Address to the Students Mgr Educational & Research Institute

Enlightened Citizens

I am indeed delighted to be with the student community belonging to engineering, dental, physiotherapy, fashion technology and catering/hotel management. When I see an engineer, I see him as a person who provides infrastructure and to the villagers and industries and an entrepreneur. When I see a dental surgeon, I see him as a person who brings smile on the faces of people by removing their pain. When I see a Physiotherapist, I am reminded of a person who makes the limbs of the patients operational through intensive exercises and body treatment. When I see a fashion technologist, I see in him as a person who adds value and beauty to the personalities and the producer of exportable garments. When I see a catering and hotel management student, I see in him an ambassador of our nation to the tourists who come from abroad. All of you provide yeoman service in the mission of transforming India into a developing nation with innovation, creativity, human intelligence and patience. ?Service to human being is Service to God?. I was thinking what thoughts I could share with this group, who would be becoming society?s pillars with their dedicated contribution. The topic I have selected for this interaction is: ?Enlightened Citizens?.

Supremacy of the human mind

Since you are all going to work with the integrated system of Engineering, psychology and physiology of human beings, I would like to share with you, friends, some of the predictions of Ray Kurzweil written in his book ?When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence - The Age Of Spiritual Machines?. World Wide Web will make tremendous impact in the way we communicate and live. Most of the computers and accessories will be of micro sized, wearable and will have wireless communications with each other. Moderately priced PCs capable of performing about billion calculations per second today will be able to perform about trillion calculations per second with in next 10 years. And by 2020 computational ability of an ordinary PC will exceed the capability of human brain. By 2030 the capability of a normal PC would be around 1000 times of human capability.

By the end of this century there would be a strong trend towards merger of human thinking with the world of machine intelligence that the human species initially created. When there would no longer be any clear distinction between human and computers, how are we going to retain the supremacy of man over machines? Computers are going to give us a challenge. It is not only for the biologists and bio-technologists, the entire scientific community would have greater responsibility of keeping the mankind above the man-made computers. Fortunately, the creativity and imagination components of human are supreme and will continue to excel which need to be explored and utilized. The human genome is full of software that is yet to be activated to unleash the ingenious potentials of human spices.

Time has come for our scientific community to prove our abilities in harnessing technologies in multiple fields for wealth generation for societal transformation as we have accomplished in the field of information technology. Technology is the most nonlinear tool that can effect the most fundamental changes in the ground rules of economic competitiveness. Science is linked to technology through applications. Technology is linked to economy and environment through manufacture. Economy and environment link Technology to the society.

What can I do for you?

Every one of us has gone through the various phases of education from childhood to profession. A scene appears in front of me. A child, a teenager, an adult and a leader. How does each one react to a particular situation? The situation is human need. The child asks, "What can you do for me"? The teenager says, "I want to do it alone". The young person proclaims, "let us do it together". The leader offers, "What can I do for you". So, the principals and Faculty members have got a tremendous responsibility to transform a youth into a leader - the transformation of 'what can you do for me' to 'what can I do for you'. That will demand a principal and Faculty members to be a visionary with an inspiring capability. Also he has to ensure that Faculty members impart learning to the students in such a way as to bring out the best in them and for this, he has to be a good teacher himself. I am sure, the best of creativity among the students will emerge by integrated influence of principals, faculty members and parents on students.

Knowledge Society

As society transforms itself through education, health-care, agriculture and good governance, it has now to focus on resolving impending major crisis in the areas of energy, environment, ecology, water and mineral resources. While opportunities exist for markets upto 80 billion dollars by 2008 for knowledge-based products for India, by a careful planning it is possible to touch a target of even 150 B$ by 2010.

India, has the core competence in ICT, Biotechnology, nano technology, and also in the newer areas that arise due to the convergence between all of theses, such as Integrated Intelligent Systems. With your specialization in different areas, how you can contribute for the nation building?

What kind of nation does India want to build? India transforming into a developed nation by 2020, is the vision of the nation. There is a road map, how to achieve this? There are five areas for simultaneous development: Agriculture and Food processing, Education and healthcare, Information and Communication Technology, Infrastructure development - including River network and self reliance in critical technologies.

