Address At The Shanmugananda Fine Arts & Sangeetha Sabha

Indomitable Spirit

I am delighted to be here among the young from various schools of Mumbai in this beautiful auditorium. My greetings to all the students and teachers of 118 schools who have assembled here. When I am with you in such a beautiful environment, I was thinking what thoughts I can share with you. As you all know the space shuttle Columbia had a fatal accident as it was re-entering into earth's atmosphere, after completing its scientific mission of carrying out more than 70 experiments towards improving the quality of human life in earth and locating a new habitat and a new way of life.

There are events in human history to defeat the man continuously driven by the natural forces and objection and non acceptance of co-community. Still our humanity strives to succeed and to explore the new avenues for enriching the human life and for improving the standard of living. He had indomitable spirit to overcome all these hurdles. It is true to any scientific research, in the field of defense, in the field of nuclear science, in the field of bio-tech and in the field of space technology and in many more areas including the school life.

Science Advances with Intellectual Might

From the second century AD, we had Ptolemic theory, in which all the stars including the sun was assumed to be orbiting around the earth. Even now several assumptions of Ptolemic theory are referred for basic approximations. But during sixteenth century, Copernicus, first time, provided the theory that earth rotates around its own axis and it also orbits around the sun. He also said that the sun is also in an orbit in the galaxy. Later in the seventeenth century, Galileo carried out several scientific experiments on Copernicus' theories and declared to the world that the earth is orbiting. No one believed his statements. The entire religious missionaries turned against him. He had to sacrifice his life to prove that he was right.

Isaac Newton provided the gravitational theory between the planets, moon, stars and the earth. This Newton's' Theory gave the foundation for flight science. After Newton, Einstein came with general theory of relativity which gave first time all the orbital systems including our stars and the sun are in synchronous motion with respect to space and time. Famous Einstein energy equation E=MC2 emerged. First time, questions were asked. How are we born? Are we alone? Who created us? Then the scientific research started for discovering unified theory bringing together all theories of Copernicus, Galileo, Newton and Einstein and Stephen Hawking's string theory, to establish how earth is born, how our star is born, how long our star will shine.

Science beyond boundaries

In 1935, Chandrasekar limit was evolved and he discovered black hole - here for first time it was established how long the sun will shine - about 5 million years or more. It looks to me man cannot permanently stay in earth - for many resources - like mineral and energy he has to explore in other planets and star. Closest to us, possible human habitat is the mars. Moon may be a mineral resource and space industry center. So friends when you are all growing-up you are going to make earth liveable environmentally, economically - for which you have to explore as Columbus did as Livingston did , Neil Armstrong did. Planets and moons have become man's destination for human progress.

Aryabhata's Aryabhatiyam

Aryabhata was both an astronomer and mathematician, born in 476 AD in Kusumapura (now called Patna). He was known to represent a summary of all maths at that point of time. Just when he was only 23 years old, he wrote his book ARYABHATIYAM in two parts. He covered important areas like arithmetic, algebra (first ever contributor), trigonometry and ofcourse, astronomy. He gave formulas for the areas of a triangle and a circle and attempted to give the volumes of a sphere and a pyramid. He was the first to give an approximation to 'pi' as the ratio of a circle's circumference and diameter arriving at the value of 3.1416.

Bhaskara

Bhaskaracharya, as he was known, was another unique intellectual of his time. He was born in 1114 AD at Vijjalbada, located either in Karnataka or Maharashtra. He wrote the famous SIDDHANTHASIROMANI in four chapters. He dealt in astronomy and algebra and is known to be the first recognised mathematician who evolved value to zero from the concept based on Aryabhatta's discovery - the number.

Now I realise the great meaning of Albert Einstein's saying, 'We owe a lot to the Indians who taught us how to count, without, which no worthwhile scientific discovery could have been made." The foundation for scientific discovery indeed originated from India.

Ramanujan

Next comes to our mind the greatest of all geniuses every known and acknowledged, and who lived within our present memory, Srinivasa Ramanujan. He lived only for less than 33 years (1887-1920), had no practical formal education or means of living. Yet, his inexhaustible spirit and love for his subject made him contribute to treasure houses of mathematical research - some of which are still under serious study and engaging all-available world mathematicians' efforts to establish formal proofs. Ramanujan was a unique Indian genius who could melt the heart of the most hardened and outstanding Cambridge mathematician Hardy. In fact, it is not an exaggeration to say that it was Hardy who discovered Ramanujan for the world. One of the tributes to Ramanujan says that, 'every Integer is a personal friend of Ramanujan. Professor Hardy rated various geniuses on a scale of 100 and while he could put most of them in the range of around 30 with rare exceptions reaching say 60, he suggested that only the value of 100 would fit Ramanujan. There can be no better tribute to either Ramanujan or to Indian Heritage. His works cover vast areas including Prime Numbers, Hypergeometric Series, Modular Functions, Elliptic Functions, Mock Theta Functions, even magic squares, apart from serious side works on geometry of ellipses, squaring the circle etc.

It is hoped that eminent teachers who teach and inspire the young students of mathematics will continue their unmatched and noble services in the years to come thus ensuring another saga of the march of the Indian Brilliance in the current and following millennia too. Prof S. Chandrasekhar led the great Indian mathematics tradition in foreign soil. Of course mathematics is universal. Now the great original tradition will be further blossomed in present days by Prof CS Seshadri, Prof JV Narlikar, Prof MS Narasimhan, Prof SRS Varadhan, Prof MS Raghunathan, Prof Narender Karmakar and Prof Ashok Sen, among other distinguished mathematicians we have and will be having.

