Vision of Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam (Former President and Missile Man of India)

Vision of Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam (Former President and Missile Man of India)

Darani Vasudevan

Vision of Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam (Missile man of India)

Darani Vasudevan

Preface, This book is a collection of key visions mentioned by our former President, Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam during his address to students and experts in various occasions. He may not be with us at present, but his words and mission will always shine like a diamond till the end of the world. This is a tribute to the missile man. Hope you all will get enlightened by his words.

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V. Darani M.Sc., M.Phil., SET

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As a young citizen of India, armed with technology, knowledge and love for my nation, I realize, small aim is a crime.

I will work and sweat for a great vision, the vision of transforming India into a developed nation powered by economic strength with value system.

I am one of the citizens of the billion, only the vision will ignite the billion souls.

It has entered into me, the ignited soul compared to any resource is the most powerful resource on the earth, above the earth and under the earth.

I will keep the lamp of knowledge burning to achieve the vision - Developed India.

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Marvels of the Universe Friends, have you heard about Thumba? It is in Kerala on the sea shore. This is the place from where Indian space program commenced. It is a big story how Thumba was selected for space program. Prof Vikram Sarabhai, a Cosmic rays Scientist and Homi Bhabha a Nuclear Scientist were searching for a place from where they can launch sounding rockets for atmospheric research, ionospheric research and meteorological research. After seeing various places, they came to a conclusion that Thumba is the right place as it is very close to the Equator which will help the space research in equatorial zones. That's how NIKE CAGUN - a two staged rocket was launched in Nov 1963. That was a IndoUS cooperation Program. Within six years time, Prof Vikram Sarabhai unfurled the space mission for India that should build Satellite Launch Vehicle capability, to put communication satellite in the geo-synchronous orbit and remote sensing satellite in the polar orbit. Also, he envisaged that launch vehicles built in India should be launched from Indian soil. This one visionary thought led to intensive research in multiple fields of science and space technology.

Today, India with her 20,000 scientific technological and support staff in multiple space research centres have the capability to build any type of satellite launch vehicles, any type of rockets and launch it from Indian soil. I had the fortune to be part of Prof Vikram Sarabhai's vision and my team and myself to participate in India's first satellite launch vehicle programme to put the satellite in the orbit

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Vikrant Nahal Arya of Sanskriti School and Rupanjali Lahiri of St Thomas School, New Delhi, asked me very simple question which led me to think. The question was : " Your birthday has recently gone by. What were your thoughts on that day?." They wanted to know what my birthday meant to me. It meant for me that I had completed 71 orbits around the sun, and had entered my 72nd orbit. Think of our Universe. I am amazed and always inspired by the dynamics of our universe. Our star (sun), its planets, every celestial object has a purpose. If the Earth stopped rotating around its axis, what would happen? No earth, No night, no day. If Sun does not orbit, sun will not be there. Think of it. The sun also orbit around the Milky Way. Isn't it. It takes the Sun 250 million years for one orbit around Milky Way, our galaxy. Compare that to my 72nd orbits. What does that mean? One single citizen completing 71 orbits. It is an insignificant event, compared to dynamics of universe. But human mind is innovative and can think and explore the marvels of universe .

Friends, we should note that human mind is a unique gift.

Marvels of universe you can enter into it only if you have curiosity and thinking. I suggest to all of you, 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.

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As a student, I would like you 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 leading to the birth of Raman Effect. Like, Albert Einstein, armed with the complexity of the universe, asked the question how the universe was born.

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. Millions of people walk in this universe. But during last millennium one noble soul walked and walked in the Indian soil giving application of ahimsa dharma leading to the Indian independence. Freedom for India resulted in 1947 on a single question "India needs freedom". In 1950s there was a tremendous shortage for food. We had to depend on wheat ships that come crossing Atlantic ocean to prevent famine in India. The political leader C.Subramaniyam and an agricultural scientist Mr. M.S. Swaminathan asked a question in 1950s. How long India can depend on the imported food from developed countries? Let us become self sufficient in food. That thought led to green revolution resulting from technology, agricultural science and farmers participation. Similar thoughts when came to Mr. Verghese Kurien, the milk man of India, India could attain surplus

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Milk Production. We produce Milk and Milk products in excess of our requirement. What is science? Science is asking series of questions and finding the right answer through hard work result into laws of nature or technological advancements. So children, one of the suggestion I can give you Don't get afraid of asking questions. Go on asking till you get satisfied answer. Only questioning minds have made the world to live liveable in spite of world's non-linear dynamics.

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Knowledge, Sweat and Perseverance The best part for a person is his or her learning period in school childhood. The prime learning environment is 5th to 16th years' of age. Of course at home, love and affection are imparted. But again most of the time in a day is spent in preparing school's homework and study, eat, play and sleep.

Hence the school hours for children are the best time for learning and need the best of environment and mission oriented learning with value system. During this stage, they need value based education in school and at home for them to become good citizens. This reminds me the echo from Bestolozzy, a great teacher's saying, "give me a child for seven years. Afterwards, let the God or devil take the child.

They cannot change the child." For parents and teachers, school campus and home have to have an integrated mission: education with value system. If the child misses the value based education of 25,000 hours in the school campus, no government or society can establish a transparent society or a society with integrity. Up to the age of 17 years, the father, the mother and the teacher lead a child to become an enlightened citizen. I also consider learning is a continuous process and knowledge acquisition continues.

Now I would like to explain the result of the hard work and perseverance with one of my experience. It was in conjunction with Prof Sarabhai's vision for space programmes. Design project of India's first satellite launch vehicle was approved. Design of each stage of rocket, heat shield, guidance system was given to selected project

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leaders. I was given the 4th stage of SLV-3 that is upper stage rocket to give final velocity to put Rohini into orbit.

The 4th stage SLV, uses an apogee motor, it should give the maximum thrust with minimum weight condition. It has critical technology. Hence, it was made out of composite structures which gives light weight. It is in early 1969 I remember, I received a call from Prof Sarabhai from Ahmedabad stating that he will be visiting Trivandrum along with Prof. Curien, President of a French Space organisation. I was asked to give a presentation about the 4th stage to Prof Curien's team. When the presentation by my team was over, we realised that SLV-3 4th stage is also being considered for a French 4th stage launch vehicle 'Diamont' P-4 and French Organisation was looking for an apogee rocket motor nearly double the propellant weight and also size of the stage what we had designed. A decision was taken in the same meeting that SLV's fourth stage should be reconfigured to match and suit both French satellite launch vehicles and Indian launch vehicles. I would like to give the picture of the status at that time of our rocket technology. It was in the drawing board and of design status. Here is a visionary whose dream that Indian scientists will build an upper stage rocket system compatible both for Indian and French satellite launch vehicle system. What a confidence he put on the Indian scientific community?

A decision was taken that this upper stage has to be designed and developed and it was projectised. This event was remarkable and motivating for us. We went on full swing. A

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series of reviews took place between the two teams. The 4th stage graduated from drawing board to developing stage.

Then in 1971 Prof Sarabhai passed away at the same time the Diamont P-4 programme was called off and to be reconfigured in future. When the 4th stage was developed and series of tests were going on a new requirement appeared in the horizon that is India building small communication satellites to be integrated as one of the piggy back satellite in the Ariane programmes (European Space Launch Programme). For our Indian Apple programme that is communication satellite - the SLV-3 4th stage exactly fitted and we flew in 1980s integrated in the European space launch from French Guiana Kourou. The vision seeded in 1969 by Prof Vikhram Sarabhai was indeed realised when the apple satellite started transmitting a communication to Indian earth stations. This gives some insight of a visionary with committed scientific and support, we can realise the vision. Even we can built our rockets can be flown in foreign soil. This achievement triggered rocket technologists in the country and it is indeed is the result of hard work and perseverance of the entire team. So dear friends, carry on you shoulder the angels and they are hard work, sweat and perseverance.

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The vision for the Nation 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 10%. (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 (4) Information Technology - This is one of our core competence. (5) Strategic sectors .

These five areas are closely inter-related and 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.

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India is a nation of a billion people. A nation's progress depends upon how its people think. It is thoughts which are transformed into actions. India has to think as a nation of a billion people.

Indian civilizational heritage is built on universal spirit.

India always stood for friendship and extends warm hands to the whole world.

We have made significant achievements in the last fifty years in food production, health sector, higher education, media and mass communication, industrial infrastructure, information technology, science and technology and defence. Our nation is endowed with natural resources, vibrant people and traditional value system. In spite of these resources, a number of our people are below the poverty line, undernourished and lack primary education itself. Our aim is to empower them to be poverty free, healthy and literate. A country needs to have the characteristics as defined in Thirukkural, composed over 2000 years ago : Pini inmai Selvam Vilaivinbam Emam Aniyenba Nattirkiv vainthu That is, "the important elements that constitute a nation are: being disease free; wealth; high productivity; harmonious living and strong defence". All our efforts should be focused towards building these five elements at various levels in a coherent and in an integrated manner. I am convinced that our nation with a strong, vibrant and billion plus population can contribute to realize these elements.

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Today our country is facing challenges such as cross border terrorism, certain internal conflicts and un-employment. To face these challenges, there must be a vision to ensure focused action of one billion citizens of this great country with varied capabilities. What can be that vision? It can be none other than transforming India into a 'Developed Nation'. Can government alone achieve this Vision? Now, we need a movement in the country. This is the time to ignite the minds of the people for this movement. We will work for it. We cannot emerge as a developed nation if we do not learn to transact with speed. I recall the saintly poet Kabir's wisdom to us: 'Kaal Kare So Aaj Kar Aaj Kare So Ab' that means, "What you want to do tomorrow do it today, and what you want to do today do it now".

