Address to the Management Students of Symbiosis International Educational Centre

VISION OF DEVELOPED INDIA

I am indeed delighted to be here at the SYMBIOSIS International Educational Centre and address the Management Students. I was thinking what thoughts I can share with you. In our country, big hospitals, huge educational institutions, management centres, industries, social organisations, even spiritual and religious centres are mostly established in cities and big towns. As 70% of our people live in rural areas, these institutions have to be spread in rural areas, in order to have all round progress and economic development. I would like to narrate one incident which I experienced, where technology and application was demonstrated with certain management style.

Did you listen to the national anthem in the beginning of this program? What did you observe? The best artistes of our nation were giving their best symbiotically converging with each other. I was moved; we were moved and the whole nation moved. Can we give the best in our field, like them? If we, the billion people, give our best in each one's task, no one on this planet can stop India from achieving its developed nation status - with economic prosperity, peace and happiness - a state that will make every Indian sing the song of India.

Results of integrated multiple technologies

I was in a hall at the CARE Hospital, Hyderabad. The hall was full of medical doctors, communication engineers, computer scientists, software experts and industry chiefs. The whole place has been geared for a telemedicine experiment. A patient was tested, in a far off place from Hyderabad, for ECG, liver functioning in real-time. The hall almost turned into an electronic hospital. We could see the doctors and the patients' interaction. Record the ECG data with high resolution, we could witness the liver functioning of patients, doctors consultations, the grade of performance, status of ECG and the interesting part is the patient's cooperation with scientists and doctors. It was an experience for me as a person from non-medical field, how tele- medicine brought together engineering and medical science and patient irrespective of distance through satellite communication, software and data compression and video and audio integrated. Telemedicine is one area which will take advanced medical technology to the rural villages and give a connectivity between primary health centres, area hospitals, district hospitals and specialty hospitals at capital cities. I would say, that the future technology cannot be functioning alone. It has to be integrated with medicine, it has to be integrated with agriculture, it has to be integrated with communication, and above all it has to be integrated with the people and their need like societal and transparent management. That is indeed, a management challenge.

Healthcare Management

Recently, on my visit to Agartala in Tripura, I met one of the patients through the telemedicine link connecting a remote place Kalashar in the hills of Tripura with GB Pant Hospital at Agartala and CARE hospital at Hyderabad. The 13 year old boy was visibly weak and almost bed-ridden. His parents had no clue of the weakness of the young boy and were worried that he was vomiting blood. Thanks to the telemedicine connectivity, the boy was diagnosed to have narrowing of the mitral heart valve which was not allowing sufficient blood to reach lungs and collect oxygen, which was causing breathlessness in the boy. I could see through telemedicine a Cardiologist examining the functioning of the heart from a distance of 300 kms and providing necessary instructions for stabilization of his condition. The doctors at the District hospital consulted on-line super-specialists 2500 kms away at Hyderabad who provided preliminary treatment that enabled the boy traveling to Hyderabad where his heart valve narrowing was repaired by balloon angioplasty. The boy has recaptured his youth and is going to school. What a spread the technology has given to the healing touch of a physician. This exercise involved teams of doctors, computer experts, communication engineers, administrators and para-medics working in an integrated way. The leadership for this kind of inter-disciplinary team is inspired by the nobility of the mission for which they are working. The power of a leader is the power of the purpose for which he is leading. I was delighted to see large inter-disciplinary teams managing a very complex operation of removing pain of a young boy living in a remote corner of the country. A team of management experts is currently working with CARE Foundation, Hyderabad, to prepare a self-sustained model of connecting multiple institutions in the area of healthcare. When you all leave this campus, you will not be working as economic expert or industrial expert or production expert. Most of the time your profession is going to be an integrator who can integrate multiple disciplines. This incident what I have narrated to you clearly brings out how technology has to be deployed across the institutions in an integrated way.

Five Mega Projects to transform the nation to Developed Country

We have identified five areas where India has a core competence for an integrated action. (1) Agriculture and food processing - we have to put a target of doubling the present production of food and agricultural products. Other areas of agriculture and agro food processing would bring prosperity to rural people and speed up the economic growth. (2) Reliable and quality electric power for all parts of the country. (3) Education and Healthcare - we have seen, based on the experience, education and healthcare are inter related. For example, Kerala with education and better healthcare can bring down the population growth and provide improvements in quality of life of the people. Similarly, in Tamil Nadu also we have seen the downward growth of population resulting from a unique system of "mid-day meal" coupled with education. Studies about Andhra Pradesh also have different facets. These experiences, we feel, should be taken and spread in big states like Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. Beginning of agricultural prosperity through better yields in these States will help this process. (4) Information Technology - This is one of our core competence. We believe, this area can be used to promote education in remote areas and also to create national wealth. (5) Strategic sectors - This area, fortunately, witnessed the growth in nuclear technology, space technology and defence technology.