Make the Impossible Possible

Human flight is nothing but creativity of human mind and it undergoes several struggles to achieve excellence by exploring the space. In 1890, a great well known scientist Lord Kelvin, who was the President of Royal Society of London said, "any thing heavier than air cannot fly, and cannot be flown." With in two decades Wright Brothers proved man can fly of course at heavy human cost. On the successful completion of Moon Mission in 1961, Farnbraun, a very famous rocket designer, who built Saturn-V, to launch the capsule with astronauts and made moon walk a reality, in 1975 said "If I am authorized, I will remove the word impossible". Now let us take the story of the planet earth. During the recent Columbia's space mission, on January 29, 2002 at 3.39 PM, the astronauts Mc Cool & Ramon said to the ground station "We are in a vantage point in space, the world looks marvelous from up here, so peaceful, so wonderful and so fragile.. ". Friends, those seven astronauts are no more with us. They have given so much of scientific inputs to the humanity. Also they have given a very important message that the earth is fragile.

All the technological advancements we have today, are the outcome of scientific exploration of scientist of a few centuries. At no time, man was beaten by problems. He strives continuously to subjugate failures. Problems and failures are always in orbit. Also successes are in orbits in abundance. Indomitable spirit captures the success and subjugates the problems. Now from the earth dynamics, earth- moon-mars-sun galaxy dynamics let us come down to earth problem. How do we make India a prosperous - peaceful and secured nation?

Vision for the nation

We got freedom in 1947, that was the result of first vision for the nation. This vision created best of leaders in many fields like politics, philosophy, science & technology and industry. In many aspects of life, improvement in literacy, agricultural products, strategic areas, certain small and large-scale industries took place. Now more than fifty years have gone by and we are called as one of the hundreds of developing countries, in a distinct way a separation from G-8 countries. We have many challenges. Nearly 300 million people who are below the poverty line have to join the mainstream of a good life. 100% literacy, health for all, multiple industrial and agricultural productivity and life style with value system has to emerge. Hence we need the second vision for the nation to become developed.

TECHNOLOGY VISION 2020

A developed country, in my opinion, is one which has the capability and the capacity to comprehensively look at wealth generation and wealth protection and thereafter evolve integrated strategies, technologies and missions to meet these objectives. It is also a fact that technology is the established currency of geo-political power and in the Indian context, technology has to be the driving force for economical development and national security. Recognizing this and with the help of two different streams of national experts, one by TIFAC, an autonomous body under the Department of Science and Technology and another by Department of Defence Research & Development, involving a few hundred man-years of combined efforts, two types of document emerged. These were Technology Vision 2020 in 17 volumes and Integrated Strategies, Technologies and Missions for Comprehensive National Security. These two documents addressed the wealth generation and wealth protection aspects in a very comprehensive manner and identified technology as the linking factor. The fusion of these two documents has resulted in the India Millennium Missions 2020 (IMM 2020), which provides an excellent framework and road-map for making a strong and developed India by the year 2020. IMM2020 needs Integrated actions.

Integrated action for developed India

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 360 million tons of food and agricultural production. 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 and assist population control leads to social security and also national security. (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 and lead to national, food, economic and security. A strong partnership among the R&D, academy, industry, business and the community as a whole with the Government departments and agencies will be essential to accomplish the vision.

Empowerment

Friends, when the child is empowered by the parents, at various phases of growth, the child gets transformed into a responsible citizen. When the teacher is empowered with knowledge and experience, good young human beings with value systems take shape. When individual or a team is empowered with technology, transformation to higher potential for achievement is assured. When the leader of any institution empowers his or her people, leaders are born who can change the nation in multiple areas. When women are empowered, society with stability gets assured. When the political leaders of the nation empower the people through visionary policies, the prosperity of the nation is certain. When religion transforms into a spiritual force the people become enlightened citizens with value system.

Concluding Remarks

Friends, When I see you all here, I am reminded of a great role model for the young - Sir C.V. Raman - India's first Nobel Laureate in physics. Sir CV Raman led teaching and research in Physics and created great scientific leaders and also the birth of Raman Research Institute, Bangalore. I would like to quote Sir CV Raman, at the age of 82, while addressing young graduates. The message is still reverberating in my mind: "I would like to tell the young men and women before me not to lose hope and courage. Success can only come to you by courageous devotion to the task lying in front of you. I can assert without fear of contradiction that the quality of the Indian mind is equal to the quality of any Teutonic, Nordic or Anglo-Saxon mind. What we lack is perhaps courage, what we lack is perhaps driving force which takes one anywhere. We have, I think, developed an inferiority complex. I think what is needed in India today is the destruction of that defeatist spirit. We need a spirit of victory, a spirit that will carry us to our rightful place under the sun, a spirit which will recognise that we, as inheritors of a proud civilization, are entitled to a rightful place on this planet. If that indomitable spirit were to arise, nothing can hold us from achieving our rightful destiny."

Those were the words from the Nobel laureate scientist of India. You would see the bridge of science and society. Friends, I request all who are responsible for the young, all who are creators of the young, for the childrens' growth, allow them to dream. Dream transforms into thoughts and thoughts result into actions.

God bless you.