reputed law schools in the country Gujarat National Law University (GNLU), also a favourite educational institution of Prime Minister Narendra Modi who was instrumental in its setting up here as the then Chief Minister.

He also termed himself as a champion of gender equality and greater participation of women in the workforce.

Mr Prasad was addressing the 8 th convocation of GNLU as chief guest and handed over Degrees to 221 students including 4 PhD scholars 66 Post Graduate (LL.M) students and 151 Under graduate LL.B (Hons.) Programme students. Supreme court judge justice Pinaki Chandra Ghose, Chief Justice of Gujarat High Court justice R Subhash Reddy, and Minister of state for law and justice department of Gujarat government, Pradeepsinh Jadeja and Director GNLU Bimal Patel were also present on the occasion.

Of the 5 PG level and 22 UG level gold medals, most were given to the girl students.

Mr Prasad praised the achievements of the students, with special reference to a large number of girls achieving excellence. This was in context with several girls
winning gold medals for the highest marks and excellence in various subjects as well as academic toppers for the entire duration of their degrees, in comparison to the number of boys who won the same, which were lower. He expressed his happiness about the same, declaring himself as a supporter of gender equality and greater participation of women in the workforce. He extended his support to the women students, stating that he believed that the graduating batch had amongst it several potential Supreme Court judges and Ministers. He lauded the efforts of the University in having dedicated chair to promote ethics and values in the legal profession.

He further spoke about the great heritage of our country, wherein historically, several lawyers such as the first president of India, Dr. Rajendra Prasad rose to great ranks in politics. He emphasized on the need to remember the struggle for freedom and the rise of Indian lawyers, and to be motivated by the same. His unsolicited advice to the new graduates was to enter the litigation practice; despite the initial struggle, the hard work will always pay off. He made special reference to the Make in India and Digital India campaigns, praising the work of his fellow Information Technology Minister in the Cabinet.

DeshGujarat