The President of India, Shri Pranab Mukherjee addressed the students and faculty of University of Ghana in Accra yesterday (June 13, 2016).

Speaking on the occasion, the President said there is a need for a paradigm shift in the way we conduct our relations - while building further on the foundation of our mutual goodwill. We need to define a new positive and create a brighter, innovative and updated narrative of India-Ghana relations. He was confident that our youth – who are our leaders of tomorrow, would fit in seamlessly into this renewed and revised model of cooperation. By duly making them stakeholders, we will succeed in reinvigorating our partnership and taking it to a new level.

The President said education is like a lamp, brightly-lit, which should show the way and enlighten many more lives. He called upon the youth of Ghana to employ their learning and knowledge in the service of their society and their nation. He said that he was confident that the coming generations of this great nation, the inheritors of the legacy of the great Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, have the credentials to make their Nation proud.

The President said every year 250 Ghanaian government and semi-government officials receive training in India while about 20 students pursue full-time under-graduate, Masters and Ph.D. programmes on scholarships. He announced that having recognized Ghana's immense human resource potential, the Government of India has decided to increase seat allocations for Ghana to 300 ITEC slots and increase the number of annual scholarships under other Indian schemes to forty.

The President said India calls upon students and the faculty of this great university and others to take full advantage of the scholarships and training opportunities announced by India at the India Africa Forum Summit last year. The capacity building dimension of India-Africa relations has been vastly expanded to include research in various fields such as agriculture, bio-technology and other subjects of relevance to their country.

This release issued at 1120 hrs.