Pranab to visit Varanasi, Allahabad for convocations

President Pranab Mukherjee will be in Uttar Pradesh on Tuesday visiting Varanasi and Allahabad to confer degrees and medals at two different convocations.

He will participate in a special convocation being held at Banaras Hindu University (BHU) to mark the completion of the year-long celebrations of 150th birth anniversary of its founder Mahamana Madan Mohan Malviya.

Mukherjee will also visit Motlilal Nehru National Institute of Technology (MNNIT) in Allahabad to confer degrees and medals to the students at its ninth convocation. He will be the first President to confer degrees and medals to the students at the MNNIT.

A BHU spokesperson said: "The President would confer a degree of Doctor of Law to Nepal President Ram Baran Yadav. He would also release a coin commemorating the birth anniversary of the Mahamana. A website having details about the life and times of Malviyaji would also be launched on the occasion."

On December 27, 2011, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had inaugurated the year-long celebrations of Malviyaji's 150th birth anniversary at Vigyan Bhawan in New Delhi. "The year-long celebrations across the country would now come to an end with this function," said the spokesperson.

Mukherjee would arrive at Varanasi airport and then take a helicopter to MNNIT in Allahabad, where he would confer the degrees and awards to the students in an one-hour function, beginning 12.30 pm. He would then fly back to attend the special function at BHU, which will start at 4 pm.

Director (MNNIT), Dr P Chakrabarti, addressing a press conference here said: "This is the first time the President would be addressing the institute's convocation."

The President is a Visitor to all the National Institutes of Technology (NITs). The Motilal Nehru Institute, which was then a Regional Engineering College, had been declared a NIT in 2002. The then President APJ Abdul Kalam had come to the MNNIT campus in 2005, but it was in connection with a programme organised by another institute.

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