This vision of developed nation needs to be achieved with Parliamentary democracy, which is the core of our governance system. The basic structure of our Constitution has stood the test of time. I am confident that it will continue to be responsive to the demands of changing situations. The first and foremost task is to respect and uphold the constitutional processes, in the best interest of our people and our nation, without fear or favour and with fairness and firmness. India is a Union of States based on the framework of co-operative federalism. Within the co-operative framework, there is also a requirement to develop competitive strengths for the States so that they can excel at the national level and the global level. Competitiveness helps in ensuring economic and managerial efficiency and to be creative to meet new challenges. These are essential to survive and

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prosper in a fast changing world of today. In addition, in order to strengthen democratic processes and institution, we should all truly strive for substantive decentralization.

I wish to emphasize my unflinching commitment to the principle of secularism, which is the corner stone of our nationhood and which is the key feature of our civilisational strength. During the last one year I met a number of spiritual leaders of all religions. They all echoed one message, that is, unity of minds and hearts of our people will happen and we will see the golden age of our country, very soon. I would like to endeavour to work for bringing about unity of minds among the divergent traditions of our country.

Along with speedy development aimed at elimination of poverty and un-employment, national security has to be recognized by every Indian as a national priority. Indeed, making India strong and self reliant - economically, socially and militarily - is our foremost duty to our motherland and to ourselves and to our future generations.

When the child is empowered by the parents, at various phases of growth, the child transforms 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 the women are

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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. The medium for transformation to developed India is the empowerment at various levels with power of knowledge. A roadmap for realizing this vision of developed India is in front of us.

At this juncture, I recall a beautiful thought of Dr. G.G. Swell, an eminent leader from North East: "We must have a mental infrastructure. Mental infrastructure means sincerity of purpose, of vision, of purity of heart and mind".

When I travel across our nation, when I hear the sound of waves of the three seas around the shores of my country, when I experience the breeze of wind from the mighty Himalayas, when I see the bio-diversity of North-East and our islands and when I feel the warmth from the western desert, I hear the voice of the youth " When can I sing the song of India?". What can be the answer?. I have so far interacted with over 50,000 school children during the past one year. I would like to share with you my answer to the urge of these children. If youth have to sing the song of India, India should become a developed country which is free from poverty, illiteracy and un-employment and is buoyant with economic prosperity, national security and internal harmony. To create this transformation we all have to resolve ourselves to work and sweat for the national development. I would like to share the song of youth, which I normally recite with the school children, here at this

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juncture. I am very happy to see the children present here representing the future generation. Through them I would like to convey the song of youth to all children of our country and the people.

As a young citizen of India, armed with technology, knowledge and love for my nation, I realize, small aim is a crime.

I will work and sweat for a great vision, the vision of transforming India into a developed nation, powered by economic strength with value system I am one of the citizens of the billion; Only the vision will ignite the billion souls.

It has entered into me ; The ignited soul compared to any resource is the most powerful resource on the earth, above the earth and under the earth.

I will keep the lamp of knowledge burning to achieve the vision - Developed India If we work and sweat for the great vision with ignited minds, the transformation leading to the birth of vibrant developed India will happen. This song, when sung in our own beautiful languages will unite our minds for action.

I pray the Almighty: "May the divine peace with beauty enter into our people; Happiness and good health blossom in our bodies, minds and souls".

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Knowledge Society- Challenges 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., 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.

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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 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, telemedicine 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

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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.

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

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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. IT helps

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to minimize the distance between the people. When a person is empowered with IT, he can be any where in the world and work for his mission. Knowledge Powered PURA, a model I propose will assist India in realizing removal of poverty in the rural India.

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. IT enabled Service Industries can flourish in rural complexes as we can get the land and building and very lower rates. We can engage semiskilled to skilled manpower at relatively lower rate as the cost of living becomes lower. The best technology and processes in the world are useless without the right skilled and motivated people to apply them. India is rich in this aspect.

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When Bio Science and Information Technology merge, a new area is born - bio informatics, that will lead to healthcare exploring genetic diagnostics and genetic treatment. I would like to share few experiences of people and their pain and possible solution. Recently I was at the Centre for Cellular & Molecular Biology at Hyderabad. I met hundreds of young scientists working on the genetic origin and manifestation of diseases particularly Cancer. The young scholars were very enthusiastically shared with me their knowledge of molecular biology and cellular research.

They told me about the information encrypted on the DNA of a cell and how both problems and solutions to the human lives reside on the software that nature embedded in each life it creates. In a way, these young minds were dealing with the questions that were so far confined to the domain of sages and philosophers. Bio- Informatics has got a tremendous scope in healing the pains of the people and providing better healthcare services. Research and developments in these directions have to emerge as the area is vast and un-traveled.

This is an important and complex subject. One of the difficult problems for anyone who deals with the Government agencies, as a citizen or as a businessman, is its sheer complexity. There is now an increasing awareness in the Central and State Governments to bring in functional agencies that could lead to a one-stop shop to all the needs of the citizen. Persons in this one-stop shop themselves may have to do several coordination within the complex systems.

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Modern IT tools help to speed up such coordination.

Eventually it can reach real-time capability as is done for railway booking. Actions by some of the State/Central Govt departments have resulted in the launch of Internet portals of Central and State governments. Portals of this nature are being attempted in Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and many more. In these States, electronic network systems are being used to provide market related information, land records and food stocks. But these actions are at an initial introductory phases only. In one State, a florist even participates in the flower auction at Netherlands, using real-time communication. It is well-known that the Railways and the Airlines are already using computerized reservation system effectively; but such an operational system is yet to emerge even as a beginning in many other areas of government - public interfaces, in banking, tax or electricity bill payment etc.

With this background, for India, transforming into a transparent society, it is essential that government functions which have interfaces or interactions with public especially where the state and central functionaries have to serve or support even correct the citizens, such functions have to be done through the tools of information technology and communication. This means, software have to be written to codify the rules, procedures and other related government functions and public access should be through IT. Then the government functions can provide equal access to all based on predetermined rules and even with rules to govern

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exception being done in a transparent manner. Since India has the core competence in information technology and communication, the possibility of success to bringing in transparency in administration and management through ecommerce and e-business leading to e-governance, is definitely possible. Actions have to be initiated in a mission mode. There are tremendous BOT business model opportunities for the private IT entrepreneurs in assisting the Government in providing better services to its people.

Information Technology can be a force multiplier in every domain. When medicine is integrated with IT, it becomes Telemedicine. When Education is integrated with IT, it becomes tele-education. When commerce is integrated with IT, it becomes e-commerce. When governance is integrated with IT, it becomes e-governance. The same way we should learn to handle IT applications and use them to augment your basis domain expertise. That is the real demand for future.

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

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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.

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 the technocrats, entrepreneurs, policy makers and business magnets who have assembled here will pursue vital roles in realising our second vision of transforming India into a Developed country.

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Agenda for the young in developed India Mission Developed India is no more a vision. The Prime Minister, on Independence Day, has announced that we will become a Developed India by 2020. The largest beneficiary of this dream when realized will be you, the young. Hence it is important that you contribute in its initial stages of realization and shape it to the best of your abilities with in your academic and family confines. The biggest concern of the parents and the children in your age group is about the job prospects when you complete your education. Without worrying about minor variations in the subjects of your pursuit, your opportunities and future will be brighter if you excel in whatever subject you undertake to study. At the frontier there are no borders.

One of the important indicators of a developed nation is the literacy level. Educating a nation of a billion people is not a small task. It requires the participation of all the stake holders starting from the young. Many of you are fortunate enough to attend good schools for a quality education. But many of your brothers and sisters are not that fortunate, particularly those from the villages near you. A good sign of a developed nation is that it is built on societies wherein "people who have" work hard to bridge the divide between them and "those who have not". One way of doing this is for your school to adopt a village near you. When we look at the national target of increasing the literacy level from 57% to 75% by 2010, you must set the target for the village you adopted to be in tune with the national mission. Each one of

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you could visit the villages on holidays and contribute to removal of illiteracy of at least two persons and light the quest for knowledge in them. Work with consortium of industries, philanthropists, NGOs and ensure that this task is sustainable and its impact can be measurable and quantified.

The educational institutions have to gear-up to evolve a curriculum that is sensitive to the social and technological needs of the Developed India. Student activities towards such missions could be seamlessly integrated with the existing curriculum so that the future members of the knowledge society are fully developed in all aspects of societal transformation.

The trees and vegetation around us are the best transformers of energy from the sun on a sustainable basis for our utilization. In the process they provide us the most efficient way of cleaning up our environment, shelter for all living species, a source of food and energy. They are often associated with serene environments that facilitate creative thoughts and actions. As you know dreaming, and dreams transforming into action are important constituents of developed India, friends what you can contribute. Without pain and tears, 200 million of you, if you plant five seedlings, you will add a billion trees, and mother India will give her smiles to you. On that day you will demonstrate to the world that what 200 millions children can do collectively and make us proud. The tree planting may be done in your house, school or in the village your school adopts. The school management or the NGOs should help this student

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centric eco-care movement on a sustainable basis. Few years from now every one us, Indians, must be a proud guardian of trees planted by the young. This dynamic movement will echo the children's concern for eco-friendly future.

A billion trees also require careful planning water which is already becoming a scare commodity in this country. While the efforts are being taken to make the mother earth greener, the rainwater due to lack of proper planning gets wasted. By todays technology, it is possible to develop a small scale water harvesting stations. For example your school can think of developing a water harvesting station with 10 CFT per student with in your school complex or in the village adopted by your school. If you do that the inbuilt thoughts in you will bring a spirit to share the national resources.

Rainwater harvesting will maintain water table level preventing environmental decay and making water available for agriculture and drinking.

