Air Address On Children's Day - Fifth In The Series Of Air Talk

My Experiences with two Great Personalities 
Dear Children and listeners of All India Radio,

My greetings to all of you on the Children?s day which is the birthday of our first Prime Minister of India Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru. During my interaction with Five hundred thousand children in different parts of the country both urban and rural areas and e-mails and letters received from many citizens of our nation, I realize our children have a dream. Their dream is to live in a prosperous, happy and safe India. How do we build a new India of their dream? To realize this dream certain unique qualities are essential. I am going to talk to you about these qualities based on my experiences with two great personalities.

The Ambience

In the Indian history, very rarely we have come across a situation, all at a time, an ascending economic trajectory, continuously rising foreign exchange reserve, global recognition of technological competence, energy of 540 million youth, umbilical connectivities of 20 million people of Indian origin in various parts of the planet, and the interest shown by many developed countries to invest in our engineers and scientists including setting up of new R&D centers. The Government emphasizes the economic development by ensuring growth rate of 7% to 8% annually, enhancement of the welfare of the farmers and workers and unleashing the creativity of the entrepreneurs, business persons, scientists, engineers and other productive forces of the society.

Launch of EDUSAT

Dear Children with this beautiful national environment let me recall a recent event of launching geo-synchronous vehicle on 20th September 2004. It is a huge three stage controlled and guided rocket system weighing 400 tones. This world class rocket system has put a communication satellite called EDUSAT (Education satellite) in the geosynchronous orbit. This rocket has capability to inject a satellite of one thousand Kg in the orbit with the velocity of 10.2 kilometers per second. This means speed of the satellite is 36 times the speed of modern passenger jet aircraft. That means you will be surprised to know it will take less than five minutes to travel from Delhi to Chennai instead of two and half hours by a jet. Do you know what geosynchronous orbit is? Geosynchronous orbit refers to the path of the satellite around the earth at an altitude of 36,000 kilometers in equatorial plane with the same rotational velocity of earth. The satellite now beams the education programmes throughout the day and night.

Objective of EDUSAT

The prime objective of the EDUSAT programme is to provide support to education through low-cost ground segments and to reach the un-reached people of India to every nook and corner. The satellite is specially configured to have multiple beams covering different regions of India. This is a satellite operating in Ku band in 17 Giga hertz frequency band facilitating the use of small transmit/receive ground terminals. It provides communication coverage through five regional beams and a national beam.

This system will be primarily for school, college and higher level of education; however it will also support non-formal education. In the initial phase EDUSAT will cover about 100 to 200 classrooms per beam. The EDUSAT, when fully operational will have a capacity of 30 uplinks and about 5000 remote terminals per uplink. EDUSAT is expected to provide one-lakh fifty thousand ground terminals in its full capacity.

Vision to Reality

For example, suppose a mathematics teacher takes a class at Bhimavaram, Andhra Pradesh, it is beamed to EDUSAT satellite in real time and the students in the class rooms at Gurudaspur, Punjab will see the teacher and hear the lessons. Students from the various parts of the country -a village school in Bihar, a village in Orissa, North East, West Bengal, will also hear his/her teaching and can ask the questions in sequence. Hence a good teacher teaching anywhere in the country in any language can be heard, seen and interacted. No where in the world an exclusive education satellite is in the orbit today, except India?s. This great scientific achievement has been made possible due to our great Indian space Scientists and partner institutions. Friends, we are witnessing how a space vision by Prof. Vikram Sarabhai has been transformed into reality leading to benefit to society. Prof. Vikram Sarabhai was indeed my role model when I started my professional career as rocket engineer.

So far I was talking to you how a beautiful scientific technological event taking place in our country can benefit our society. Now I would like to share with you my experiences of meeting a unique leader with indomitable spirit and the great quality of forgiveness. Please hear me attentively. He could be a great role model for you, young friends.

