Address At The Annual Convocation Of Jamia Millia Islamia - 2003

Second Vision for the nation

I am indeed delighted to participate in the Annual Convocation of Jamia Millia Islamia. I take this opportunity to congratulate the University students for their excellent academic performance. I greet the Chancellor, Vice Chancellor, Professors, teachers and staff for shaping the young minds and preparing them to contribute to the nation in multiple fields. Dear graduates, when you complete your education in this university, the learning and in turn the empowerment will certainly assist you to meet the challenges in life. My best wishes.

First Vision for the Nation

The seeding for the national independence took place around 1857 or even before, I see the relationship between the urge for independence and the emergence of great minds. As the independence movement grew, it brought out the best of leaders like Lala Lajpat Rai, Lokmanya Tilak, Mahatma Gandhi, Pt Jawaharlal Nehru, Sardar Patel, Abul Kalam Azad, Bankim Chandra Chatterjee. The list, if we take it from each part of the country, will be very big. This National movement had also brought simultaneously best of scientists and technologists. Though there was no full-fledged effort at the British ruled governmental level to bring up Indian science, industries and education, we have seen world class scientific leaders emerged during the pre-independence period.

I have selected examples of scientific leaders like Sir CV Raman, the first Indian Nobel laureate in science. He got the Nobel Prize before independence. His life clearly indicates a built-in spirit to make the nation scientifically great. In one of his talks to young audience, he said, ??.to me, everything I see is incredible, something absolutely incredible. We take it all for granted. But I think the essence of the scientific spirit is to look beyond and to realize what a wonderful world it is we live in ?.The moment you ask ?Why is the sky blue?? you go deeper and deeper into the problems of physics?.?. For Sir CV Raman, Science is a beautiful gift to the humanity. For Indians, he gave the meaning of scientific temper.

The same is the case with Prof S.Chandrasekhar, the great astrophysicist. There are some interesting statements in his biography. I quote from a book ?Chandra? by Shri Kameshwar Wali:

?Chandra grew up in what was a golden age for science, art and literature in India, spurred on partly by the struggle for independence. J.C.Bose, C.V Raman, Meghnad Saha, Srinivasa Ramanujam, and Rabindranath Tagore, by their achievements in scientific and creative endeavours, became national heroes along with Jawaharlal Nehru, Mahatma Gandhi, and a host of others active in the political movement. Did their success produce an enduring atmosphere for creativity, or did the prevailing cultural and social conditions hamper a healthy growth of sustained activity? Over the years, Chandra and I have discussed various facets of science in India and experiences of some of the eminent Indian scientists. The following excerpts reflect Chandra?s thoughts on these matters.?

?Chandra: I mean it is a remarkable thing that in the modern era before 1910, there were no (Indian) scientists of international reputation or standing. Between 1920 and 1925, we had suddenly five or six internationally well known men. I myself have associated this remarkable phenomenon with the need for self-expression, which became a dominant motive among the young during the national movement. It was a part of the national movement to assert oneself. India was a subject country, but in the sciences, in the arts, particularly in science, we could show the West in their own realm that we were equal to them.?

Coming now to the industrial field, Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata brought the steel industry in India even though the British rulers were not favourably disposed to the idea. Acharya PC Ray brought up chemical and pharmaceutical industry. Likewise, in the pre-independent period we see the birth of many great institutes like Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore started by JN Tata, Benares Hindu University by Pandit Madan Mohan Malviya, and Aligarh Muslim University by Sir Syed Ahmad Khan. There were also some Indian Maharajas who started and nurtured universities .

During the same time Jamia Millia Islamia was born out of the political ferment during the country?s struggle for Independence. Many leaders and students of this university suffered at the hands of British rulers. The Jamia responded to the need for an educational system rooted in the country?s ethos by reflecting nationalist, cultural and Islamic ideals and by synthesizing the old and the new. It was a great mission, shaped great thinkers and united many minds.

Many distinguished personalities like Mahatma Gandhi, Dr. Zakir Hussain, Dr. Ansari and Dr. Abdul Majeed Khwaja contributed to the shaping of this institution. I pay my tribute to all of them on this occasion for nurturing this institution against many challenges and odds. Jamia has played a key role in national and emotional integration of the country. In all these cases the basic motivations have been to show the urge to build the Nation and demonstrate to the world that ?India can do it?.

The Second Vision for the nation

After 58 years of progress, the aspirations are mounting that India should become a developed country. This is the second vision for the nation. How we can prepare ourselves to this challenge?

