Punjabi experience can help societies face challenges of digital world: Lord Swraj Paul
London, September 4: Leading NRI industrialist and educationist Lord Swraj Paul said on Tuesday that “Punjabi experience” can help societies to face challenges posed by the digital world.
Speaking on the opening day of a three-day conference held at the University at Wolverhampton, Paul said Punjabis have adopted to the modern environment all over the world including the UK and the US.
“Right now, we live in an unusual era of history. The digital world is a difficult world where old virtues and values are being questioned. To meet these challenges we will need to make major adjustments and adaptations in every field of human endeavour,” Paul, who is also the Chancellor of the University of Wolverhampton, said.
“Look at how successfully Punjabis have adapted to modern environments all over the world, including in the UK and the US,” Paul said during the conference on the subject “exploration and celebration of Sikh and Punjabi Studies in academia and its place and importance in today’s world.” Paul is the founder chairman of the CAPARO group engaged in the design, manufacture, marketing and distribution of value-added steel and niche engineering products.
Caparo’s wider activities encompass hotels, property, power generation, logistics, financial services and investment, according to the group’s website.
He said as societies modernise and struggle to make these transitions and adjustments, “perhaps the Punjabi experience should be studied further and become better known”.
Paul hoped that the Centre for Sikh and Punjabi Studies, set up in early 2018 in the University of Wolverhampton, will give attention to another area – the Punjabi personality.
This could well include some analysis of outstanding Punjabi personalities of contemporary times and the values that shaped their contribution to India and the world today.
“After all, in recent years, Punjabis have helped to influence the destiny of India and some have risen to the highest positions of state, President Giani Zail Singh and Prime Ministers Inder Kumar Gujral and Dr Manmohan Singh are distinguished examples,” he said.