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Cancer- The Chaos within Cancer, unlike many other diseases that come from the external factors, like infections, life styles and other environmental and physiological stressors, emanate from within the cell. The life software embedded in the DNA material gets mutated and start growing in a way that is not in-line with the cells around. Life turns against itself. The tragedy becomes unfathomable when it happens too early.

Sometime back, I met one gentleman whose 6-year-old grand child was on periodic blood transfusion for thalsymia.

The permanent solution, doctors told me was a bone marrow transplant. The bone marrow of the child was not matching even between siblings and the parents. Unmatched bone marrow transplant is not done in India, I was told, and even in the West it is done experimentally. I met the child who is unaware of the time bomb that is tickling inside him. I prayed for him, for this was the only thing I could do. In India, there are less than 100 beds for B.M.T. This has to be increased in multiple hospitals and also Stem Cell is the live source for bone marrow production. It is indeed only in research phase.

Newer knowledge emerging out of research on stem cells from abroad and India has to be taken note of and studied. In fact, regenerative medicine is fast getting established as a complete branch of medical science. The embryo starts out as a mass of undifferentiated cells, which then divide, multiply and go down differential paths to take the shape of

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various tissues and organs of the body. The mechanisms that underline this orderly process of differentiation is fast getting understood at the laboratory level. And the state-ofthe-art in this area holds the promise of regenerating tissue that malfunctions due to injury, age, disease or genetic abnormality. A Japanese team has successfully created stem cells from the embryonic cells from the mice to create cells that secrete insulin and glucagon, two hormones normally made by the pancreas. Whether large volumes of cells can be produced from stem cells is yet to be seen. I hope that the day is not far when the similar six year old boy I met, will get a tailor-made bone marrow out of stem cells to survive for the next sixty years and beyond. For such a mission, BMT and Stem Cell production are vital. Research for Stem Cells and development of BMT are important needs. This hospital can be an interface to take benefit of research to the patient.

The suffering of cancer does not remain confine to the patient alone. It often engulfs the entire family and the social surroundings. The emotional trauma is just intense. The Bangalore Cancer research Foundation conducted a unique multi-institutional study with DRDO with the participation of Defence Institute of Psychology (DIPR), Defence Institute of Physiology (DIPAS) and Centre for Cellular and Microbiology (CCMB). The study was aimed at establishing the relationship of the stress of breast cancer patients with the neuro endocrine response leading to immune modulation, which will determine the prognosis to treatment

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or progression of the disease. The perceived stress of the patients will be influenced by the social support being provided by the spouses and caregivers and hence in the study a system approach was made to evaluate the stress of the patients in the social ambience. Patients of breast cancer, their spouses and equal number of the care givers served as volunteers for the study.

Standard psychological methods were used to quantify the stress of the patients, their coping strategies, blood cortisol, cell mediated immunity and humoral immunity were measured in all the three groups. The study revealed specific correlation of the stress of the patients with the immune responses. Patients who received adequate social support had lower level of perceived stress and their prognosis to surgical, radiation and chemotherapy were better than those who had higher level of perceived stress due to inadequate emotional support from the spouses and care givers. The primary message, which emanated from the study, indicates that for successful prognosis, it will be essential to combine psychotherapy along with the conventional medical management of cancer. It also emphasises the necessity to address the problem at the mind-body complex where the etiological factor may have the root. The sample size is small. Elaborate further research in this area is very vital.

Cancer treatment needs new mindset. I would like to share a vision of "Patients deserve the best" here. I will organise my thoughts into four areas and can lead to a road map of a collaborative work between different clinical experts,

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medical and other research institutions, industries, and other organisations. There is a need to create cancer awareness and taking cancer diagnostics to detect cancers in the early stage. The therapeutic procedures need to be made affordable and accessible thereby minimising travel of patients for treatment and follow-up. A clinical database network can be established to effectively tackle the cancer with a long term prevention-rehabilitation perspective.

Finally, focussed efforts are needed to derive practical clinical applications from the findings of the Human Genome Project.

Futuristic goal can be set among cancer hospitals and research institutions. Diagnostic and treatment results need to be discussed and analysed. Diagnostic accuracy, response to treatment, cure results needs to be discussed among similar cancer cure institutions. Then the national capability of cancer cure will enhance. Citizens will be thankful to the healers.

Treatment of cancer involves any one but most often a combination of radiation, chemotherapy and surgery.

Genetic diagnostic can help to take good decisions while charting the course of therapy. On the drug side, instead of looking for agents that kill dividing cells, researchers are now looking for agents that encourage cell to get destroyed.

Inside a growing ball of cancer cells, the blood supply can run short, so the cells begin to suffocate. Malignant cancers get over this problem by sending out a signal to the body to grow new arteries into the tumour. These arteries

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characteristically grow like a crab-claw that first gave cancer its Greek name. Many drugs, called angiogenic agents, are now available to destroy these supply lines. These drugs are imported and are very expensive. Industry-hospital-research institution consortia need to be established to develop affordable indigenous products.

Chemotherapy often destroys healthy cells together with the intended cancerous ones. An industrial firm in Pune has developed algorithms describing interaction between normal cells, malignant cells and nutrients. The algorithms also take into account the pharmaco-kinetics of the drug. Together with inputs on patients' age, height and weight and the type and volume of the tumour, the mathematical model can design an optimal drug schedule minimising side effects.

The type and volume of tumour can be automatically deduced from the CT or MRI scans. This is a good example of how advances in many disciplines of science such as Biomedical engineering, Image processing, control systems, mathematical modelling and pharmacology are helping in the developing better and effective treatment for cancer patients Clinical networking is an important area where certain progress has been made. A Clinical database can help in refining clinical features, documenting response to treatment and bringing out geographical or genetic variations.

Increasing numbers of hospitals are using computers.

However, feeding in the clinical inputs into the network requires recording of detailed symptoms through a checklist

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of clinical signs. Physicians are needed to think in an in structured format and still not lose social and emotional contact with the patient.

Application of Clinical data base network in cardiology has been attempted by CARE Foundation and Indo-American Cancer Institute at Hyderabad. Some other institutions in certain other areas may have similar databases. The database links text to images, process and protocols. They are attempting a seamless fusion of text and images along with communication among patients, their doctors, and other service providers. This can be suitably adapted for clinical data of cancer and developed into a Cancer Database Network. Two advantages are immediately apparent. Firstly pattern recognition is improved. With a large database covering more number of subjects than an individual or even an institution can expect to study, a networked database improves pattern recognition. Secondly, statistically significant evidence can be generated and validated with other Institutions in the country and abroad. Intensive practice of clinical medicine would improve on both these counts.

We are for the first time in a position to see that our genetic code is not a precious manuscript but rather a digital file on a floppy that can be edited. The bio-technologists can cut bits of texts out, add bits in, rearrange paragraphs or write over words. I discussed human genome with my medical friends. Its challenges and potentials are in front of us.

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The prime risk of cancer is age. The longer one lives, the more mistakes are accumulated in the genes. Mutation in the p53 gene is almost the defining feature of a lethal cancer. In over 90% lung cancers TP53 gene is broken. In 55% of all human cancers it is broken. Like any other gene, this gene is inherited as a pair. People born with one faulty version of out of the two have a 90% chance of getting cancers and usually at an early age.

Environmental risk factors, such as cigarette smoking and working with carcinogenic agents accelerate the ageing process. Smoking damages the lungs, which require recurrent repair thus making the cells older early. Tissues that are specially prone to cancer tend to be tissues that do a lot of cell division throughout life either for repair or for other reasons like skin, testis, breast, colon, stomach, white blood cells. The cancer is seen in an altogether new light now and the information provided by Human Genome Project is going to give many new directions to the understanding and management of cancer. This Institute can consider launching special projects and research in this regard.

Availability of comprehensive cancer centres such as this Institute is a significant step forward in dealing with the most challenging healthcare problem of our times. However, we need an active connectivity of general practitioners with this institute to make a major impact in terms of reaching the needy as well as helping them out. The mission of offering the best available patient care, the most sophisticated

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education to physicians and patients and be the leader in the cancer research is indeed very challenging demanding highest of the human capabilities in intelligence as well as efforts and perseverance.

The trend in the country so far has been that institutions of healthcare and research mission turn into crowded hospitals within first few years itself and the doctors as well as the leadership lose interest in the research. In many medical institutions in the country, research has slipped into a low priority because of patient care intensity. There are still publications but most of them are not cited by the others outside our own system. The clinical data that come with the patients is a very valuable research material that can lead to enlisting research partners from excellent medical institutions elsewhere. Cancer cure and cancer research are indeed twin challenges to the medico and health community.

Challenge transforms into mission of pain removal and thereby providing useful life that is close to the God.

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Creativity and Knowledge Since our population is of a billion people, the society in its own way has to make innovations continuously, not only in urban areas but also in rural areas. For example, the honey bee network movement is indeed an excellent attempt.

Creativity comes from beautiful minds. It can be anywhere and any part of the country. It may start from a fisherman hamlet or a farmer's household or a dairy farm or cattle breeding centre or it emanates from class rooms or labs or industries or R&D centres. Creativity has got multi dimensions like inventions, discoveries and innovations.

Creativity has got an ability to imagine or invent something new by combining, changing or reapplying existing ideas.

Creativity has an attitude to accept change and newness, a willingness to play with ideas and possibilities, a flexibility of outlook, the habit of enjoying the good, while looking for ways to improve it. Creativity has a process to work hard and continually to improve ideas and solutions by making gradual alterations and refinements to their works. The important aspect of creativity is: seeing the same thing as everybody else, but thinking of something different.