Since our independence in 1947, in many aspects of life, improvement in literacy, agricultural products, strategic areas, certain small and large-scale industries took place. Also, the life expectancy has increased. We are capable of producing sufficient food grains, cereals and milk. Today, India has the capability to design, develop and lead to production strategic systems for national development and security. Also, we have seen in the ambient conditions the growth in the Information Technology; the country is progressing in a limited way in software business and in hardware we are yet to take off. When India was clamped with economic sanctions in 1998, after the nuclear tests, by developed world, we combated successfully. The tools were food security and self-reliance in most of the strategic areas and production capability in certain sectors of industry. We have many challenges. We are a nation of billion people. The nation is going through a major challenge of uplifting of 260 million people who are below the poverty line and 370 million people who are not literate. They need habitat, they need food, they need health care, and they need education and employment and in short a good life. Our GDP is growing approximately at 8% per annum on an average. Whereas, the economists suggest that to uplift the people below poverty line, our economy has to grow at the rate of 10% per annum consistently, for over a decade. Then it is possible for India to get developed economically and the billion people will feel and share the prosperity of the nation. The roadmap involves integrated action on the following five areas:

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 400 million tons of food and agricultural production. 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 and Communication 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 would lead 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 in a mission mode.

Our experiences in Mission mode

During 1960?s, I remember that India was in a ship to mouth existence for food grains. If the American ships do not bring wheat, there will be a famine in India. But there were two visionaries who worked together with the farming community and brought the first green revolution. They are the political thinker Shri. C. Subramaniam, the Agriculture scientist Dr. M.S. Swaminathan and Dr Kurien the master mind behind the white revolution. Today we produce two hundred million tonnes of food grains, which is not only sufficient for us but we can also export some quantity.

In India many innovation and creative thinking took place at various phases of our development. Dr. Vikram Sarabhai in 1960?s said that India should design and develop large satellite launch vehicle and put communication satellite and remote sensing satellite in geo-synchronous orbit and polar orbit respectively. This vision statement ignited hundreds of scientist, technologists and thousands of technicians. Today India is capable of building any type of satellite launch vehicles and satellites. Similarly the Vision of nuclear programme led to establishing series of nuclear power plants adding 3000 megawatt power to our electrical grid of 100,000 megawatt.

In 1980?s, India had a very low base in Information Technology. Some young entrepreneurs with their innovative and creative thoughts, within the difficult boundary conditions of India?s rules and regulations, showed how IT enabled services can fetch export revenue. Subsequently, even Govt. had to bring out innovative and liberalized IT policies. Now, our young IT entrepreneurs are making export revenue of 15 billion dollars. Similarly the Pharma industries are making a positive impact in the India economy. Our garment industry, our export of flowers and diamond are not far behind.

I would like to discuss some of the major missions which are essential for transforming India into a developed nation they are: Providing Urban Amenities in Rural Areas (PURA) and interconnecting river basins and Employment generation through entrepreneurship. I am sure that the brilliant minds who are graduating today would become partners in these missions and transform our country into a developed nation.

Rural Prosperity through Connectivity

Nearly 700 million people of India live in the rural areas in 600,000 villages. Connectivity of village complexes providing economic opportunities to all segments of people is an urgent need to bridge the rural-urban divide, generate employment and enhance rural prosperity. The essential needs of the villages today are water, power, road, sanitation, healthcare, education and employment generation.

Essential Connectivities through PURA

The integrated methods, which will bring prosperity to rural India are: the physical connectivity of the village clusters through quality roads and transport; electronic connectivity through tele-communication with high bandwidth fiber optic cables reaching the rural areas from urban cities and through internet kiosks; knowledge connectivity through education, vocational training for farmers, artisans and craftsmen and entrepreneurship programmes; these three connectivities will lead to economic connectivity through starting of enterprises with the help of banks, micro credits and marketing the products.

Interlinking of rivers

Interlinking of rivers is essential for controlling floods and droughts, for making drinking water available to all regions, for transporting goods and navigation, for generating more cultivable land and generation of hydel power. This mission will also provide large scale employment opportunities through out the country. And above all the networking of rivers will lead to environmental upgradation and national connectivity.

Science and Technology can surely help in executing such missions. India has its own remote sensing satellites and their applications will help in large-scale survey from the source and river flow pattern at various seasons. Optimum water routes, mapping of the environmental profile can be evolved using virtual reality through satellite and aerial imageries. The two remote sensing satellites, which are to be launched soon namely CARTOSAT-I and CARTOSAT-II will give extensive mapping and infrastructure for executing the interlinking of rivers. The defence and nuclear technologies can be considered for the creation of series of canals and pumping stations in mountain areas. This mission will have to enlist all the connected departments of government, industries and research institutions.

