I have great pleasure in wishing all the members of Baroda Lions Club Education Trust (BLCET) family of students, parents, teachers and staff on the occasion of 62^nd Independence Day on behalf of all my fellow trustees and on my personal behalf. 

Independence Day gives us an opportunity to reflect on the past and also make resolutions for the future.  We remember our glorious past and resolve that we will make the future better than the past.   It is a day on which we take stock of unfinished work of nation building and examine as to how we individually and collectively can contribute towards it.  I have great faith that India is destined to achieve the greatest heights and it will achieve in due course.

Friends, our country has decided to follow the path of democracy and therefore we are ruled by ourselves.  We therefore create our own rights and while we do so, we also create enormous responsibilities for ourselves.  While we fight for our own rights, we seldom remember our responsibilities.  Unless we remind ourselves and adhere to our responsibilities faithfully, we would never be able to ensure protection of our rights, your right is someone else’s responsibility and someone else’s right is your responsibility.  Let us therefore in this year resolve to faithfully fulfill our respective responsibilities with as much vigour as we fight for our rights.

India is faced with several challenges like terrorism, separatism, poverty, illiteracy, resource crunch, etc..  It is our duty to fight to meet these challenges.  While these challenges make our country weak, it also provides us with an opportunity to unite, come together and work together for fighting this.  Let us face this together, let us fight it together and let us remove it together.  Let us work in such a way that fighting these challenges makes our country strong and invincible, like the unique fight for independence led by Mahatma Gandhi and great leaders then.  We must bear in mind that birth of great democracy like India was due to adversity in the form of foreign rule.  Fragmented India got united and become one republic of which we all are very proud of.

I am very proud of being citizen of independent India.  I would always want to remain citizen of this great country.  I would also want to contribute as much as I can for the growth of this country and in every little way.  I know that we have crores of citizens of this country who think like this and work like this.  I know that we have thousands of BLCETians (students, parents, teachers and staff) who think like this and work like this.  Let us use our collective strength to move forward.

With warmest regard and wishes,

Milin Mehta