Address and Interaction at Delhi Public School

SECOND VISION AND THE YOUNG

I am indeed delighted to address the students of Delhi Public School, Srinagar and also to be with the teachers, staff of DPS. When I am in the midst of the young, I thought of sharing my experience with the young. Recently, my friends had launched a web site in my name. I normally exchange views particularly with the young in the country and abroad. I had putforth two points in the web site for the young to share their thoughts. The first point I had putforth was, "India is a developing country for more than half a century. What you will do to make it Developed India?". The second one was, "When can I sing a song of India?". There is a connectivity. There were more than 100 responses. I thought of sharing with you four important suggestions that I received. One young man had responded, "I will become a teacher (rather a Professor of Engineering) since I am good in, as well as enjoy teaching. Since I believe that one of the best ways in which to serve any nation is to be either a Professor or a soldier among many other professions". Another young boy says, "Single flower makes no garland. I will make my countrymen to love the nation and work for garland, that is developed India". A twenty year old boy from Goa has responded, "I would become an electron and like an electron in the orbit, I will work ceaselessly for my country, now onwards. With reference to the second point which I had putforth, a young man from Atlanta says, "when India builds the capability to put sanction against any country, if needed, then I will sing a song of India". What the young man meant was: Economic strength brings prosperity accompanied with national strength. Like that there are many responses. The cross section of people of young age group have inspired mind to make the nation great. It is important to recognise that India has a population of 700 million young people below 35 years. This is a big force. How to ignite the young minds? Only launching the vision for the nation will bring the young force into action.

When I see such a young gathering bubbling with happiness and action oriented spirit and above all young minds, I believe, it is time for India to enter into the second vision led by the young of this country. You may all want to ask me, what is the second vision? The first vision commenced somewhere in 1857, at Meerut, which was the revolutionary thought that India should get freedom with best of leaders in multiple fields. It took us 90 years to get freedom. When India got freedom on 15th August 1947, I was a young boy like you. This atmosphere makes me to share three events on the noble leadership, indomitable spirit and birth of space science and technology in a divine environment. I am sure, all the three characteristics would help to form a strong foundation in your journey of successful life.

Noble Leadership

In 1947, at the dawn of freedom, we had the best of leaders in science, in technology, in history, in politics and in industry. On 15th August 1947, my high school teacher Rev. Iyyadorai Solomon took me to hear the mid-night freedom speech of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. We were all thrilled when Panditji spoke that the mission was achieved. On the next day, that is on 16th August 1947, I had a great experience. An experience of best of education I can think of. In the Tamil newspaper, on the front page, two news items appeared. One item was India achieving freedom and Panditji's speech. The other news item and the most important one which has been embedded in my memory is about Mahatma Gandhiji walking barefoot in Naokali, removing the pain of riot affected families. Normally as Father of the Nation Mahatma Gandhi has to be the first to unfurl the national flag on August 15, 1947 in Red Fort. But he was not there at the Red Fort, instead he was at Naokali. Mahatma Gandhi was an embodiment of nobility, elevated thinking and concern for human beings. What an everlasting positive impact in the mind of a school boy??

Indomitable spirit

Sir CV Raman led teaching and research in Physics and created great scientific leaders and also the birth of Raman Research Institute, Bangalore. I would like to quote Sir CV Raman, at the age of 82, while addressing young graduates. The message is still reverberating in my mind: "I would like to tell the young men and women before me not to lose hope and courage. Success can only come to you by courageous devotion to the task lying in front of you. I can assert without fear of contradiction that the quality of the Indian mind is equal to the quality of any Teutonic, Nordic or Anglo-Saxon mind. What we lack is perhaps courage, what we lack is perhaps driving force which takes one anywhere. We have, I think, developed an inferiority complex. I think what is needed in India today is the destruction of that defeatist spirit. We need a spirit of victory, a spirit that will carry us to our rightful place under the sun, a spirit which will recognise that we, as inheritors of a proud civilization, are entitled to a rightful place on this planet. If that indomitable spirit were to arise, nothing can hold us from achieving our rightful destiny."

Those were the words from the Nobel laureate scientist of India. You would see the bridge of science and society. Friends, I request all who are responsible for the young, all who are creators of the young, for the childrens' growth, allow them to dream. Dream transforms into thoughts and thoughts result into actions.

Birth of Space Science and Technology in a divine environment

I would like to recall another incident which happened four decades ago. As you all know, Prof Vikram Sarabhai is the visionary of space programme in the country. He is well known for his cosmic ray research area that led to evolving the space research programme for the nation. Both Dr Homi Bhabha and Prof Vikram Sarabhai were looking for a site to establish space research station in the equatorial region. These two great scientists visited a number of places. Thumba in Kerala was selected by the scientific community for space research as it was near the equatorial region and was ideally suited for ionospheric research in upper atmosphere apart from study of atmospheric structure. When Prof Vikram Sarabhai visited Thumba, the locality had series of villages and thousands of fishermen folk were living in that area. It also had a beautiful ancient church, St Mary Magdalene Church, Pallithura and a Bishop's House. Prof Vikram Sarabhai met many politicians and bureaucrats to get the place for the work of space science research. It did not move further because the nature of the place. He was asked to see the Bishop of Trivandrum, at that time in 1962, His Excellency Rct Rev Dr Peter Bernard Pereira. It was a Saturday when Prof Vikram Sarabhai met the Bishop. The Bishop smiled and asked him to meet him the next day, ie Sunday. In the morning Service, the Bishop told the congregation, "my children, I have a famous scientist with me who wants our church and the place I live for the work of space science research. Dear children, science seeks truth by reasoning. In one way, science and spiritualism seek the same divine blessings for doing good for the people. My children, can we give the God's abode for a scientific mission?" There was a chorus of 'Amen' from the congregation and the whole church reverberated. Subsequently, the big event took place in 1962. His Excellency Rct Rev Dr Peter Bernard Pereira, the Bishop of Trivandrum, took the noble decision to dedicate the church in recognition of the national goal for the establishment of the Indian Space Research Organisation at Pallithura, Thumba. That was the church where I had my design centre, started rocket assembly, design of filament binding machine for FPP product and the Bishop's house was our scientists' place. Later, the Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launching Station (TERLS) led to the establishment of Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC) and multiple space centres throughout the country.

