Address at the Students Participating in the Community Programme, Raj Bhavan, Dehradun

Knowledge enriches the young

I am indeed delighted to address and interact with the students of different schools of Uttaranchal participating in the Community Programme. My greetings to the Principals and teachers and all students. I have met over 4,00,000 students/youths of our country. I am aware of their dreams and concern. I thought of sharing some thoughts based on that experience.

Marvels of Universe

Friends, we should note that human mind is a unique gift. You can enter into Marvels of Universe only if you have curiosity and thinking. I suggest, thinking should become your capital asset, no matter whatever ups and downs you come across in your life. Learning is the primary resource.

When learning is purposeful, creativity blossoms.

When the creativity blossoms, thinking emanates.

When thinking emanates, knowledge is fully lit.

When knowledge is lit, young life is enriched.?

Look at the sky. We are not alone. The whole universe is friendly to us and conspires only to give the best to those who dream and work. Like Nobel Laureate Subramaniam Chandrasekar discovered the black hole through a quest, why most of the stars shine and few die. Today, using Chandrasekar limit we can calculate how long the sun will shine. Like, Sir CV Raman looked at the sea and the sky, and questioned why the sea should be blue This led to the birth of Raman Effect, he found the blue of the sea was due to the molecular scattering of light and was not a case of reflection of the sky in water as most people imagined. Like, Albert Einstein, armed with the complexity of the universe, asked the question how the universe was born. The famous equation E=mc2 arrived, which can be used for the generation of electricity using nuclear materials and also lead to nuclear weapons. In India during 1960's one important event took place, Prof. Vikram Sarabhai gave a vision for the nation on the space programme. He said, India should build her own rocket system, build communication and remote sensing satellites, integrate and launch from Indian space launch centers and put them into the geosynchronous orbit and sun synchronous orbit. Today India can build any type of rocket systems and satellite and launch in a specified orbit.

Indomitable spirit

Let us study the characteristics of indomitable spirit. It has two components. The first component is that there must be a Vision leading to higher goals of achievement. I would like to recall a couplet from Thirukkural by the Poet Saint Thiruvalluvar written 2500 years ago.

Quote:

It means that whatever may be the depth of the river or lake or pond, whatever may be the condition of the water, the lilly flower always comes out and blossoms. Similarly, if there is a definite determination to achieve a goal even if it is impossible to achieve, the man succeeds.

Many of us have gone through large programmes and projects. We would have experienced that success is not in sight and there are many hurdles. The same poet reminds us at this point of time through another couplet:

We should never be defeated by any problems. We should become master of the situation and defeat the problems. I consider these two Thirukkurals characterize the indomitable spirit.

Bird story and my profession

When I think of my school days, I am reminded of an incident which took place when I was studying in 5th class. I had a teacher, Shri Sivasubramania Iyer. He was one of the very good teachers in our school. All of us loved to attend his class and hear him. One day, he was teaching about birds flight. He drew a diagram of a bird on the blackboard depicting the wings, tail, body structure and the head. He explained how the birds create the lift and fly. He also explained to us how they change direction while flying. Nearly 25 minutes he gave the lecture with various information such as lift, drag, how the birds fly in a formation of 10, 20 or 30 etc. At the end of the class, he wanted to know whether we understood how the birds fly. I said, I did not understand how the birds fly. When I said this, he asked the other students whether they understood or not. Many students said that they did not understand. Our teacher was a real teacher and very good teacher. He did not get upset by our response.

In view of this, my teacher said that he would take all of us to the sea shore. That evening the whole class was in the sea shore. We enjoyed the roaring sea waves knocking at the rocks in the pleasant evening. Birds were flying with sweet chirping voice. He showed the sea birds in formation in 10 to 20 numbers. We saw the marvelous formation of birds, with a purpose, and we were all amazed. And we were enjoying the formation of the birds. He showed the birds and asked us, what did we observe We saw the wings being flapped. He asked us to look at the tail portion with the combination of flapping the wing and twisting the tail. We observed closely and found that the birds in that condition flew in the direction they wanted. Then he asked us, where the engine was and how it was powered. Bird is powered by its own life and the motivation what it wants. All these things were explained to us within 15 minutes. We all understood the whole bird dynamics with practical example. How nice it was Our teacher was a great teacher; he could give as a theoretical lesson coupled with a live demonstration. This is real teaching. I am sure many of the teachers in schools and colleges will follow this example.