Innovation is market driven. Innovation can also be making improved performance of the product/system technique by adopting a change using most alternative technologies. An innovative product makes a leap in the benefits-to-costs ratio ion some area of endeavour. Innovation is a systematic, organized, rational work - usually done in many stages like analysis, tests, experiment etc. I would like to give a few

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examples of innovative technologies/applications. What we see in optical communications is speed vs cost. In flexible manufacturing systems it is choice vs cost. In the webenabled processes, it is customer satisfaction vs cost. Again in e-Mail, a message is instantly delivered in any part of the world through internet.

The high technology innovation happens through new discoveries mostly in natural sciences. For example, NMR and Human Genome. No technology innovation happens by finding gaps in market created as a result of changes in values, perceptions, attitudes and demographics. For example, ready-to-eat food and fast food chains. The hire purchase scheme helped the consumer to buy things and pay in instalments. Like this, there are many. Also, adaptation can lead to innovations, for example the micro-wave ovens.

The indices of world competitiveness are based on the global competitiveness report prepared by the world Economic Forum. The forum has defined competitiveness as "the ability of a national economy to achieve sustained high rates of economic growth". As per this definition ranking of different countries as of April 2001, according to the forum, are: USA[1], Singapore[2], Hong Kong[6], Australia[11], Taiwan[18], China[33] and India[41]. The world competitiveness is therefore decided by a triangular combination consisting of progressiveness of industry, technology push and status of governmental deregulation, all working in unison. Technology-led industrial growth can be sustained only through establishing an innovation system. It

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is through the process of innovation that knowledge is converted into wealth. Further, innovation is an important factor for the competitiveness of both service and manufacturing sectors and hence the urgent need to put in place an innovation system. Such a system would involve network of firms, knowledge-producing institutions, bridging institutions and customers/users in a value additioncreating production chain. With such a consortium, the innovation system would tap into the growing stock of global knowledge, assimilate and adapt it to local needs and finally create new knowledge and technology. India must evolve such systems to improve its competitiveness in a global marketplace. Competitiveness emerges from the strength of knowledge power, which is powered by technology that in turn is powered by capital. In the coming years, competitiveness would be derived from the ability to recognize and integrate all forms of knowledge leading to innovation in every area of human endeavour. While talking about competitiveness and innovation, I thought of sharing with you the necessity of building innovation systems brought out in the Task Force Report of Planning Commission - India as knowledge superpower : strategy for transformation.

It is through the process of innovation that knowledge is converted into wealth and social good. Further, innovation is an important factor for the competitiveness of both service and manufacturing sectors. Innovation tends to emanate less from R&D and more from other sources, including

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organizational change. Hence there is an urgent need to establish an efficient innovation system in the country. Such a system would involve creation of clusters, which are networks of inter-dependent firms, knowledge producing institutions (universities, colleges/institutes, research institutes, technology providing firms), bridging institutions (e.g. think tanks, providers of technical or consultancy services) and customers linked in a value-addition creating production chain. The concept of clusters goes beyond that of a firm network, as it captures all forms of knowledge sharing and exchange. Thus an innovative system with its clusters would tap into the growing stock of global knowledge, assimilate and adapt it to local needs and finally create new knowledge and technology. For such an innovative system to succeed, the following are necessary: (a) improving inter-ministerial coordination and ensure consistency and credibility in policy formulation; and (b) introducing new mechanisms to support innovation and technology diffusion, including greater use of public/private partnership.

For the nation today, what is needed is a combination of technology and leadership using the technology to bring economic prosperity. 'Developed India', as defined by us can be only powered by economic strength. The economic strength has to be powered by competitiveness and competitiveness has to be powered by knowledge power.

Knowledge power has to be powered by technology and technology has to be powered by innovation and business.

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Business has to be powered by innovative management and management has to be powered by leadership. What are the characteristics of leadership? A leader will neither be a commander nor a super boss, but he or she will be a visionary, facilitator of the team and a thinker. Above all, the nobility of the mind is the hallmark of the leader.

Youth and Dynamic Action For all your success and the best performance, I am going to give you a beautiful poem: I have now a dream, Dream for action; Dream for performance, I will sweat for excellence, thereby I will bring glory to the nation.

I am sure this short poem will enter into your mind to ignite the large potential in you to give the best performance. If you use this short poem, if you enter this short poem in your mind I am sure your potential for the best performance will get enhanced and you perform well.

When I see such a large gathering from various parts of the country, in this national event, to participate, to witness, to enjoy, to encourage and to recognize the teams and players.

I have a message, which I would like to convey to you: "If at all in human life there is any aspect that can enrich the mind and body in an integrated way it is sports and games".

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Therefore, I urge the parents and teachers to encourage the children to actively participate in sports and games from childhood. Children spent 25,000 hours in their school from 1st Standard to 12th Standard. Therefore, this is the place where we have to reinforce sports and games facilities to mould and encourage the growth of excellent sportspersons.

India with its billion and more population, the time has come to generate and create players and sportspersons in every area. We have to select the best performers, train them physically and mentally from childhood. We should enlist 1000 persons every year in the sportsstream throughout the country. We have to educate and nurture them professionally to make sports grades, so that they can compete in asian games and Olympics and establish a record in every event when they grow.

It has been heartening to note that our sportspersons have been toiling hard to bring laurels for the country in various international events. Very recently our sportspersons did us proud in the Asian Games 2002, when they returned with a haul of 35 medals, 10 of them gold. The performance of the Indian contingent in the 17th Commonwealth games held in August this year at Manchester was quite historic. Our young sportspersons returned with 69 medals, India securing 4th position in these games. These achievements were basically due to their dedication, commitment and unflinching desire to excel in the international arena. I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate all our

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sportspersons, who despite many hurdles and obstacles have left no stone unturned to excel in their chosen sports. We are all assembled here to make this National Game truly memorable one.

A sportsperson gets evolved for superior performance in an environment where there is physical, psychological and nutritional support. We have to scientifically develop athletes and sportspersons to have maximum lung volume, muscle power, endurance and metabolic profile by intensive training from childhood. I am sure the Centre and all states will evolve the development of sports and games as an integrated effort from childhood to adulthood. The parents, teachers and the society need to provide an ambience to encourage the children to achieve the high level of performance in sports and athletics.

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Technologies for transformation India's first green revolution was a result of the partnership of farmers, agricultural scientists and the political visionaries. Here, I would like to narrate an incident while I was having a meeting with Shri C. Subramaniam. He was the main architect of the first green revolution. During the meeting, I remember, at the age of 90 years, he was unfurling his vision for second green revolution. The first green revolution was the process of seed to grain. The second green revolution that he envisaged is soil to seed to grain to food to marketing. He visualised a change of chain, starting from soil to food processing and marketing, but not grain alone.

The Technology Information, Forecasting and Assessment Council (TIFAC) under the Department of Science and Technology have brought out a set of 35 Technology Vision documents, which is a pathway to realise this mission. The Technology Vision 2020 consisted of 17 technology packages in the core sectors such as agriculture and food, healthcare, infrastructure and strategic industries. The Task Teams with nearly 500 experts of our country worked for two years, deliberated national status of various branches of national development and generated 35 documents detailing the steps to be taken for creating wealth for the nation and the well being of our people. "Technology" is the most vital key for achieving the goals. The vision deals with agro food processing, food and agriculture, health-care, electric power, civil aviation, waterways, engineering industries, life

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sciences and bio-technology, strategic industries and materials and processing. There is a tremendous link between each technology package.

ICRISAT has to play a very important role by contributing to the second green revolution which will enable India to become a developed nation in the agricultural sector. The production of cereals needs to increase from the present 200 million tonnes to 300 million tonnes. Similarly, in the case of fruits and vegetables the production needs to increase.

But the requirement of land for the increasing population as well as for much greater forestation and environmental preservation activities would demand that the present 170 million hectares of arable land will have to be brought down to 100 million hectares by 2020. All our agricultural scientists and technologists have to work in this direction of doubling the productivity of the available land with lesser area available for cultivation. The type of technologies needed would be in biotechnology, proper training to the farmers, additional modern equipments for preservation and storage etc.

Integrated nutrient management continues to be a focal issue in drylands, as the fertilizer use is not like to pick up significantly unless water supply is assured. One of the reasons ascribed to low response of bio-fertilizers in drylands is their low status of soil organic matter. Soil fertility in drylands can be sustained only through maintenance of organic matter and achieving better fertilizer-use efficiency through integration of moisture-

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conservation practices along with soil-fertility management.

Strategies for on-farm generation of organic matter in noncompetitive way need to be evolved.

Another question I wanted to share with you, wherever there are people below poverty line there is also problem for the availability of water. It costs energy and money to bring water for specialised agriculture to such dry areas. What are the agricultural technologies, water conservation methodologies that can help lift the people who are below the poverty line. I feel, these are the aspects that ICRISAT should address. Solutions may be just beyond agriculture alone spanning to animal husbandry, poultry, agro processing and other related activities like medicinal plants "kathalai".

I find whenever the use, users and implementers as well as knowledge & skill possessors are linked and networked, success comes effectively and multiplies. As it is said, a networked resource can give a non-linear progressive addition to development growth. To reach from the GDP growth of 6% to 10% rates we need such non-linear steps.

Friends, ignition of young population of any country, is one of the important resources. India possesses this in plenty.

India has natural resources in all key sectors. It has a good knowledge base. It may be applicable to many nations.

Networking these is crucial to realise the strength. The focus of the country would be for the second vision for a Developed India by 2020.

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Empowered Human life I have been visiting various states and meeting children and people of all walks of life including those who have been affected by communal clashes, poverty and un-employment.

Is the perception of human being different when looked from an individual, national or global angle? The future wars are rarely going to be between nations. But it will be between nations and smaller groups. There will only Proxy wars. Today, human rights are being attacked in such proxy wars beyond humanitarian levels.

