Dear Comrades,
MUMBAI: President Pranab Mukherjee concluded the centenary celebrations of Vasantrao Naik, former chief minister of Maharashtra, in Mumbai Monday. Naik was CM for more than 11 years at a stretch.
Mukherjee released a postal cover in honour of the leader. He described Naik as a "great son" of Maharashtra and indeed India. "Today we talk about the employment guarantee programme in rural areas but it was he who had first introduced such a scheme in Maharashtra during two famines. That scheme is now being implemented in the whole country," the president said.
Union ministers Sharad Pawar, Sushil Kumar Shinde and Praful Patel, who attended the event, outlined Naik's contribution to agriculture and spoke about how he integrated disparate regions of the state. They said it was he who had made Maharashtra self-sufficient in food production by establishing four agricultural universities.
Maharashtra CM Prithviraj Chavan announced that the Parbhani Agriculture University will be renamed after Naik.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com
