Chennai: Sitharaman attends 36th Dr.MGR University Convocation

Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday attended the 36th convocation of Dr MGR Educational and Research Institute in Chennai, where she urged graduating students to view education not as an endpoint but as the beginning of a lifelong journey of learning.
Sitharaman is also scheduled to launch the “Sanskrit Heritage Model — Ancient Knowledge, Living Intelligence”, an artificial intelligence-based language model, at Madras Sanskrit College in Mylapore later in the day. The model is being developed by Articul8 AI in collaboration with the college. 
Addressing the convocation, Sitharaman said graduation should not be seen merely as the completion of an academic course or a transition to the next stage of life.“Graduation is not just about completing your studies and moving on to the next level; it marks the beginning of a lifelong learning journey,” she said.She drew a distinction between formal education and the broader lessons of life, saying that while college provides an important form of learning, “the real learning about life begins only after it.”
Quoting the Tamil classic Thirukkural, Sitharaman highlighted education as a form of wealth that cannot be taken away from an individual.She recited the couplet: which says that education is an imperishable wealth,conveying the idea that material wealth can be lost, while education remains a lasting asset.
Sitharaman urged the graduating students to recognise the enduring value of education as they embark on their professional and personal journeys. Her message placed lifelong learning at the centre of the transition from university education to the wider world.Sitharaman’s Chennai engagements also connect education with India’s growing efforts to use emerging technologies to preserve and explore its knowledge traditions.
At the Madras Sanskrit College, she is scheduled to unveil the Sanskrit Heritage Model at 4 pm, according to agency reports. The initiative seeks to use AI to engage with Sanskrit knowledge through its original texts, linguistic structure, context and scholarly traditions rather than treating the language simply as material for translation. 
The project is designed around the idea of bringing ancient knowledge into the age of artificial intelligence. Promotional material from the Madras Sanskrit College describes the model as an effort to explore centuries of Sanskrit knowledge, including areas such as healing, mathematics, astronomy and philosophy, through AI-enabled tools. ([LinkedIn]
The model is also reported to draw on traditional Sanskrit grammatical frameworks, including Panini’s Ashtadhyayi, with scholarly inputs from Sanskrit experts. This approach aims to retain the linguistic and contextual richness of classical texts while making them more accessible for contemporary research and learning. 
Sitharaman’s two engagements in Chennai thus bring together two themes central to India’s evolving education landscape — the enduring value of learning and the use of new technology to preserve and expand access to India’s intellectual heritage.