Chennai, Sep 5 : Prime Minister Manmohan Singh along with Congress President Sonia Gandhi and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi, were conferred honorary doctorate degrees by the Madras University.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said on Friday that the 150-year-old Madras University was a unique and great institution as it had produced several distinguished personalities, including two Nobel laureates C V Raman and S Chandrasekar.

"You have produced two Nobel laureates C V Raman in 1930 and Dr S Chandrasekar in 1983 and S R Srinivasavaradan, winner of the Abel Prize, which is equivalent to Nobel in the world of mathematics," he said.

"There are hundreds of your faculties and students who have won laurels in their respective disciplines nationally and internationally," he said, delivering the special convocation address at the University in Chennai.

He greeted teachers on the occasion of the Teacher''s Day.

"Today it is being celebrated all over the country as Teachers Day. Today, we honour our teachers on the birth anniversary of a great and distinguished student and teacher of the University of Madras, S Radhakrishnan, the former President of India."

"As one who started his professional life as a University teacher, I consider myself as doubly privileged and duly delighted to be in your midst on this very special occasion," he said.

The University was in many ways unique and one of great national institutions and had the distinction of having produced several distinguished personalities, he said.

The University, established in 1857, had fostered the creation of several other great universities like the Andhra University, the Osmania University and the Mysore and the Kerala Universities, the Prime Minister observed. (ANI)