Youth must take the best of tradition into the modern world: Lalnghinglova Hmar Minister delivers valedictory address at National Seminar on Youth and Culture in Northeast India

Minister for Sports & Youth Services, Tourism, Excise & Narcotics and LESDE, Pu Lalnghinglova Hmar, today delivered the valedictory address at the National Seminar on “Youth and Culture in Northeast India: Intersections and Perspectives” held at Government Aizawl North College (GANC). The two-day seminar was organised by the Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR) in collaboration with Government Aizawl North College and Christ University, Bangalore. Mr. C. Vanlalvuana, Head of the Department of English, GANC, chaired the valedictory session.

Congratulating the organisers, the Minister said that any conversation on the future of Northeast India is essentially a conversation about its youth, who cannot be separated from their culture, identity and communities. Culture, he said, does not remain frozen in the past; it changes with every generation, and young people sometimes challenge it and sometimes save it from disappearing. Speaking on Mizo society, he said young people should not be asked to choose between tradition and modernity but encouraged to take the best of tradition into the modern world.

The Minister cautioned that a conservative society can become restrictive when it decides what a young person should study or which career he or she should pursue. He urged parents, teachers and society to create conditions in which young people can discover their own potential, and not to measure success only by government jobs or a few conventional professions.