Today's world in 21st century is being haunted by the international terrorism which is worse than the Kalinga War and Second World War for the reason that it subjugates fear and insecurity in the entire human community. We have been repeatedly witnessing such human rights violations: during the WTC attack, during an attack on the Indian Parliament, during the Moscow theater siege, during the Indonesian Bali hotel attack, during several plane hijacks and more so while mightier countries declaring wars unilaterally ignoring united nations. What are we doings, the great creations of God? Is it possible to realize a society in which standard human being is a reality? Kalinga war waged by the Emperor Asoka brought death to three lakhs people and million injured. But it gave birth to ahimsa dharma.

Second world war resulted in nuclear warfare killing millions of people but gave birth to United Nations. Code of war ethics and human rights in war was evolved symbolizing the elevation of human civilization standards

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and concern for fellow human beings. Unlike conventional wars, where war ethics have been defined in Geneva convention, in proxy wars, code of conduct is not in sight.

But innocent human beings do get caught in the cross fire and die. Will the planet earth at any time see a no-war situation at least in future? It is indeed a big question. With this background can we evolve the creation of a standard human being?

The evolution of human society has followed the path from agricultural society to industrial, information and the present day knowledge society. In agricultural and industrial society, humans and machines dominated the warfare. In the information and knowledge society, intellectual capacity would dominate. Intellectual domination is represented by ideologies, principles and faiths. Whenever they cross paths between individuals, societies and nations, the human rights are violated. The suffocation and loss of human rights by the present generation of people due to the backwardness induced economic status or pushed down by caste differentiation or frustrated by denial of timely justice at affordable cost is the right cauldron from which revolution will start giving birth to standard human being. The road map for graduating into a standard human being will have to include a) education with value system, b) religions graduating into spirituality

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c) removal of poverty and economically strong nation d) responsible judiciary & human rights I believe, a standard human being can be created when all these four elements are properly combined.

The best part for a person is his or her learning period in school childhood. The prime learning environment is 5th to 16th years' of age. Of course at home, love and affection are imparted. But again most of the time in a day is spent in preparing school's homework and study, eat, play and sleep.

Hence the school hours for children are the best time for learning and need the best of environment and mission oriented learning with value system. During this stage, they need value based education in school and at home for them to become good citizens. This reminds me the echo from Bestolozzy, a great teacher's saying, "give me a child for seven years. Afterwards, let the God or devil take the child.

They cannot change the child." For parents and teachers, school campus and home have to have an integrated mission: education with value system. If the child misses the value based education in the school, no government or society can establish a transparent society or a society with integrity.

I would like to recall an incident which happened four decades ago. As you all know, Prof Vikram Sarabhai is the visionary of space programme in the country. He is well known for his cosmic ray research area that led to evolving

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the space research programme for the nation. Both Dr Homi Bhabha and Prof Vikram Sarabhai were looking for a site to establish space research station in the equatorial region.

These two great scientists visited a number of places.

Thumba in Kerala was selected by the scientific community for space research as it was near the equatorial region and was ideally suited for ionospheric research in upper atmosphere apart from study of atmospheric structure. When Prof Vikram Sarabhai visited Thumba, the locality had series of villages and thousands of fishermen folk were living in that area. It also had a beautiful ancient church, St Mary Magdalene Church, Pallithura and a Bishop's House.

Prof Vikram Sarabhai met many politicians and bureaucrats to get the place for the work of space science research. It did not move further because the nature of the place. He was asked to see the Bishop of Trivandrum, at that time in 1962, His Excellency Rct Rev Dr Peter Bernard Pereira. It was a Saturday when Prof Vikram Sarabhai met the Bishop. The Bishop smiled and asked him to meet him the next day, ie Sunday. In the morning Service, the Bishop told the congregation, "my children, I have a famous scientist with me who wants our church and the place I live for the work of space science research. Dear children, science seeks truth by reasoning. In one way, science and spiritualism seek the same divine blessings for doing good for the people. My children, can we give the God's abode for a scientific mission?" There was a chorus of 'Amen' from the congregation and the whole church reverberated.

Subsequently, the big event took place in 1962. His

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Excellency Rct Rev Dr Peter Bernard Pereira, the Bishop of Trivandrum, took the noble decision to dedicate the church in recognition of the national goal for the establishment of the Indian Space Research Organisation at Pallithura, Thumba. That was the church where we had our design centre, started rocket assembly, design of filament winding machine for FRP product and the Bishop's house was our scientists' place. Later, the Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launching Station (TERLS) led to the establishment of Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC) and multiple space centres throughout the country.

When I think of this event, I can see how enlightened spiritual and scientific leaders, all converge towards giving reverence to the human life. New church and new schools were established in record time. Of course the birth of TERLS and then VSSC gave the country the capability of design, development and produce world class huge rocket system and subsequently, India has the capability of launching geo-synchronous, sun-synchronous and meteorology spacecraft, communication satellite, remote sensing satellite thereby provided fast communication, weather forecasting and also locate water resources for the country. Today, among us, Prof Vikram Sarabhai is not there, Rev Dr Peter Bernard Pereira is not there, but those who are responsible for creation and make the flower and blossom will themselves be a different kind of a flower as described in the Bhagwat Gita: "See the flower, how generously it distributes perfume and honey. It gives to all,

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gives freely of its love. When its work is done, it falls away quietly. Try to be like the flower, unassuming despite all its qualities". What a beautiful message for all generation of this nation, on integration of minds and universal mind.

People who are economically or socially in the lower strata are vulnerable to human rights exploitation by those who are in the higher strata. One way to reduce this exploitation is to narrow this divide. In our country, 340 million people are below the poverty line. After five decades of progress, the aspirations of people are rightly mounting that India should become a developed country. This is the second vision for the nation. How can we prepare ourselves to this challenge?

India has to be economically and commercially powerful with near self-reliance in defence. Our target should be a GDP growth of 9-11% annually and that the people below poverty line to be reduced to nearly zero. This would also include providing of sufficient employment opportunities to the physically and mentally challenged. How are we going to achieve this?

Every citizen in the country has a right to live with dignity; every citizen has a right to aspire for distinction. Availability of a large number of opportunities to resort to just and fair means in order to attain that dignity and distinction, is what democracy is all about. That is what our Constitution is all about. And that is what makes life wholesome and worth living in a true and vibrant democracy. At this point, I would like to remind all of us that at social levels it is necessary to work for Unity of Minds. The increasing intolerance for

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views of others and increasing contempt about ways of lives of others or their religions or the expressions of these differences through lawless violence against people cannot be justified in any context. All of us have to work hard and do everything to make our behaviours civilised to protect the rights of every individual. That is the very foundation of the democratic values, which I believe is our civilisational heritage and is the very soul of our nation. Judiciary is the guardian of civilised life. Wherever life exists in our planet, no life, by any body can be allowed to be devalued.

Particularly, judiciary cannot be a mute witness to this inhuman act.

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.

Human Rights : Does it mean Reverence for life.

Empowered mechanism of human right protection through

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creation of standard human beings would ensure survival of a prosperous democracy. Judiciary is an important component in making the role of the standard human being effective. Judiciary is not simply making judicial pronouncements or enforcing law in a case. Judiciary is the whole process of interpreting the social, political, economical and human rights to ensure that that wholesome life with dignity and distinction is sustained. In this effort, National Human Rights Commission becomes the eyes and ears and an impartial authority and work hand in hand with judiciary.

The edifice of natural justice to protect the human rights today stands exalted. , high on a pedestal that the whole world looks up to. The fundamental and over-riding importance of the system cannot be overstated and the need for constantly maintaining its purity not forgotten. There cannot be any erosion of values, corrosion of quality or any cobwebs in the procedure. The majesty of human rights has to be maintained with magnanimity and magnificence.

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Unity of Minds When I saw the subject " Universal Harmony Through Reverence For All Life", I was asking myself, what will be the components of such a mission? Will it consist of education system to generate enlightened citizens? That means, a combination of learning and value systems. This process can take place for twelve years during a child's education. This covers one third of the population at any point of time in our country. The second important component will be the religions graduating into spiritual movement. Third and most vital component is the poverty eradication by attaining economic prosperity resulting in high employment potential. Now the question we have in front of us is, will it eliminate the international terrorism?

Will it eliminate the cross border terrorism? Will it remove the communal clashes? Above all, will it remove the violence in mind and body? Peace of the Individual, thereby peace in the family, peace of the nation and thereby peace of our planet earth will emerge as given in the poetic divine message.

Where there is righteousness in the heart There is a beauty in the character.

When there is beauty in the character, there is harmony in the home.

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When there is harmony in the home.

There is a order in the nation.

When there is order in the nation, There is peace in the world.

Friends, we can see a beautiful connectivity between heart, character, nation and the world. This is indeed the purpose of human creation, that is divinity.

Now with this background I would like to share with you that "Universal Harmony Through Reverence For All Life" will come only through four missions which humanity has to take-up. What are they?

1. The human thinking in harmony with the dynamics of the universe.

2. Creation of enlightened citizens 3. Religion transforming into spirituality 4. The poverty elimination When I am in the midst of the elite gathering here, I recall a question asked by a school boy and girl recently during a personal interaction. The question was from Vikrant Nahal Arya of Sanskriti School and Rupanjali Lahiri of St Thomas School, New Delhi, They asked me a very simple question which led me to think. The question was : " Your birthday

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has recently gone by. What were your thoughts on that day?." They wanted to know what my birthday meant to me.