These two missions will generate large scale of employment opportunities for our youth, especially the graduates and post-graduates completing their education from universities who will be needed as entrepreneurs for creating running our PURA complexes.

Employment Generation through entrepreneurship

There has been substantial growth in our higher educational system and we are generating over 3 million graduates every year. However our employment generation system is not in a position to absorb the graduates passing out from the universities leading to increase in educated unemployed, year after year. There is a large mismatch between the skills required for the modern economy and the education imparted to most of these students. In addition, economic growth and investments have not kept pace with the availability of human resources. This situation will lead to instability in the social structure. We need higher education focused on and oriented towards high value and productive employment opportunities. A three pronged strategy is needed to make education more attractive, make it skill imparting and simultaneously create employment potential ? how do we do that?

Firstly, the educational system should highlight the importance of entrepreneurship and prepare the students right from the college education to get oriented towards setting up of the enterprises which will provide them creativity, freedom and ability to generate wealth. Diversity of skills and perseverance in work makes an entrepreneur. It should be taught to all the students. In addition, college syllabi even for arts, science, and commerce courses should include topics and practical where such entrepreneurship is possible.

Secondly, the banking system should provide venture capital right from every village level to the prospective entrepreneurs for undertaking new enterprises.

Thirdly, there has to be an economic pull for human resources; for example generation of marketable products and enhancement of purchasing power among the people through the implementation of national missions. The educational institutions, Government and the private enterprises should become facilitators for creating this entrepreneurship scheme through the support of the banking system and the marketing system. Entrepreneurs have to produce the competitive products for becoming successful in their missions. I am sure that many of you would explore the possibilities of becoming entrepreneurs and become the employer than the employee.

Conclusion: Creative Leadership

There are 540 million youth below 25 years in the population of a billion people. The nation needs young leaders who can command the change for transformation of India into a developed nation embedded with knowledge society. . The leaders are the creators of new organizations of excellence. Quality leaders are like magnets that will attract the best of persons to build the team for the organization and give inspiring leadership even during failures of missions as they are not afraid of risks. I have seen and worked with creators of vision and missions.

One of the very important ingredients for success of the vision of transforming India into a developed nation by 2020 is the evolution of creative leaders. I am giving a connectivity between developed India, economic prosperity, technology, production, productivity, employee role and management quality, all of which linked to the creative leader. Who is that creative leader? What are the qualities of a creative leader? The creative leadership is exercising the task to change the traditional role from commander to coach, manager to mentor, from director to delegator and from one who demands respect to one who facilitate self respect. The higher the proportion of creative leaders in a nation, the higher the potential of success of visions like ?developed India.?

Mission of Jamia Millia Islamia is the creation of creative leaders who will be participating in the transformation of India into a prosperous, happy and strong nation. I wish all the graduates a very bright future and I am sure just like your alumni who made the India?s first mission a reality, you would make India?s second vision a reality as well.

May God bless you.

President Spoke on the following topics during the Address

My childhood

In my childhood (Age 10) one experience deeply entered into me. I would like to share with you. Everyday when I return from my school in the evening, my father would have gone to namaz (Prayer). And my mother will look angelic in the namaz. After Thakbhir position, she will recite two suras from holy Quran. One starts with Alhamdhu, and the other ?Lakkum, Thenukum?. One day I asked my father and mother what is the meaning of Lakkum Thenukum? My mother in a graceful voice recited the sura ?Lakkum Thenukum Valiyatheen? that is the end of the sura Alkhafbeerun. My father interpreted, it means ?everyone follows a path. He or she who decides the path is accountable for the actions?. And also my father said, my son I being a Muslim meet my friends quite often as would have seen Pakshi Lakshmana Shastrigal. A great Hindu devotee of Rameshwaram Siva Temple with the priesthood and Reverent Father Bodal who built our Island?s first church. In childhood I am indeed blessed to hear the discussion of the great three. At least once in a week the met and discussed on integration of thoughts from Holy Quran, Old Testament of Bible and Bhagavat Gita of Mahabaratha. From the essence of their saying, I learnt.

Whatever religion you are, the path you select will lead you to the bliss, based on your good action. Mankind is indeed is the salt of the earth. Your life should be just like a flower that gives fragrance and beauty in the morning and silently it falls to the ground in the evening where it was born. I have never come across in my life; I am 72 now, such a beautiful message on essence of life and how religions graduate into spiritual force. At the frontiers there are no borders, this I realize from my father and my fathers? friends Bakshi Lakshmana Shastry and Reverent Father Bodel.

