Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar on Saturday underlined the importance of women education, saying the dream of a developed India was incomplete without women and education.
"Women and education are the two wheels of the chariot that will drive the nation," Mr Dhankhar said while interacting with the students and teachers at the India International School in Jaipur.
"Education is the biggest leveller in society and it brings equality and it is a necessity for democracy to flourish in any society. Education brings about equality, education cuts into inequities," he added.
Mr Dhankhar said, "If we look into our Vedas, great emphasis was laid on education and participation of women. We lost our way somewhere in between." The vice president said that during the Vedic era, women were on the same footing and were policy and decision makers and were guiding forces.
He also praised the recently enacted Women Reservation Bill that mandates one third reservation in Parliament and state legislatures.
Underlining India as the most happening place globally in terms of investment and opportunity, he stated, "The country has seen historic exponential development, economic upsurge unknown to us. The world class infrastructure, our opportunity basket is increasing day by day." Lauding the National Education Policy, the vice president said there can be no change without education.
He said that education has to be beyond degree.
"Pursuit of degrees one after another is not the right approach to education and that is why after three decades the country came to have a national education policy that allows students full exploitation of their talent," he added.
Drawing attention to the equal application of law in the country, Mr Dhankhar said, "Equality before law, provided by the Constitution, had eluded us for long, some people thought they are more equal than others, some thought we are beyond the reach of the law, we are above the law but a big change that has taken place is equality before law is now a ground reality." He also said that there was transparency in the system during the present government's rule.