South Africa

I visited South Africa during September 2004. South Africa is a beautiful country. It consists of nine provinces and occupies the southern tip of African continent. The total land area is slightly more than 1.2 million square kilometers and it measures some 1,600 kms. from north to south and approximately the same from east to west. South Africa is surrounded by Botswana, Mozambique, Namibia, Swaziland and Zimbabwe. Another country Lesotho is embedded inside the land mass of South Africa. The legislative capital of South Africa is Cape Town, the administrative capital is Pretoria, and the biggest city is Johannesburg. The mid-2004 population is estimated at approximately 46.6 million. Historically, when the British seized the Cape of Good Hope area in 1806, many of the Dutch settlers (the Boers) trekked north to find their own republics. The discovery of diamonds in 1867 and gold in 1886 spurred wealth and immigration and intensified the subjugation of the native inhabitants. The Boers resisted British encroachments, but were finally defeated in the Boer Wars (1899-1902). The resulting Union of South Africa operated under a policy of apartheid  meaning supremacy on the basis of colour of the skin. After a long struggle, only in the 1990s apartheid was brought to an end and real democracy blossomed. This became possible only due to the persistent efforts and selfless sacrifices made by emancipators.

Indomitable Spirit

I met the great personality who provided the leadership to the freedom movement of South Africa. He is none other than Dr. Nelson Mandela. Youth can learn two big lessons from this personality. These are indomitable spirit and virtue of forgiveness.

Cape Town is famous for its Table Mountain; it has got three peaks called Table Peak, Devil Peak, and Fake Peak. Between the peaks it was a beautiful sight throughout the day, sometimes dark clouds and sometimes white clouds embracing the peaks. Table Mountain is overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. We traveled by helicopter to Robben Island from Cape Town in 10 minutes while it takes 30 minutes by powered boat. When we reached the Island, except the roar of sea waves, the whole island was silent symbolizing the thought: this is the place where individuals were deprived of their freedom and chained. We were received at the Island by Mr. Ahmed Kathrada, a South African, and a co-prisoner with Dr. Nelson Mandela. What surprised me was the tiny nature of the cell where sleeping and all other human needs of the imprisoned have to be fulfilled. It has to be remembered that Dr. Nelson Mandela was more than 6 feet tall, was imprisoned in that room for 26 years for fighting against the apartheid. A major part of his life was spent in this silent Island. He used to be taken for quarrying in the nearby mountain everyday for a few hours in bright sun. This is the time his eyesight got damaged. In spite of his body being tortured he revealed to his tormentors and the world his indomitable spirit. This is the time he wrote a magnum opus of freedom in tiny letters every day, when the jail wardens went to sleep. This small tiny lettered manuscript finally became the famous book of Mandela A long walk to freedom. This quality is aptly brought out by poet saint Thiruvalluvar as follows:

It means successful leaders can never be defeated by problems. They become master of the situation and defeat the problems and succeed.

Virtue of Forgiveness

It was a great event for me to meet him at his house in Johannesburg. Dear friends, when I entered Dr. Nelson Mandelas house, I saw his three dimensional form in flesh and blood with his hallmark cheerfulness. This mighty soul got the freedom for South Africa from the tyranny of apartheid. When he became the President of South Africa, he gave the people freedom to move, freedom to live in South Africa to those people who specialized in apartheid and ill-treated and put him the jail for 26 years. My young friends, I would like to explain the term freedom to move to you. Prior to 1994, in the apartheid dominated South Africa, segregation of races was strictly followed and the movement of so called races was restricted to certain colonial settlements of the country. Dr. Nelson Mandela removed all such barriers and conferred equal citizenship to all inhabitants of South Africa, irrespective of colour of their skin. When I met him and shook hands with him, I realized that I am touching the hand of a Mighty Soul. When he started walking, he discarded the walking stick he normally uses and held on to my hand. I became his support. I became his walking stick. Dear friends, a big lesson that we need to learn from Dr. Mandela, is explained in one of the Thirukkurals written 2200 years before.

Which means, for those who have done evil to you, the best humiliation is to heap good deeds on them.

Friends, what we learn from this great human being? The higher the thinking capacity is the indomitable spirit in you shines with a unique added quality of forgiving and doing good to the people. This is the wealth what our ancient thinkers, philosophers and poets have given us.

Righteousness

Before concluding, I would like to discuss with you, young friends, how you are important to our nation. One great quality which influences a transparent society is righteousness. Righteousness in ones mind brings beauty in the character. Beauty in the character blossoms harmony in the home. Harmony in the home leads to order in the nation. Order in the nation brings peace to our planet.

Friends, now you have learnt how India succeeded in a great mission that came out of a visionary and also now you know a great role model with indomitable spirit and quality of forgiveness. If you have any question or suggestion, you can contact me in my website .

Wish you all the best and seasons greetings. May God bless you.