Silver Jubilee Address at Anna University

Thinking is Progress

I am indeed delighted to be in this campus for delivering the Silver Jubilee Address and to launch the Knowledge Connectivity between the Anna University Main Campus and its affiliated and constituent colleges. I greet the Honourable Governor and Chancellor of the University, Dr. Ram Mohan Rao, Honorable Chief Minister Dr.Jayalalithaa, the Vice Chancellor Dr. Balaguruswamy, faculty members and my dear students and friends. I take this opportunity to congratulate all those who have contributed in the upkeep of this University's standard and reputation high in the technical education in India. I have a special attachment to this university in which I have been student, I have been teaching and also guiding students in two important areas which I am still continuing. Even now my visit to Anna University includes important discussions with the doctoral committee members and also a meeting with Dr. V.S. Ramachandran, a world renowned brain research scientist and Director of Centre for brain Research and Cognition from University of California. Anna University campus, its dynamics and greeneries have always been triggering creative thoughts in my mind. I could always see the dynamic academic environment even in late evenings where students were engrossed in their academic and research work. I spent many days till recently in this beautiful campus. I was thinking what thoughts I can share with this gathering. Hence I have selected the topic "Thinking is Progress". This University environment involved me very closely in the research work in the areas of brain and indigenizing hearing implant. I thought of sharing the experience with you here.

Mentally Challenged Children Research

In addition to my teaching the engineering students on various societal transformation missions at Anna University, I was also guiding a doctoral research project. The research is to find a software hardware integrated solution to achieve a near normal functioning of the brain of mentally challenged children. When I saw some of the mentally challenged children performing certain activities like singing, painting in Central Institute of Mental Retardation, Thiruvananthapuram, I got convinced that one day convergence of information and communication technology, medical electronics, bio-technology and mathematical simulation can find a solution for their problem. We have been studying the mentally challenged children in various research institutions, homes for mentally retarded and hospitals. We were sure that by transforming the functions of the damaged portion of the brain to the normal portion of the brain by some triggering mechanism, or by implanting a bio chip to carry-out those functions. The problem is very complex. Can it be solved ? The research still continues. We target to achieve a few milestones in this research by 2005.

Indigenous Manufacturing of Cochlear Implant

Yet another research work which I initiated was to have indigenous Cochlear Implant manufacturing units. Cochlear implant helps the deaf and dumb child to regain near normal hearing capabilities. At Vikram Hospitals, Coimbatore, I saw children who could hear and converse after implanting and subsequent IT aided training. The cost of imported cochlear implant is around Rupees 7 lakhs which common man cannot afford. Series of research and development activities have been initiated to establish cochlear implant manufacturing capabilities in India with the objective of bringing down the cost of all components, surgery and post operative training to around Rupees 40 to 50 thousand. With this background let me share with you the different phases of our society and importance of knowledge society.

Economic growth in different societies

During the last century the world has undergone a change from agriculture society, where manual labour was the critical factor, to industrial society where the management of technology, capital and labour provided the competitive advantage. Then the information era was born, last decade, where connectivity and software products are driving the economy of a few nations. In the 21st century, a new society is emerging where knowledge is the primary production resource instead of capital and labour. Efficient utilisation of this existing knowledge can create comprehensive wealth of the nation and also improve the quality of life - in the form of better health, education, infrastructure and other social indicators. Ability to create and maintain the knowledge infrastructure, develop knowledge workers and enhance their productivity through creation, growth and exploitation of new knowledge will be the key factors in deciding the prosperity of this Knowledge Society. Whether a nation has arrived at a stage of knowledge society is judged by the way the country effectively deals with knowledge creation and knowledge deployment in all sectors like IT, Industries, Agriculture, Health Care etc.,

Knowledge Society

A knowledge society can be one of the foundations for realizing the vision for the nation: Developed India. Knowledge has always been the prime mover of prosperity and power. The acquisition of knowledge has therefore been the thrust area through out the world and sharing the experience of knowledge is a unique culture of our country. India is a nation endowed with natural and competitive advantages as also certain distinctive competencies. But these are scattered in isolated pockets and the awareness on these is inadequate.

Knowledge Society Components

Knowledge Society has two very important components driven by societal transformation and wealth generation. The societal transformation is on education, healthcare, agriculture and governance. These will lead to employment generation, high productivity and rural prosperity. How do we do that?