I replied, for me, I had completed 71 orbits around the sun, and had entered my 72nd orbit. Think of our Universe. I am amazed and always inspired by the dynamics of our universe. Our star (sun), its planets, every celestial object has a purpose. If the Earth stopped rotating around its axis, what would happen? No earth, no night, no day. If Sun does not orbit, sun will not be there. I told them that the sun also orbit around the Milky Way. It takes 250 million years for the sun to complete one orbit around Milky Way, our galaxy. Compare that to my 72nd orbits. I asked them what it meant. One single citizen completing 71 orbits. It is an insignificant event, compared to the dynamics of universe.

But human mind is innovative and can think and explore the marvels of universe. That was the reply I gave to the young school children.

The whole universe and milky way orbits in harmony. That is why there is human life in this planet. That is why there are plants and animals in this planet. When the whole universe can orbit in harmony, why the human creature created by the nature could not be in harmony with nature ?

The best part of a person is his or her childhood in school and the best time spent is 0800 Hrs to 1600 Hrs in the school. The prime learning environment is 5th to 16th years' of age. A student spends approximately 25,000 hours in the school campus. Of course at home, love and affection are imparted but again most of the time in a day is spent in

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preparing school's homework and study, eat, play and sleep.

Hence the school hours for children are the best time for learning and need the best of environment and mission oriented learning with value system. During this stage, they need value based education in school and at home for them to become good citizens. This reminds me the echo from Bestolozzy, a great teacher's saying, "give me a child for seven years. Afterwards, let the God or devil take the child.

They cannot change the child." For parents and teachers, school campus and home have to have an integrated mission: education with value system. If the child misses the value based education in the school, no government or society can establish a transparent society or a society with integrity. a. Universal mind I would like to recall an incident which happened four decades ago. As you all know, Prof Vikram Sarabhai is the visionary of space programme in the country. He is well known for his cosmic ray research area that led to evolving the space research programme for the nation. Both Dr Homi Bhabha and Prof Vikram Sarabhai were looking for a site to establish space research station in the equatorial region.

These two great scientists visited a number of places.

Thumba in Kerala was selected by the scientific community for space research as it was near the equatorial region and was ideally suited for ionospheric research in upper atmosphere apart from study of atmospheric structure. When Prof Vikram Sarabhai visited Thumba, the locality had

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series of villages and thousands of fishermen folk were living in that area. It also had a beautiful ancient church, St Mary Magdalene Church, Pallithura and a Bishop's House.

Prof Vikram Sarabhai met many politicians and bureaucrats to get the place for the work of space science research. It did not move further because the nature of the place. He was asked to see the Bishop of Trivandrum, at that time in 1962, His Excellency Rct Rev Dr Peter Bernard Pereira. It was a Saturday when Prof Vikram Sarabhai met the Bishop. The Bishop smiled and asked him to meet him the next day, ie Sunday. In the morning Service, the Bishop told the congregation, "my children, I have a famous scientist with me who wants our church and the place I live for the work of space science research. Dear children, science seeks truth by reasoning. In one way, science and spiritualism seek the same divine blessings for doing good for the people. My children, can we give the God's abode for a scientific mission?" There was a chorus of 'Amen' from the congregation and the whole church reverberated.

Subsequently, the big event took place in 1962. His Excellency Rct Rev Dr Peter Bernard Pereira, the Bishop of Trivandrum, took the noble decision to dedicate the church in recognition of the national goal for the establishment of the Indian Space Research Organisation at Pallithura, Thumba. That was the church where we had our design centre, started rocket assembly, design of filament winding machine for FRP product and the Bishop's house was our scientists' place. Later, the Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launching Station (TERLS) led to the establishment of

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Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC) and multiple space centres throughout the country.

When I think of this event, I can see how enlightened spiritual and scientific leaders, all converge towards giving reverence to the human life. New church and new schools were established in record time. Of course the birth of TERLS and then VSSC gave the country the capability of design, development and produce world class huge rocket system and subsequently, India has the capability of launching geo-synchronous, sun-synchronous and meteorology spacecraft, communication satellite, remote sensing satellite thereby provided fast communication, weather forecasting and also locate water resources for the country. Today, among us, Prof Vikram Sarabhai is not there, Rev Dr Peter Bernard Pereira is not there, but those who are responsible for creation and make the flower and blossom will themselves be a different kind of a flower as described in the Bhagwat Gita: "See the flower, how generously it distributes perfume and honey. It gives to all, gives freely of its love. When its work is done, it falls away quietly. Try to be like the flower, unassuming despite all its qualities". What a beautiful message for all generation of this nation, on integration of minds and universal mind. b. Noble Thoughts On one occasion, as I was leaving for Bangalore for a lecture, I spoke to my friend and told him that I would be talking to young people and whether he had any suggestions.

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He did not offer any suggestions as such but offered me the following words of wisdom. " When you speak, speak the truth; perform when you promise; discharge your trust?.

Withhold your hands from striking, and from taking that which is unlawful and bad?. " What actions are most excellence? To gladden the heart of a human being, to feed the hungry, to help the afflicted to lighten the sorrow of the sorrowful and to remove the wrongs of injured?

"All God's creatures are His family; and he is the most beloved of God who tries to do most good to God's creatures."

He said, these are the sayings of Prophet Mohammed. My friend who told me this is a great-grandson of Deekshidar of Tamil Nadu and Gnanapathigal (Vedic scholar ). Such an outlook is possible only in our country where many of our enlightened citizens go beyond their own religion and appreciate other religions also. This is a state of spiritualism a nation has to cherish.

Let us remember the Rig Veda: " Aano bhadrah kratavo yenthu vishwathaha." That is ," Let noble thoughts come to us from every side. " C. Message from Tawang

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I would like to share with you another important message which I experienced very recently, when I was visiting Arunachal Pradesh. I happened to spend a day in a Tawang Monastery, which has 400 year old history, located at an altitude of 3000 meters - a beautiful spiritual environment.

There, I met a gathering of monks, students, teachers and political leaders. I saw bright young faces with an urge to learn with creativity. A unique message was echoing in the Monastery. It looked to me that the message was part and parcel of students and teachers community. What is that message? I was asking myself. Who can enlighten and explain the message? I sought the help of the chief of the monks at the Tawang Monastery. I asked, 'Your Holiness, can you explain the message, with your vast experience of in this Monastery, the most important part of learning particularly in the present environment of our country". The respected Buddhist Monk told me, "India is a nation of peace. India lives as a spiritual and peaceful nation. The peace should engulf our nation. This monastery spreads: when you remove "I" and "ME" from your mind, you will eliminate ego; if you eliminate ego, hatred towards fellow human beings vanish; If the hatred go out of our mind, violence will not spring from human mind and then peace and peace and peace will blossom. I bless my nation". This divine message was born in Tawang Monastery.

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

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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

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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.

Reverence for life is indeed possible in real sense if a philosophical thought of reverence can be transformed into actions by empowering various components of the society.

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.

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Noble Mission Yet another concern I have, today in India, we do not have Cochlear Implant manufacturing units. Cochlear implant helps the deaf and dumb child to regain near normal hearing capabilities. Basically it is by-passing the damaged inner ear portion by replacing its functions with an electronic system having external mike, speech processing circuit, transmitter and an receiver. The receiver is implanted below the ear.

The receiver has an electrode which will be inserted into the cochlea portion of the ear. Speech processor processes the input audio signals and converts them into electrical signals in various channels. The transmitter transmits these signals to the implant's multi channel electrode which terminates in various points of the of the cochlea. 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 should be 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.

One of the important concerns is to provide easy accessibility to public buildings, schools, colleges, banks, transport etc. I understand Delhi Metro Rail Corporation has made proper provisions for the benefit of those who are physically challenged. We should make all efforts to provide

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conducive working environment with easy accessibility. A triangular approach to handle, educate and empower the disabled has to be in place with parents, teachers and social service/health care agencies. Technological and industrial partners in this effort should aim at providing affordable devices and dependable services.

Assistive devices can often minimize handicaps. While we have developed many new and useful items, we need to pay attention to quality as well as costing. R&D in this field is vital. We must harness IT to improve access to the printed word for persons with visual impairment. While text in English can be scanned, transferred to the computer and heard through voice software, this facility is not yet available for the Indian languages. Efficient conversion to Braille has also not been achieved. While material in English can easily be transcribed in Braille, again this facility is not available for Indian languages. Consequently, availability of text books in the Indian languages in Braille is still limited and production is costly and time consuming.

We should develop the necessary software quickly to meet this need.

I understand, more than 500 million persons -- 10 per cent of the world's population, an estimated 80 per cent of them living in the developing world -- suffer from some type of physical, mental or sensory impairment. We have to make efforts to ensure that disabled persons get equal opportunities and they do not remain isolated in many societies. We have to provide "equalization of opportunity"

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for persons with disabilities by providing seemingly simple, basic, and obvious services as access ramps and sidewalk indentations for the convenience of the disabled people. We need to realize the fact that this society is for all, encompassing human diversity and the development of the human potential in each person.

I am sure Internet will play a major role in rehabilitation measures of disabled. I visualize a scene in which all disabled have to become part of the Internet culture. We can have access to information. Lack of access to the right information at the right time is equally a bothering concern for the disabled. Internet provides solution to these types of problems. On-line shopping and online transaction to pay various government service departments have greatly helped to minimize the movement. A separate study to understand and explore various strengths of the disabled persons may be carried-out. Internet can assist them in having a virtual online - e-mail groups etc. Physical mobility of the disabled may be minimized or eliminated by the virtual office concepts in which people are allowed to work from their homes through computers and deliver their work output to their offices online.

Rehabilitation process should aim at enabling persons with disabilities to reach and maintain their optimal physical, sensory, intellectual, psychiatric and/or social functional levels, thus providing them with the tools to change their lives towards a higher level of independence. Rehabilitation process has to include measures to provide and/or restore

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functions, or compensate for the loss or absence of a function or for a functional limitation. It should include a wide range of measures and activities from more basic and general rehabilitation to goal-oriented activities, for instance vocational rehabilitation.

