Interaction With Shillong School Children, Raj Bhavan, Shillong

BEAUTIFUL MINDS

I am delighted to be in Shillong in this beautiful environment and interact with the Shillong children. My greetings to all the students, teachers and their parents. Recently, I happened to see the prize winning paintings of the children who participated in the Shankar's International Painting Competition. The paintings reflected the beautiful minds of the children. I would like to share with you some of them.

Beautiful minds

I was very happy to see, the German Girl Anthea Neums, bringing out her imagination of how the season of Easter looks like in the rural environment; the bright colors that she has chosen reminded me of my home town on the seashore, where I spent my childhood days. In the same book, 14 year girl Supraja Chakravarthy, from India narrates a story about the homely middle class morality and how the votes are purchased during an election. It is clear that the young mind wants a change.

Aardhra Krishna(13), has worn her thinking cap on and let her imagination fly. She has visualized how the earth will look like around 3000 AD. In her imagination, the citizens are forced to migrate to Mars and have made Mars the home to a flourishing civilization. This advanced civilization, which was man made comes suddenly under threat created by nature in the form of an asteroid of Jupiter. The asteroid from Jupiter was coming towards Mars and Mars was in danger of extinction. The scientists on Mars come up with a very innovative plan of a barrage of nuclear cannons to attack the oncoming asteroid. The bombardment destroys the asteroid and the year 3000 sees a Martian civilization surviving from the fury of the nature by scientific innovation. What a beautiful scientific thinking of Aardhra Krishna?

I was amazed about the poem written by a 12 year old girl Anna Sinyakova from Russia - "Never think of illness". I always believed that there will be some problem or the other while doing important tasks, but problems should not become the master. My advice particularly to the young children is that you should defeat the problem and succeed. The same thoughts are echoed by Anna Sinyakova from Russia. She sends out a very strong message of encouragement and advice through her poem that you must have the courage to face any disease to keep up the human well being.

I liked the painting of Savidhya Kumari Premasundera, a ten year old girl from Sri Lanka. The way she has imagined the scene of the fishing and the fishermen is testimony to the alertness and the observation capability of the young mind. Kenya's thirteen year old boy recounts his personal experience of his maiden flight which was hijacked. The entire incident had been so deeply engraved in the young mind. The boy has been very eloquent in bringing out his experiences and emotions in his write-up.

Creativity can make impossible possible

Friends, I would like to share with you some events which narrate the experiences on how to subjugate failures and succeed in our mission using the creativity.

According to the Laws of Aerodynamics, the shape of the bumble bee is such that it should be impossible for it to fly. But the bee's determination to fly is strong. The bee keeps fluttering its wings and its life propels the bee. This high frequency vibration creates a vortex which enables it to fly. With determined efforts you can always succeed against established beliefs. That is the power of creativity.

Not only was the bumble bee's flight, even the human flight considered impossible. In 1890, a well-known scientist, Lord Kelvin, who was the President of Royal Society of London, said that, "any thing heavier than air cannot fly, and cannot be flown". Two decades after that, the determination of the Wright Brothers made the impossible possible and proved that man could fly. Their success is a story of how sheer perseverance and creativity could lead to success. This singular achievement has made the transportation revolution and made the world smaller.

The famous rocket designer Von Braun, built the Saturn-V to launch the capsule with astronauts and made moon walk a reality. He once said that "If I am authorized, I will remove the word impossible", from the dictionary.

If you want to become a poet, writer or painter, you have to have a dream, and then acquire knowledge, work hard, you achieve the results as the bumble bee, as the Wright Brothers, as the famous Indian scientists Sir CV Raman, as the painters like MF Hussian, Picasso, as a painter and sculptor like Amarnath Sehgal, as a poet like Rabindranath Tagore. My dear children the future is waiting for you to enter your name along with those doyens of arts and science.

Now I would like to talk to you about the Indian Chandrayan Mission.

Chandrayan Mission

Prof. Vikram Sarabhai gave a mission in the 1960s on what ISRO should do. He gave us a vision -- that ISRO should design, develop and launch its own rockets, that is, satellite launch vehicles. It should launch communication satellites in geosynchronous orbits and remote-sensing satellites in polar sun-synchronous orbits. Both were needed for applications - to connect people through communication satellites, provide beneficial information to people and bring about connectivity State to State, and country to country. Remote-sensing spacecraft are intended to sense, to discover some of the natural wealth, forest wealth, and help in assessing the drought and flood condition.

I can say that ISRO has successfully realized Prof. Vikram Sarabhai's dream. What next? Now we have the Chandrayan programme, that is, orbiting a spacecraft around the moon. ISRO may land a small scientific payload on the Moon. In future we may go for Lunar Mining which could enable man to bring back to earth shipments of Helium-3, which is reported to be abundant on the moon, as a valuable fuel for thermonuclear reactors.

Now I would like to give you a ten point Oath. Will you repeat with me.

Conclusion: TEN POINT OATH

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.