Address During The Childrens' Day Celebrations Organised By The Municipal Corporation Delhi

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. My special greetings to the children who have gathered here and performed so well in the cultural event presented during the last half-an-hour. 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.

My message

My dear children I have a special message for you today. To begin with, I will read out and all repeat it with me.

Launch of EDUSAT

Dear Children I would like to 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.

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. I want thousands of municipal schools be linked through satellite so that students can interact freely. I am working on this project and talking to civic bodies of various towns and cities so that this goal could be achieved soon.

Jamsetji Tata and Swami Vivekananda

Friends, when I am in this beautiful environment let me tell you another interesting event that took place in a ship which was sailing from Japan to Canada in 1893. Two great human beings were traveling in that ship. They introduced each other. They were Swami Vivekananda and Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata. Swamiji asked Nausserwanji Tata where he was going and what was the mission. Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata said, �Swamiji, I am going with a mission to bring steel industry to country�. Friends it was in 1893, when India was ruled by the Britishers. Swamiji said, �it is indeed a beautiful mission. My best wishes. However, I would like to give you a small caution. Whatever amount you spend to get the process of making steel simultaneously you should learn the metallurgical science of making steel also. I would prefer you to start an Institute, a laboratory to do advanced research on the subject�. What a prophetic statement which came in the year 1893. Many things happened after that. Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata could not get the technology for manufacturing steel from UK. However, he could get the know how of manufacturing steel after crossing the Atlantic from USA and he established the Tata Iron and Steel Company at Jamshedpur. A big planning took place. That planning had two parts: the first part was to start steel manufacturing plant presently at Jamshedpur in Jharkhand. Simultaneously, he donated one sixth of his property for establishing an Institute of Material Research at Bangalore.

I have visited Jamshedpur sometime back and I saw the fruits of Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata�s vision: 4 million tons of steel per year being produced by Tata Iron and Steel Company (TISCO). Due to his foresight, India today is self-reliant in steel technology..

Conclusion

Dear Children, I will now administer a six point oath in Hindi which I would like you all to repeat after me.

My best wishes to you all for success in your educational career. May God bless you.