I am aware that advanced composites technologies are helping the disabled to have the lost leg - endo skeletal artificial limbs. I could see the happiness of the recipients in Bhuj after earthquake disaster. Plastics help easy making of Braille by visually handicapped. These types of technologies should be adopted on a large scale.

We should work for the process through which the various systems of society and the environment, such as services, activities, information and documentation, are made available to all, particularly to persons with disabilities. The principle of equal rights implies that the needs of each and every individual are of equal importance, that those needs must be made the basis for the planning of societies and that all resources must be employed in such a way as to ensure that every individual has equal opportunity for participation.

They should receive the support they need within the ordinary structures of education, health, employment and social services. As persons with disabilities achieve equal rights, they should also have equal obligations. As those rights are being achieved, societies should raise their expectations of persons with disabilities. As part of the process of equal opportunities, provision should be made to

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assist persons with disabilities to assume their full responsibility as members of society.

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Future Warfare and the role of Young officers Let us see the different faces of warfare and how they have evolved. We had initially human power on animal platform and primitive weapons, with which well-built people were fighting; next came mechanized warfare and now we are entering the era of automatic warfare - satellite warfare and space warfare. Many people say that conventional warfare is no more there and non-conventional warfare (nuclear warfare) is here to stay. But in the coming centuries, nuclear warfare will be replaced by low-intensity conflicts or both will co-exist. It is already prevalent in developing world and it will spread to the developed world also, shaped by advancing information technology. Along with the different types of warfare, the tools also changed. Initially religion was used as a driving force, then came ideology and now in these days of economic competition control of market forces will be the weapon with high technology as the tool. It will be interesting to look at the historical perspectives of past wars and invasions into our nation.

I wish to share the question that is bothering me for a long time. If we look from the time of Alexander, the great, our nation was frequently invaded. Many people invaded one after other. Even Afghans invaded. Then the British came, the French, the Dutch, the Portuguese and others from central Asian Nations. Why India has always been invaded?

On the other hand during last 2500 years has India anytime invaded any nation? No. Why? We have few cases in which we had spiritual movement to spread Buddhism. We had

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spread of our civilization. India has always been leading the civilization heritage by respecting other civilizations, countries and communities. But now we have to understand, for a country to live in peace, we need to have economic prosperity and national security. Strength respects strength.

While the development of economic prosperity of the nation is being supported by wider cross section of peoples from industrial sector, agriculture sector and service sector, the national security primarily lies in the hands of our armed forces. The armed forces have equal responsibilities in maintaining peace in the country.

I would like to share with you friends, some of the predictions of Ray Kurzweil written in his book "When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence - The Age of Spiritual Machines". World Wide Web will make tremendous impact in the way we communicate and live.

Most of the computers and accessories will be of micro sized, wearable and will have wireless communications with each other. Moderately priced PCs capable of performing about billion calculations per second today, will be able to perform about trillion calculations per second with in next 10 years. And by 2020 computational ability of an ordinary PC will exceed the capability of human brain. By 2030 the capability of a normal PC would be around 1000 times of human capability.

By the end of this century there would be a strong trend towards merger of human thinking with the world of machine intelligence that the human species initially created.

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When there would no longer be any clear distinction between human and computers, how are we going to retain the supremacy of man over machines? Computers are going to give us a challenge. Entire human community would have greater responsibility of keeping the mankind above the man-made computers. Fortunately, the creativity, imagination and dreaming will keep human race always supreme. The human genome is full of software that is yet to be activated to unleash the ingenious potentials of human spices. You have the key. Harnessing the hidden potential of a soldier will be a winning factor in the future battle.

There are three type of warfare - biological, chemical and nuclear, all in operation stage in the world. I have come across a study which says 300 kgs of sarin gas could kill about a few thousand people in an area of 0.2 sq.km, 1.5 kiloton TNT equivalent nuclear device could kill 50 to 100 thousand people in an area of 7.5 sq. kms, 30 kg of anthrax, say in the form of a cigar, can kill 100 thousand people. This one is tremendously dangerous compared even to the nuclear weapon. NBC warfare is a major threat for the armed forces world over.

Let me share some extracts from the book "Future Warfare".

The book says "Among the things that move between the two poles, war alone permits and demands the commitment of all the faculties of man, the highest as also the lowest".

This is not to advocate war but to show the brutality, ruthlessness, courage, determination, sheer power and strategy considered necessary for the conduct of armed

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conflicts.

In the next two decades antiballistic missile defence systems are going to be the major force, after which space systems and strategic military satellites will come in a big way, to guard against nuclear weapons attack. Despite the noise made against nuclear proliferation by them, the advanced countries are never going to reach the state of zero nuclear weapon under the NPT missile control technology regime.

The countries responsible for proliferation of nuclear weapons are USA and Russia, and India has certain responsibilities when our neighbors have nuclear capabilities. As far as technology control regimes are concerned, the only answer we must have is in the critical technology area. The motive behind technology denial and NPT and MCTR is to control the market forces and gain domination.

The key to becoming strong nation is to have economic and military strength. India is capable of technological advancement. Starting with the Pokhran explosion in 1974 and the Green Revolution we have some expertise in launch vehicle technology, remote sensing satellites, communication satellites, some missiles, tanks, light combat aircraft, communications and super computers.

Unfortunately they seem to be islands of progress. Now a movement has started for the integration of national capabilities. Therefore technology is going to be important for future warfare scenarios. We now have a plan of self

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reliance in defence systems approved by the government.

The present 30% - 40% of self reliance has to be improved to about 70% in the next five years.

The global threat to peace has assumed a new dimension after the 11th September attack on WTC by terrorists. The insurgency, alienation, narcotics and instigated communal conflicts may ultimately culminate in the forms of terrorism.

The terrorist armed with technology be it nuclear, chemical or biological warfare agents need to be handled by the defence forces besides other forces. Future terrorist action would have economic assets, communication networks and large population centres as targets. Terrorism in every form needs to be countered and curtailed in its initial stages itself.

The armed forces have a significant role in this mission of national defence as we have witnessed in J&K and North East where our armed forces are doing yeoman service in counter insurgency operations.

For the 21st Century, particularly for this decade I visualise in the Indian scene, five major technological revolutions taking place : 1. Integration of multiple technologies of supersonic aircraft, missiles, and spacecraft to transform into an unmanned supersonic long-range and low radar cross section vehicles.

This will replace manned fighter aircraft.

2. India will progress the design of a hyperplane - a reusable hypersonic missile as well as a cost effective launch vehicle

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(15%

payload

factor

in

place

of

present

3%).

3. Anti ballistic missile with its satellite network, to protect land and airspace, will become an integral part of the national defence. This will have capability to counter nuclear weapons.

4. Supersonic cruise missiles will replace the current generation of subsonic cruise missiles. These missiles are low radar detective will be difficult to detect and will give very short reaction time for the enemy's defences.

5. Information warfare will dominate the future war with adversaries trying to break into each others computer network to gain control of the vital resources. Information Warfare will be more lethal compared to Nuclear tipped Missiles. India can take the initiatives through the Information technology for obtaining this strength.

The dimensions of warfare have changed the world over in the last five decades , particularly in the environment of new technology of aerospace vehicle, communication and computers. The Information technology is all pervasive. To day its growth has a tremendous influence on the national economy, the war theatre, health sector and education. The Information Technology area even though in the initial phase, had full support and thrust, from Defence Establishments, in the last one decade the Information technology is revolutionising on its own driven primarily by commercial forces. The Information Technology level is

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calibrated through two major technological bench marks.

One is India's supercomputer status and the other is development of India's own microprocessor. With the network of multiple sensors and communication network in supercomputer environment together with our own microprocessor, a tremendous effort is possible to realise a Dominant Battlefield Knowledge (DBK). The DBK needed can be developed through our core competence to meet unified battlefield strategy.

Let us discuss the effectiveness of weapons in the IT environment. For example in respect of military dominance, range, lethality and speed are very vital. It is in the networked environment you have the advantage of having both range as well as speed. Organisation evolution, information technology evolution and access control evolution are discussed to highlight, graduation of information technology reaching anyone, anywhere and anytime. What can be the defence strategy in this environment? It can be seen that open algorithm will have to gradually graduate to own algorithm, own software with encrypted system. In the cryptography with its two components encryption and decryption will have the dominance particularly in the Armed forces Force environment: a) It is essential for us to encourage research in cryptography and generate a trust in private companies and individuals that their information is indeed secure.

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b) India has a good research base for this c) Initiate a national debate for a secure information interchange policy for India. d) Initiate a Inter-country debate for cross border terrorism e) communication and cryptographic standards f) A national security policy and a global security information technology policy need to be generated.

The future officers of the armed forces, particularly young officers have a new role. The new role is to equip ourselves to combat the technology driven warfare. The whole war environment could be electronically controlled combined with space encounters, deep sea encounters, and ballistic missiles encounters. The winner of future warfare will be the officers, who can visualize the strength of the enemy, not based on the previous war but based on the current capabilities, and technological advancements in global scenario. Now the officers have got greater responsibilities of keeping an eye on technological advancements in addition to keeping an eye on borders of our country.

Our armed force officers will have to get trained in virtual reality based simulated warfronts of all the terrains and all extreme conditions of attacks. Walk through during a space attack, chemical attack, nuclear attacks and electronic encounters need to be visualized and proper counter actions

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measures need to be practiced. The future battle field would require a synergized team work with joint services operation and use of aero space and ocean as important war theatres.

Future soldiers and officers will also have to be knowledge workers.