For me, it was not merely an understanding of how a bird flies. The birds flight entered into me and created a feeling on the seashore of Rameswaram. From that day evening, I thought that my future study has to be with reference to flight and flight sciences. I am telling this because, my teachers teaching and the event that I witnessed later, decided my future career. Then one evening after the classes, I asked the teacher, Sir, please tell me, how to progress further in learning flight sciences.? He patiently explained to me that I should complete high school, and then I should go to college that may lead to education of flight. If I do all these things I might do something connected with flight sciences. This advice and the bird flying demonstration given by my teacher really gave me a goal and a mission for my life. When I went to college, I took Physics. When I went to engineering in Madras Institute of Technology, I took Aeronautical Engineering.

Thus my life was transformed as a rocket engineer, aerospace engineer and technologist. That one incident of my teachers teaching, giving a live demonstration proved to be a turning point in my life which eventually shaped my profession.

Enlightened Citizens

In every country, the national development, which is a collective process, has to be accomplished through the constructive efforts of enlightened citizens, who practice righteousness in all their activities. The evolution of enlightened human beings is indeed a big challenge for the world community. I was asking myself, what will be the components of such a mission There are three components to that. The first component is education with value system, second religions graduating into spiritual forces to bring universal brotherhood and the third is poverty eradication by attaining economic prosperity through a national vision. And it has to be done in every country in an integrated way with link to the world.

Now I would like to answer some of the questions received from the students.

Q.1 What steps do you suggest to eradicate poverty from India?

- Aarti Singh, Class XII, C.N.I. Girls Inter College

Ans. Science and technology has already been applied in agriculture, dairy, sericulture, horticulture and other rural based industries. We have to enhance these applications to provide full employment to our rural population. This will be the way we can achieve the goal of eradication of poverty.

Q.2 How can we, the students, arouse the feeling of patriotism in the minds of the militants?

- Pooja Singh, Class XII, C.N.I. Girls Inter College

Ans. Love begets love. Students should promote love and compassion in all their transactions. We should inject in the minds of militants the futility of violent methods and the harm done to the individual, to the family and to the nation.

Q.3 This universe is made beautiful by God. Why should we invent such devices to destroy its beauty?

- Harshita Gupta, Class XI, C.N.I. Girls Inter College

Ans. The whole universe is engaged in creation and destruction cycle. However, mankind has to ensure that the invention of technologies are used for the upliftment of mankind without destroying the nature.

Q.4 Sir, you are a scientist. How do you feel to be in the position of the President of India?

- Pooja Lakhera, Class VI, C.N.I. Girls Inter College

Ans. As a scientist I was engaged in the preparations of Vision 2020 for transforming India into a developed nation with a large team. Now I am happy to be in Rashtrapati Bhavan to propagate this vision.

Q.5 Sir, which policy will help in the development of the economy of India?

- Priyanka Bakshi, Class VI, C.N.I. Girls Inter College

Ans. We have to maintain a balanced development between rural India and the urban India. We should create a knowledge society using our core competence in various sectors such as ICT and Biotechnology. For rapid economic development it is essential that a citizen-centric approach to evolution of business policy, creation of young and dynamic leaders, user-driven technology generation and intensified industry-lab-academy linkages have to be focused.

Q.6 What is a spectrum? How is it formed?

- Nupur, Class IX, P.C.N.S. Girls Inter College

Ans. Spectrum is a series of energies arranged according to wavelength. It is the series of images produced when a beam of radiant energy is subject to dispersion. A rainbow-coloured band of light is formed when white light is passed through a prism or a diffraction grating. This band of colours results from the fact that the different wavelengths of light are bent in varying degrees by the dispersing medium and is evidence of the fact that white light is composed of coloured light of various wavelengths.

Q.7 Does life exist on other planets also? What are UFOs?

- Mamta Bisht, Class VIII, P.C.N.S. Girls Inter College

Ans. Scientists all over the world are working to find existence of life on other planets. We are yet to receive any positive evidence. UFOs are Unidentified Flying Objects, nowadays generally accepted as meaning of alien origin. They strictly refer to any airborne anomalous light.

Q.8 How does a nuclear weapon work? How destructive is it?

- Renu Nautiyal, Class VIII, P.C.N.S. Girls Inter College

Ans. Fission is used in power generation and nuclear bomb making. A nuclear reaction in which a massive nucleus splits into smaller nuclei with the simultaneous release of energy is defined as Fission. This principle is used in the nuclear weapon. It has a massive destructive potential.

Q.9 What will happen to the sun and the solar system after few thousand years?

- Deepa Sahi, Class IX, P.C.N.S. Girls Inter College Ans. The Sun has been active for over 4.6 billion years and has enough fuel to go on for another five billion years. At the end of its life, the Sun will start to fuse helium into heavier elements and begin to swell up, ultimately growing so large that it will swallow the Earth.

Q.10 You must have visited all the places in India. What do you think of our state Uttaranchal?