These five areas are closely inter-related. A strong partnership among the R&D, academy, industry and the community as a whole with the Government departments will be essential to accomplish the vision.

Networking of rivers

Networking of rivers is essential for flood and drought control, for availability of drinking water to all regions, for goods navigation and transportation and for increased power generation and cultivation land. This mission will also provide employment opportunities to the rural population. Science and technology can surely help in executing such mission. Remote sensing to survey and evolve optimum water routes, environmental mapping and afforestation requirements, and continuous monitoring of the networked water flow through all seasons and at all times may require a dedicated satellite constellation for our networked river systems. Above all, the networking will lead to enhancement of environment and national connectivity.

Knowledge powered PURA (Providing Urban amenities in Rural Areas)

Providing Urban amenities in Rural Areas (PURA) is another example for creating rural wealth and prosperity. The model envisages a habitat designed to improve the quality of life in rural places and makes special suggestions to remove urban congestion also. Naturally our most demanding urban problem is that of congestion removal and efficient supply of water and effective waste disposal in every locality are the paramount civic needs. There is a minimum size below which a habitat is not viable and not competitive with the existing congested city. At the same time, the existing congested city is not economical compared to a new town once a minimum size of expansion is crossed. As against a conventional city say, rectangular in shape and measuring approximately 10 km by 6 km, the model considers an annular ring-shaped town integrating minimum 8 to 10 villages of the same 60 km2 area. This model provides easy access to villages, saves transportation time and cuts costs substantially and is more convenient for general public. Knowledge powered rural development is an essential need for transforming India into a knowledge power and high bandwidth rural connectivity is the minimum requirement to take education, health care and economic activities to the rural areas. Knowledge society leading to knowledge super power can prosper and survive only in the environment of economic security and internal security. 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. Such Model of establishing a circular connectivity among the rural village complexes will accelerate rural development process by empowerment.

Creative Leadership

For building the developed India, what are needed? We have natural resources and we have human power. There are 700 million people below 35 years in the population of a billion people. The nation needs young leaders who can command the change for transformation of India into a developed nation embedded with knowledge society from now to twenty years. The leaders are the creators of new organizations of excellence. Quality leaders are like magnets that will attract the best of persons to build the team for the organization and give inspiring leadership even during failures of missions as they are not afraid of risks. I have seen and worked with creators of vision and missions. The vision ignites particularly the young mind.

One of the very important ingredients for success of the vision of transforming India into a developed nation by 2020 is the evolution of creative leaders. I am giving a connectivity between developed India, economic prosperity, technology, production, productivity, employee role and management quality, all of which linked to the creative leader. Who is that creative leader? What are the qualities of a creative leader? The creative leadership is exercising the task to change the traditional role from commander to coach, manager to mentor, from director to delegator and from one who demands respect to one who facilitate self respect. The higher the proportion of creative leaders in a nation, the higher the potential of success of visions like "developed India."

Conclusion

India has demonstrated its immense capabilities and core-competence to the world with large talented manpower. It is a nuclear weapon state, self sufficient in space efforts and defense research, could able to combat technology denial regimes, largest producer of milk, self sufficient in food, leading in pharmaceuticals, competent in Information technology and has large natural resources. What else we need?

When we have such capabilities and strengths in individual domains, when one looks at India's per capita income we stand in the 105th place in the world. Why? what is pulling us down? This is because we lack great leaders and managers. Will you fill up the vacuum in India and make India collectively and selectively reach the best place?

What can be the purpose of management education? I think, management education should transform a person to a leader. Who is a leader? A leader is one who thinks what he can give to others instead of asking what others can do for him.

The second most important thing is that the management education needs to give the ability to manage and lead the change. What type of change we mean here? Indian entrepreneurs should not be just an home grown industrialist but they should also become leading MNCs.

May I ask you my friends have you acquired these leadership qualities? Can you go and lead the change? Leadership with nobility and change management are the two important elements needed from you to the nation.

Let us join together in building India as a developed Nation and get the rightful place for India in this planet.