The wealth generation is a very important task for the nation, which has to be woven around national competencies. The task team has identified core areas that will spearhead our march towards knowledge society. The areas are: Information Technology, bio-technology, space technology, weather forecasting, disaster management, tele-medicine and tele-education, technologies to produce native knowledge products, service sector and Infotainment which is the emerging area resulting from convergence of Information and entertainment. These core technologies, fortunately, can be interwoven by IT. IT took off only due to enterprising spirit of the young. Thus there are multiple technologies and management structure that have to work together to generate knowledge society. It has to be recognized that the difference between an IT-driven society and a knowledge-driven society is the role of multiple technology growth engines. With India carving a niche for itself in Information Technology, the country is hence uniquely placed to fully capitalize the opportunity to quickly transform into a knowledge society. The methodology of wealth generation in these core areas and to be able to meet an export target set at 50 billion dollars by the year 2008, especially using IT sector is subject of discussion, while simultaneously developing capability to generate Information Technology products worth 30 billion dollars domestically to pump in for societal transformation.

Evolution of policy and administrative procedures, changes in regulatory methods, identification of partners and most importantly creation of young and dynamic leaders are the components to be in place. In order to generate wealth, which is the second component for establishing a knowledge society, it is essential that simultaneously a citizen-centric approach to evolution of business policy, user-driven technology generation and intensified industry-lab-academy linkages have also to be established.

Societal Transformation

The agriculture society concentrated on producing the natural products such as grains, fruits, timber, ores and natural minerals etc. The industrial society added value to these products by incorporating explicit knowledge (High Technology) to it. This not only added value to products but also increased the productivity. The Information Society adds further value by widely making available the explicit knowledge through electronic networking of information centres and thus making available information products worldwide. The knowledge society will be the society producing products and services that are rich in both explicit and tacit knowledge thus creating more valuable products. It will emerge as centre of excellence in certain institutions, which will expand to cover the entire country in a decade. The leading social group of the knowledge society will be its knowledge workers, who will have sufficient knowledge to create explicit and tacit knowledge rich products. The society will be highly networked to create knowledge intensive environment along with enabling process to efficiently create, share exploit and protect the knowledge.

The IT growth in India really has highlighted that it is possible the data transformed into the information has a business proposition. By 2010, India would aim at IT enabled services consisting of human resource service, customer interaction, finance and accounting, data search and integration and remote education. The wealth generation in real sense comes out not in series, data, information, knowledge and innovation. But how fast we move India in innovation path of business. Particularly e-business demands innovative software and hardware. Friends, as you all know, India is well placed at the dawn of the knowledge era. We should not miss this opportunity. Our culture and civilization have been enriched over the ages by great thinkers who have always taken an integrated view of life as a fusion of mind, body and intellect. Their vision of knowledge has blossomed in the form of many spiritual centers and classics. The coming decades, the enriched young, will see a confluence of civilisational and modern technological streams.

Knowledge in network society

A knowledge society is the foundations for the second vision for the nation: Developed India. Knowledge has many forms and it is available at many places. Knowledge has always been the prime mover of prosperity and power. The acquisition of knowledge has therefore been the thrust area throughout the world and sharing the experience of knowledge is a unique culture of our country. India is a nation endowed with natural and competitive advantages as also certain distinctive competencies. But these are scattered in isolated pockets and the awareness on these is inadequate. Friends, we should note that human mind is a unique gift. You can try to fathom the marvels of universe. You can enter into it only if you have curiosity and thinking. I suggest to all the young, thinking should become your capital asset, no matter whatever ups and downs you come across in your life. Thinking is progress. Non thinking is destruction to the individual, organization and the country. Thinking leads to action. Knowledge without action is useless and irrelevant. Knowledge with action brings prosperity. I would like you, dear young, to have a mind to explore every aspect of human life. Look at the sky. We are not alone. The whole universe is friendly to us and conspires to give the best to those who dream. Like Chandrasekhar Subramaniam discovered the black hole, today, using Chandrasekar's limit we can calculate how long the sun will shine. Like, Sir CV Raman looked at the sea and questioned why the sea should be blue that lead to the birth of Raman Effect. Like, Albert Einstein, armed with the complexity of the universe, asked the questions about nature of the universe, the famous equation E=mc2 arrived. When E=mc2 is in the hands of noble souls we got electricity using nuclear materials. When the same equation was in the hands of extreme political thinkers, destruction of Hiroshima took place. It was 11th May in 1998, the Indian scientists witnessed a great event of the nation. The nuclear explosion one after another - five explosions took place. I was standing on the planet earth on a hot sandy hill. The earth shook as though Atlas shrugged. I felt India could create the energy of any magnitude but also I remembered the importance of technology in the hands of good human beings. Fortunately the central theme of our nuclear doctrine has become "no first use". It was born out of the civilisational heritage of the nation. During the last millennium one noble soul walked and walked in the Indian soil giving application of ahimsa dharma leading to the Indian independence. My dear friends, wouldn't you like to become a noble minded Mahatma Gandhi or a great intellectual like Sir CV Raman or Einstein or Chandrasekhar Subramaniam. Look at the marvels of your universe. You become a great thinker and action will follow. Friends, we should note that human mind is a unique gift. You can try to fathom the marvels of universe. You can enter into it only if you have curiosity and thinking. I suggest to all the young, thinking should become your capital asset, no matter whatever ups and downs you come across in your life. Thinking is progress. Non thinking is destruction to the individual, organization and the country. Thinking leads to action. Knowledge without action is useless and irrelevant. Knowledge with action brings prosperity.