Religion Transforming Into Spirituality: Universal Mind

I would like to recall an 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 we had our design centre, started rocket assembly, design of filament winding machine for FRP 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 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 and universal mind.

Lord Macaulay Quote on Education available in the Internet

?It was February 1835, a time when the British were striving to take control of the whole of India. Lord Macaulay, a historian and a politician, made a historical speech in the British Parliament, commonly referred to as The Minutes, which struck a blow at the centuries old system of Indian education. His words were to this effect: ?I have traveled across the length and breadth of India and I have not seen one person who is a beggar, who is a thief. Such wealth I have seen in this country, such high moral values, people of such caliber, that I do not think we would ever conquer this country, unless we break the very backbone of this nation, which is her spiritual and cultural heritage, and, therefore, I propose that we replace her old and ancient education system, her culture, for if the Indians think that all that is foreign and English is good and greater than their won, they will lose their self-esteem, their native self-culture and they will become what we want them, a truly dominated nation.? A strong and ever vital education system is therefore fundamental to the survival and growth of civilizations.

A multi-pronged approach for Tele-Education

A three-pronged approach is essential to make distance education programme viable and a successful proposition through the universal tele-education system to all remote parts of the country. The three components may be the Connectivity, Tele-Education System and the Quality Content Generation and deployment.

Connectivity: EDUSAT is expected to provide one-lakh fifty thousand ground terminals in its full capacity. The other parts of the country have to be covered by providing Broadband and Wireless communication network in an integrated fashion. Terrestrial optical communication is becoming cost effective and can complement the space communication with its low cost, high bandwidth and networking capability. An integrated networked system comprising EDUSAT, Broadband and Wireless networks should provide a highway for reaching quality education to all parts of the country.

Tele-Education System: Once we have the connectivity, then there should be a universal tele-education system in place for making full utilization of the connectivity to bring virtual classrooms in a multi class environment with seamless two-way interaction between the teachers and students in a collaborative environment. This system should not only enable the lecture delivered from the Studio at the university to reach any remote corner but also enable a good teacher in the remote area to provide multicast information to other participants of the programme.

A Tele-Education delivery system:

I would like to narrate our experience in tele-education piloted at Rashtrapati Bhavan for providing satellite connectivity for the PREVIK (President?s Virtual Institute for Knowledge) members. The connectivity is through V-SATs provided by ISRO, Voice Over-IP and Internet. In this platform, the live virtual studio environment is created and it will connect a number of remote locations and provides seamless, one to many connectivity, through multicasting mode in a collaborative environment. This also provides two-way connectivity. In this platform, I can give a presentation and address the remote locations, where the multimedia delivery is possible and also I can interact through various collaborative tools. I can refer any informational website from Internet to all the remote locations and can also delegate the remote expert to give a lecture to all those who are connected. We have also established the Digital Library and digitized around 2 million pages. I can search for a particular page and push the page to all the participants through this tele-education. It is an integrated solution, which makes me feel as if I am virtually connected to all participants in multiple locations. In the present context with respect to universities, EDUSAT provides the connectivity. An integrated Tele-education delivery mechanism is available and being used. What is required now is the generation of quality content for sharing and transmitting to remote students.

Quality Content Generation:

There are three components for education: lectures, laboratory and library. The content includes all the above three. Content can be generated in many ways. The first one is the assimilation of the subject by an expert teacher through research study of many books and articles leading to the generation of quality and creative content in a presentable format. The teacher presents in a unique and innovative way to make the content appealing and easily understandable to the students. The second form of content could be on a self-learning method by breaking down the content into a series of question answer models. Third may be from various books, which can be extracted through a digital library and presented just-in time to all the remote students. Fourth may be from Internet, where wealth of information is available. Teacher may search the information in the Internet and push the content live through the tele-education system.

The content should have supportive animations, which may even bring virtual laboratories and virtual immersion effects to the remote students. When the content is generated, it should be a sharable learning object across the nation and across all platforms. Some institutions and universities have already started developing their content. The content may be generated making use of the student?s creative and innovative thoughts under the guidance of the expert teachers as a group activity based on a pre-determined standard. This is possible where the capacity has been built by the educational institution into the student to teach while studying. The generated content through this process may be validated and deployed for delivery of lectures through tele-education system.

As an example, my lectures delivered during various functions are dynamically updated in our website. During the address many participants ask questions on several topics. The answers to these questions are also placed in the website as supplementary information. Similarly, the teachers after delivering the talk will also be asked a number of questions by the students. The proceedings of the questions & answers session can be added to the content document for enriching it.