When I think of this event, I can see how enlightened religious spiritual and scientific leaders, all converge towards giving reverence to the human life. New church and new schools were established in record time. Of course the birth of TERLS and then VSSC gave the country the capability of design, development and produce world class huge rocket system and subsequently, India has the capability of launching geo-synchronous, sun-synchronous and meteorology spacecraft, communication satellite, remote sensing satellite thereby provided fast communication, weather forecasting and also locate water resources for the country. Today, among us, Prof Vikram Sarabhai is not there, Rev Dr Peter Bernard Pereira is not there, but those who are responsible for creation and make the flower and blossom will themselves be a different kind of a flower as described in the Bhagwat Gita: "See the flower, how generously it distributes perfume and honey. It gives to all, gives freely of its love. When its work is done, it falls away quietly. Try to be like the flower, unassuming despite all its qualities". What a beautiful message for all generation of this nation, on integration of minds that is universal mind. Intellectually armed with noble leadership, indomitable spirit and universal mind qualities, young friends, you will be entering into various professions. Also, the nation will have a mission of transforming 'developing' country into a 'developed' country, with the tool of knowledge society.

Societal Transformation

The agriculture society concentrated on producing the natural products such as grains, fruits, timber, ores and natural minerals etc. The industrial society added value to these products by incorporating explicit knowledge (High Technology) to it. This not only added value to products but also increased the productivity. The Information Society adds further value by widely making available the explicit knowledge through electronic networking of information centres and thus making available information products worldwide. The knowledge society will be the society producing products and services that are rich in both explicit and tacit knowledge thus creating more valuable products. It will emerge as centre of excellence in certain institutions, which will expand to cover the entire country in a decade. The leading social group of the knowledge society will be its knowledge workers, who will have sufficient knowledge to create explicit and tacit knowledge rich products. The society will be highly networked to create knowledge intensive environment along with enabling process to efficiently create, share exploit and protect the knowledge.

The IT growth in India really has highlighted that it is possible the data transformed into the information has a business proposition. By 2010, India would aim at IT enabled services consisting of human resource service, customer interaction, finance and accounting, data search and integration and remote education. The wealth generation in real sense comes out not in series, data, information, knowledge and innovation. But how fast we move India in innovation path of business. Particularly e-business demands innovative software and hardware. Friends, as you all know, India is well placed at the dawn of the knowledge era. We should not miss this opportunity. Our culture and civilization have been enriched over the ages by great thinkers who have always taken an integrated view of life as a fusion of mind, body and intellect. Their vision of knowledge has blossomed in the form of many spiritual centers and classics. The coming decades, the enriched young, will see a confluence of civilisational and modern technological streams.

India Millennium Missions 2020

A developed country, in my opinion, is one which has the capability and the capacity to comprehensively look at wealth generation and wealth protection and thereafter evolve integrated strategies, technologies and missions to meet these objectives. It is also a fact that technology is the established currency of geo-political power and in the Indian context, technology has to be the driving force for economical development and national security. India Millennium Missions 2020 (IMM 2020), provides an excellent framework and road-map for making a strong and developed India by the year 2020

Five Mega Projects to transform the nation to Developed Country

We have identified five areas where India has a core competence for an integrated action. (1) Agriculture and food processing - we have to put a target of doubling the present production of food and agricultural products. Other areas of agriculture and agro food processing would bring prosperity to rural people and speed up the economic growth. (2) Reliable and quality electric power for all parts of the country. (3) Education and Healthcare - we have seen, based on the experience, education and healthcare are inter related. (4) Information Technology - This is one of our core competence. We believe, this area can be used to promote education in remote areas and also to create national wealth. (5) Strategic sectors - This area, fortunately, witnessed the growth in nuclear technology, space technology and defence technology.

These five areas are closely inter-related and culminate in thirty IMM 2020 missions leading to national food and economic security. A strong partnership among the R&D, academy, Industry and the community as a whole with the Government departments will be essential to accomplish the vision.

Conclusion

Civilisation that does not have the knowledge of technology or the technological nations without experience of civilization, cannot innovate newer economy. India has rich civilization and post independent India has focused itself as a technologically competent in Space, Defence, Atomic Energy, Agriculture and Information Technology and certain areas of Industry. This combination is high energy force multiplier. With a vision and work, India will get transformed into a knowledge and economic power.

Friends, when you look around the world, you may be at the low ebb to think that you belong to one of the hundreds of developing nations and not to the so-called developed G-8. Think of the billion ignited Indian minds. This is the most powerful resource compared to any resource on the earth, above the earth and below the earth. You are a mighty force for the nation. Your sweat will transform developing India into a developed nation.