- Gagandeep, Class X, P.C.N.S. Girls Inter College

Ans. Uttaranchal is a beautiful State with beautiful minds.

Q. 11 As a student did you ever dream to be the President of India?

- Akshay Saxena, VIII A, C.N.I. Boy?s Inter College, Dehradun.

Ans. As a student I wanted to study something connected with flight sciences.

Q. 12 Whenever a new government comes to power it interferes with the syllabus and makes changes accordingly. This results in wastage of money and also creates problems as the books are made available by midsession. Cant? it be stopped?

- Sawan Chandra, IXA, C.N.I Boy?s Inter College, Dehradun.

Ans. No syllabus can remain static. Change is progress. There are many scientific, technological, managerial and economic changes are taking place in the world. The syllabus has to change periodically as per the latest changes and not due to political changes.

Q. 13 Did you enjoy life being a scientist or now as the President of India?

- Azaz Ahmed, IXA, C.N.I. Boy?s Inter College, Dehradun.

Ans. Whatever task you do, you have to love it and enjoy, otherwise life will be difficult.

Q. 14 Why can?t the weak students be given vocational training right from class VI or VII so they may excel in their field of interest and should not be forced to study the common syllabus because of which they become a failure or drop-out.

- Ashotosh Kapurwan, XI Sc, C.N.I. Boy?s Inter College, Dehradun.

Ans. All children require basic education at least up to 10th class. Of course they can take up vocational training along with regular education at an early age based on their aptitude. We have to motivate them to study well and defeat the defeatist tendency in them. With this we well definitely make them succeed and there will be no drop-outs. I recommend for such students who need help, evening classes can be arranged. The teachers who love teaching can assist these students.

Q. 15 How can we say that our?s is a true democracy when there are 15 or 16 parties contest in the elections.

- Ayush Kala, XI Sc, C.N.I. Boy?s Inter College, Dehradun.

Ans. This is the beauty of democracy. There should be unity and diversity. All individuals have a right to follow-up the path which they consider best. As the nation gets developed, finally it will get emerged with two party system.

Q. 16 Sir, is it essential to get education from abroad to become a good scientist?

- Arun Sajwan, XII, Govt. Saraswati Vidhya Mandir, Inter College, Dehradun.

Ans. There are number of front ranking institutions in the country to carry out research and become a great scientist. It is not necessary to go only abroad for this purpose.

Q. 17 Sir, who inspired you to become world fame scientist?

- Anup Singh Rawat, XII, Govt. Saraswati Vidhya Mandir, Inter College, Dehradun.

Ans. My Teacher in Class VIII Shri Siva Subramania Iyer and my gurus Prof Vikram Sarabhai and Prof Satish Dhawan inspired me to become Scientist.

Q. 18 Sir, what is the essential requirement for India to become a developed country?

- Udit Gupta, XII, Govt. Saraswati Vidhya Mandir, Inter College, Dehradun.

Ans. To meet the need of one billion people and alleviate poverty and illiteracy, we have the second vision of transforming India into a developed nation by the year 2020. We have identified five areas where India has a core competence for integrated action: (1) Agriculture and food processing (2) Reliable and quality electric power and surface transport for all parts of the country. (3) Education and Healthcare (4) Information and Communication Technology (5) Strategic sectors. These five areas are closely inter-related and if well done would lead to national, food, economic and security. Intolerance comes through the character. Home is responsible for generating the righteous citizens.

Q. 19 Sir, why did India not obtain any Nobel prize in the field of science?

-Manish Pant, XII, Govt. Saraswati Vidhya Mandir, Inter College, Dehradun.

Ans. Sir C.V. Raman, Hargobind Khurana and Chandrasekhar Subramanyam are Nobel laureates from India in Science.

Q. 20 Is life possible in any other planet?

-Sumant Pant, XII, Govt. Saraswati Vidhya Mandir, Inter College, Dehradun.

Ans. Scientists all over the world are working to find existence of life on other planets. I believe, life is possible on other planets, just like we have one earth in our solar system, there are billions of billions of stars like our sun.

I would like to administer the Ten Point Oath for the youth. Would you repeat it?

TEN POINT OATH FOR ENLIGHTENED CITIZENSHIP

1. I will love whatever profession I take up and I will try to 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 10 saplings / trees and ensure their growth.

4. I will go to rural and urban areas to reform at least 5 persons from the habits of addiction and gambling.

5. I will take responsibility for removing the pain of ailing persons.

6. I will participate in the mission of realizing the economic strength of India by combining each with education, with value system and by transforming religion into a spiritual force.

7. I will not support any differentiation on account of community or language.

8. I will lead an honest life free from all corruption and will set an example for others to adopt a transparent way of life.

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

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

My best wishes to the students and staff participating in this Community Programme.