Mysuru: Mandya Deputy Commissioner (DC) Dr. Kumara has called upon the students to come out of cell phone addiction and develop a habit of reading books for their own future. He was speaking after inaugurating ‘Manasa Youth Empowerment-2025,’ a 2-day workshop on ‘Employability and Empowerment,’ organised by the Special Cell for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes of University of Mysore (UoM) at Senate Bhavan in Manasagangothri campus here yesterday.

Maintaining that scoring high marks in real life is a bigger achievement than scoring maximum marks in exams, Dr. Kumara said that it is important to note that there are no lessons in real life. However, acquiring knowledge on leading life by reading good books will help in scoring high marks in one’s real life, he added.

“The number of followers in Twitter, Facebook and other social media platforms is not important. What is important is the number of books we have read. As such, the students should develop an interest for reading rather than getting engaged in cell phone chats. Those who develop a fondness for reading books can come up in life,” he pointed out.

Stressing on the need for limited use of cell phones, he said that human values come above everything in life. Noting that there are articles which vanish with the passage of time, he said that, however, morality and values are traits which never gets erased.

“Though we can purchase article in life by paying money, morality and values are the things we can never purchase with money and we can get them only by doing really good things in life,” Dr. Kumara said adding that one should have positive thoughts all the time and shun bad things in life.

UoM Vice-Chancellor Prof. N.K. Lokanath, in his address, said that three great personalities, who studied in UoM, have been conferred with ‘Bharat Ratna,’ the highest civilian award of the country. Stating that dedication, commitment and experience are key for shaping a career, he said that education plays a key role in coming out of poverty.

“Health is very important in our life and as such, we should tread a good path. Every student should concentrate on acquisition of knowledge and the required skills for coming up in life. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is playing a very major role in our daily lives these days and as such, the students should be eager to reap the positive benefits of AI. Students should follow technology and update their knowledge and learn skills which make them employable. NEP has focussed more on self-study and as such, students should read more books for a better life and a good career,” he said.

UoM Registrar M.K. Savitha, Registrar (Evaluation) Prof. N. Nagaraja, Manasa Youth Empowerment Advisory Committee Chairman Prof. D. Anand, Dr. Hemaraj and others were present.