At the very outset I pay my tributes to the legendary personality of Panchanan Barma, the renowned educationist and social reformer of Cooch-Behar. His mission was to spread education throughout, but particularly among the Rajbanshi community. This university has been set up to materialize his values and wisdom.

I feel that learning through rational thinking empowers one to be an independent thinker. Swamiji realized that the Nation’s future depends on its people, their education and character. According to him, “Education is not the amount of information we put into your brain. We must have life building, man making, character making and assimilation of ideas”. It is important to craft a mission that would help to identify a common ground to inspire the students to think rationally. This will be of great value for intellectual growth, discovery and creativity. It requires research orientation and robust approaches to foster knowledge sharing within the institute and with other national institutes. Not long ago, I read the book “Unended quest”, an autobiography of an Austro-British philosopher Karl Popper. I liked the spirit of his idea that for anything to qualify as knowledge, it had to be an open examination and carry the risk of being disproved by the critics. Therefore it is important that the students take part in open debates in their own disciplines and also on the contemporary issues. It is also important to invite outstanding personalities of different disciplines for interaction with young minds to exchange ideas and in turn to empower the students with new knowledge.