I would like you, dear young, to have a mind to explore every aspect of human life. Look at the sky. We are not alone. The whole universe is friendly to us and conspires to give the best to those who dream. Like Chandrasekhar Subramaniam discovered the black hole, today, using Chandrasekar's limit we can calculate how long the sun will shine. Like, Sir CV Raman looked at the sea and questioned why the sea should be blue that lead to the birth of Raman Effect. Like, Albert Einstein, armed with the complexity of the universe, asked the questions about nature of the universe, the famous equation E=mc2 arrived. When E=mc2 is in the hands of noble souls we got electricity using nuclear materials. When the same equation was in the hands of extreme political thinkers, destruction of Hiroshima took place.

It was 11th May in 1998, the Indian scientists witnessed a great event of the nation. The nuclear explosion one after another - five explosions took place. I was standing on the planet earth on a hot sandy hill. The earth shook as though Atlas shrugged. I felt India could create the energy of any magnitude but also I remembered the importance of technology in the hands of good human beings. Fortunately the central theme of our nuclear doctrine has become "no first use". It was born out of the civilisational heritage of the nation. During the last millennium one noble soul walked and walked in the Indian soil giving application of ahimsa dharma leading to the Indian independence. My dear friends, wouldn't you like to become a noble minded Mahatma Gandhi or a great intellectual like Sir CV Raman or Einstein or Chandrasekhar Subramaniam. Look at the marvels of your universe. You become a great thinker and action will follow.

The Vision for the nation

After 50 years of progress, the aspirations are mounting that India should become a developed country. This is the second vision for the nation. How we can prepare ourselves to this challenge?

To become a developed India, the essential needs are (a) India has to be economically and commercially powerful, at least to be one of the four top nations in terms of size of the economy. Our target should be a GDP growth of 9% annually and that the people below poverty line to be reduced to near zero. (b) near self-reliance in defence needs of weapon, equipment with no umbilical attached to any outside world. (c) India should have a right place in world forums. Technology Vision 2020 is a pathway to realise this cherished mission.

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. (4) Information Communication 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. Other areas like Advanced Sensors and Materials would need a push. The nation has a plan towards 70% near self-reliance in a decade in defence equipment.

These five areas are closely inter-related and would lead to national, food, and economic security. 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.

Knowledge Powered PURA ( Providing Urban amenities in Rural Areas )

I am sure that removal of poverty will call for Providing Urban amenities in Rural Areas (PURA). The model I envisage is a habitat design to improve the quality of life in rural places and makes special suggestions to remove urban congestion also. Instead of village population coming to urban area, the reverse phenomena have to take place. How is it possible? Knowledge powered village complex has to be generated in numbers in every State. That means, 20-30 villages linked through a circular road (10x6 kms) with highways bringing physical connectivity and reliable communication facilities bringing electronic connectivity. In the periphery, there can be schools, primary health centres, technical training centres, silos for storage of products and markets for promoting products, cottage industries bringing economic connectivity and knowledge connectivity. This knowledge powered village complex will also have markets attracting urban business.

Conclusion

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.

Vision for a 'developed India', as discussed, is the second vision for the nation. I would like you to hear a great mind's powerful call, few thousand years ago, that would inspire actions for the second vision for the nation. Maha Rishi Patanjali in Yoga SUTHRAS stated: "When you are inspired by some great purpose, some extraordinary project, all your thoughts break their bounds: Your mind transcends limitations, your consciousness expands in every direction, and you find yourself in a new, great, and wonderful world. Dormant forces, faculties, and talents become alive, and you discover yourself to be a greater person by far than you ever dreamed yourself to be".

That was a saintly saying to all of us. Friends, a nation is made great by the thoughts of its people and their action. The people in turn become important citizens of that great country. The next 20 years period, I consider, is a period of technology transformation in India. I anticipate new emerging economic situations. There is a possibility of India becoming a knowledge society with focussed tool of Information Technology and entrepreneurial push. All the more, this ambience will demand our cultural and traditional value system to be embedded in our societal growth. I am sure Anna University will take a lead role in realising our second vision of transforming India into a Developed country by sharing its knowledge base in the areas like Water Resources Management, Remote Sensing, Bio Technology and Information Networking etc.,

My greetings to all of you.