Capacities for nation building

For achieving the above mission, the capacities required in educational institutions are: The capacity for research or inquiry, the capacity for Creativity and Innovation, particularly the creative transfer of knowledge, the capacity to use high technology, the capacity for Entrepreneurial Leadership and the capacity for Moral Leadership.

a. Research and enquiry

The 20th century was for the generation of knowledge. The 21st century will be about the management of all the knowledge and information we have generated and give value to it. We must give our children, the skills with which they find a way through the sea of knowledge that we have created. Today, we have the ability, through technology, to really and truly teach ourselves and to become the life-long learners that any sustained economic and political development requires.

b. Creativity and innovation

We can best teach ourselves by teaching others. The management of knowledge in 21st century is beyond the capacity of individuals. The amount of information we must make sense of is overwhelming and has exceeded the capacity of individuals. The management of knowledge therefore must move out of the realm of the individual and into the realm of the society. We must learn how to manage knowledge collectively. In other words we must not only teach ourselves, but teach others.

c. Capacity to use of high technology

Every student in our colleges should graduate to know how to use the latest technologies for aiding their learning process. Colleges should equip themselves with the tools like hardware, software, laboratory equipments, internet facilities and provide an environment for the students to enhance their learning ability.

d. Entrepreneurial leadership

When the student goes out of this campus after graduation, they should have the confidence to start an enterprise individually or jointly. Entrepreneurship development should become a part of engineering education. The entrepreneurial leadership has three parts. First, problem finding and problem solving in the context of development. In second part, the entrepreneurs should have the willingness to take risk and be bold to do things differently. We must teach our graduates to take calculated risks for the sake of larger gain. The third part is the disposition to do things right. This characteristics will enable our graduates to become job providers rather job seekers.

e. Moral leadership

Moral leadership involves two things. First it requires the ability to have compelling and powerful dreams or visions of human betterment. A state of things in which human beings could be better off in the future than they are now. Secondly, where entrepreneurial leadership requires people to acquire the habit of doing things right, moral leadership requires a disposition to do the right thing and influence others also to do the right thing.

PURA - Providing Urban amenities in Rural Areas

The graduates passing out from this Institute can dedicate themselves to contribute to the mission of developed India 2020 by working in the PURA programme. This mission envisages creation of rural wealth and prosperity. The model envisages a habitat designed to improve the quality of life in rural areas and make special suggestions to remove urban congestion. Physical connectivity by providing roads, electronic connectivity by providing reliable communication network and knowledge connectivity by establishing professional institutions and vocational training centers will have to be done in an integrated way so that economic connectivity will emanate. The PURA has to be a business proposition economically viable and managed by entrepreneurs and small scale industrialists, as it involves education, health, power generation, transport and management. Government's support should be available in empowering such management agencies in providing initially economic support and finding the right type of management structure and the leaders to manage. The PURA scheme makes clusters of villages developed, in addition to maintaining rural beauty. For promoting national development one more important ingredient amongst us is the righteousness in all our activities.

Righteousness

I am reminded of a hymn which I would like to share with you. The name of the hymn is 'Peace in the World':

Where there is righteousness in the heart

There is a beauty in the character.

When there is beauty in the character,

There is harmony in the home.

When there is harmony in the home.

There is a order in the nation.

When there is order in the nation,

There is peace in the world.

Friends, we can see a beautiful connectivity between heart, character, nation and the world. How to inject righteousness in the human heart? This is indeed the purpose of human creation - that is divinity. We are going through a complex situation as many of us are completely at war with ourselves, with society and with nation. At every instant there is a war in our mind, whether we should go in one direction or another. Whenever there is a dilemma, we must seek the wisdom from the Almighty to lead us to the path of righteousness through education with value system.

Ten point oath for the youth of the nation

1. I will pursue my education or the work with dedication and I will excel in it.

2. From now onwards, I will teach at least 10 persons to read and write those who cannot read and write.

3. I will plant at least 10 saplings and shall ensure their growth through constant care.

4. I will visit rural and urban areas and permanently wean away at least 5 persons from addiction and gambling.

5. I will constantly endeavor to remove the pain of my suffering brethren.

6. I will not support any religious, caste or language differentiation.

7. I will be honest and endeavour to make a corruption free society.

8. I will work for becoming an enlightened citizen and make my family righteous.

9. I will always be a friend of the mentally and physically challenged and will work hard to make them feel normal, like the rest of us.

10. I will proudly celebrate the success of my country and my people.

Conclusion

Reverence for life is indeed possible in real sense if a philosophical thought of reverence can be transformed into actions by empowering different components of the society. When a child is empowered by the parents at various phases of growth, the child gets transformed into a responsible citizen. When a teacher is empowered with knowledge and experience, good young human beings with value systems emerge. When an individual or a team is empowered with technology, transformation to higher potential for achievement is assured. When a leader of any institution empowers his or her people, leaders are born who can change the nation in multiple areas. When women are empowered, society with stability gets assured. When the political leaders of the nation empower the people through visionary policies, the prosperity of the nation is certain. There is a need to empower the younger generation to explore new avenues for making faster progress in the development mission. I am sure with your deep sense of enquiry; creativity and spirit of life long learning along with moral leadership you will be able to make the mission a great success.

My best wishes.