Above all winners will be soldiers in the frontlines carrying maximum payload of weapon, life support systems and communication kits with minimum weight. Every gram weight saving of soldiers payload has to cover either one of the three. In the Physiological, psychological and Electronic Warfare - Computers with intelligent software will fight in the place of ballistic missiles and laser weapons. They will be more powerful- which will be in light speed - to destroy the economic stability of a country -with destructive capacity exceeding that of nuclear weapons. It is lethal weapon to destroy economic connectivity. Dear young officers you will have the opportunity to see that kind of technology intensive battle field. Develop all round capabilities to emerge as the best and most powerful armed forces at the global level.

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Genetic Engineering Several major crops plants, including corn, oilseed canola, soyabean, and cotton, have been engineered with genes that make them resistant to insects, pests or to herbicides, so that farmers can apply the weed killer without fear of wiping out their budding crop. The benefits derived from these varieties include the reduced use of insecticides and herbicides, thus reducing soil and groundwater pollution, and reduced tillage that results in topsoil loss. Also, scientists recently developed a technology to bioengineer salt-tolerant plants by over-expressing a single gene. This development could be applied for sugar cultivation in certain parts of our country where salt content is more in soil.

India is rich in herbs, germ-plasm and micro-organisms.

Industrially developed countries are importing these bioresources in the raw forms and add value to them for export to developing countries including India as special seeds, medicines and bio-materials, fully protecting patents of such products. Instead of allowing export of such resources and importing value added products at high cost, India must add its own technology for conversion of such resources to value added products for use in domestic requirement and also for export. An improved sugarcane variety can be given for commercial cultivation within a span of 7-8 years. Similarly herbal molecule to drug conversion also takes about 8-10 years since it involves various types of tests from lab to clinical. Efforts need to be made to minimize large time durations for realizing the economic benefits particularly in

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herbal and sugarcane areas. Development of sugarcane crops which are high breed variety for high yield, more sugar content and crystal clear sugar need to be focused.

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 for the nation in the form of better health, education, infrastructure and other social indicators. Such a knowledge society has two very important components driven by societal transformation and wealth generation. The societal transformation has to be through large-scale development in education, healthcare, agriculture and governance. These in turn will lead to employment generation, high productivity and rural prosperity. How do we do that?

Recognising this, the Planning Commission of India had formed a task force to evolve plan of actions for transforming India into a knowledge superpower. This team has identified wealth generation as a very important task for the nation, which has to be woven around national competencies. The task team has also identified core areas that will spearhead our march towards knowledge society.

The areas are: Information & Communication Technology, bio-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,

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fortunately, can be interwoven by IT. IT took off only due to enterprising spirit of the young. Hence multiple technologies and management structure that have to get integrated to generate knowledge society. It has to be recognised that the difference between an IT-driven society and a knowledgedriven 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 capitalise the opportunity to transform into a knowledge society. The foundation for a knowledge society is the societal transformation which demands transparent Government.

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Multi Dimension of Technology I would like to share with you friends, some of the predictions of Ray Kurzweil written in his book "When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence - The Age Of Spiritual Machines". World Wide Web will make tremendous impact in the way we communicate and live.

Most of the computers and accessories will be of micro sized, wearable and will have wireless communications with each other. Moderately priced PCs capable of performing about billion calculations per second today, will be able to perform about trillion calculations per second with in next 10 years. And by 2020 computational ability of an ordinary PC will exceed the capability of human brain. By 2030 the capability of a normal PC would be around 1000 times of human capability.

By the end of this century there would be a strong trend towards merger of human thinking with the world of machine intelligence that the human species initially created.

When there would no longer be any clear distinction between human and computers, how are we, the molecular biologists would help us to retain the supremacy of man over machines? Computers are going to give us a challenge.

It is not only for the biologists and bio-technologists, the entire scientific community would have greater responsibility of keeping the mankind above the man-made computers. Fortunately, the creativity and imagination components of human has not been fully explored and utilized. The human genome is full of software that is yet to

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be activated to unleash the ingenious potentials of human spices. You have the key.

Time has come for our scientific community to prove our abilities in the field of bio-science and bio-technology for harnessing these technologies in multiple fields for wealth generation for societal transformation as we have accomplished in the field of information technology.

Technology is the most nonlinear tool that can effect the most fundamental changes in the ground rules of economic competitiveness. Science is linked to technology through applications. Technology is linked to economy and environment through manufacture. Economy and environment link Technology to the society One of the core competencies of India is Bio Diversity. Bio Diversity and technology combined will yield value added products. A few countries like India, China, Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico, Malaysia etc., are very rich in biodiversity. Technology is needed for developing a genetically engineered seed or transforming a molecule extracted from the herb into a drug. Today technologically advanced nations are USA, Japan, France, Germany, UK etc. India to become a developed nation, what is needed is high productivity in agriculture, biodiversity material and technology integration. There are some regions in desert nations where biodiversity and technology are poor. Today there is no nation having rich bio-diversity and high technology together. Therefore the challenge is integration

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of technological best and abundant biodiversity. I dream that Indian scientists discover hundreds of herbal based molecules leading to value added pharmaceutical drugs for domestic and global needs.

India is rich in herbs, germ-plasm and micro-organisms.

Industrially developed countries are importing these bioresources in the raw forms and add value to them for export to developing countries including India as special seeds, medicines and bio-materials, fully protecting patents of such products. Instead of allowing export of such resources and importing value added products at high cost, India must add its own technology for conversion of such resources to value added products for use in domestic requirement and also for export.

I would like to share my experiences while I was in Anna University, Chennai. An unique research effort resulted in getting a patent for a new molecule discovered from a herb as an anti cancer drug. This came out of the fusion of two great minds, one was a bio technologist and the other was a traditional siddha medical practitioner. The traditional system of medicine like Ayurveda, Siddha etc have advocated and practiced preventive and curative medicinal recipes specific to individuals. The body, mind, food and environment were looked at holistically to suggest a preventive or curative approach to health. New technologies such as human genome sequencing, proteomics, pharmacogenomics, ultra high throughput screening are revolutionizing drug discovery. Medicinal plants offer

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enormous scope for development of drugs. We need to create database of traditional medicinal plants for specific bioactivity and lead for development of new drugs. India has got tremendous potentials for herbal farming and research.

Other experiments were to find a hardware-software integrated solution to bring back a near normal life for mentally challenged children. During our preliminary studies I have seen tremendous scope for bio-medical electronics and embedded software. Also, we were exploring to indigenize the cochlear implant to revive hearing capabilities for the severe to profound damaged auditory system. On reviving the hearing, IT based training could be given to develop normal speech. Our scientists have also successfully developed a bacteria to absorb the oil spillage on the sea bed and dis-integrate the oil into eco-friendly soluble.

A report on "Health Care in India" has been prepared by a panel of leading doctors and medical technologists in the country. It reports the typical problems facing us for two decades in the health care and possible solutions. The expert team has identified eradication of three major diseases viz.

Tuberculosis, HIV and water-borne diseases, by next decade followed by cardiovascular diseases, neuro-psychiatric disorders, renal diseases and hypertension, gastrointestinal disorders, eye disorders, genetic diseases, accidents and trauma, which need our attention. We should see how the advancement in technology could be put to use to improve

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the health care system of the country, to cope up with such problems. Such an effort will make cost effective medical technology and devices available and accessible to all the citizens of our country. This will contribute for nation's progress as a strong body and sound minds are essential to accomplish anything.

The report has brought out multidimensions of health care problems in our country. The Vision of providing affordable and effective healthcare to our entire population goes much beyond the capability of any individual, institution or organisation. Technology is an important tool to give fast healthcare and we have to seek its help. This vision has to became a multi-organisational missions leading to the generation of thousands of Goal oriented projects. These projects will have to be supported and nurtured not only by the Government, but also by our industry and philanthropic organisations. The most important ingredient of such a multi-organisational mission will be the leadership decentralised and yet linked together. For example the academic institutions which do research on various technological systems, will be tools for medical-care have to be fed to their knowledge to the industries which not only productionise cost effective medical products but also adopt nearby villages for medical care coupled with education.

The hospitals of medical research centres can have umbilical with other R&D organisations for developing indigenous medical care equipments, devices and consumables.

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The interfacing between medical science and various other technologies has given rise to numerous techniques both curative and investigative and has provided the research worker with numerous tools to pry into the working of various physiological functions right up to the molecular levels. Developments in bio-technology and molecular biology have now made it possible not only to design drugs for specific properties but also to deliver them to the specific sites where they are most required. Newer imaging techniques have now made it possible to obtain real time images of the various organs at a physiological and biological level and hence the right treatment is possible.

We can now identify not only the genes that cause disease but also correct the defects through gene therapy. Recent breakthroughs in stem cell research are likely to lead to the regeneration of diseased organs.

The role of genes in heart diseases and stroke is now universally accepted. The apo-B gene is responsible for the cholesterol management in the body. My friend, Dr. B. Soma Raju informs me that as a clinician he is looking toward two major approaches for gene therapy for heart diseases: treating the heart muscle itself and treating veins and arteries. Molecular biology will also have a clear impact on the science and practice of psychiatry in near future.

World population today has crossed the mark of six billion of which a vast majority do not have even the basic needs such as drinking water, food and shelter. Population growth needs to be checked on priority through concerted effort by

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developing new methods and devices which will be acceptable to the masses including those with low literacy levels and living in rural and remote areas. Reversible and long acting contraceptive methods including those of plant origin and immunological methods could be evolved.

Application of BIO-MEMS in delivering the birth control pharmaceuticals through sub-dermal implants may be another approach which you may like to consider.

Improving maternal health and reducing infant mortality should be ensured if population control methods need to succeed. A refocus on reproductive health profile is needed for ensuring a healthy progeny. Genetic flaws are responsible for a fifth of all infant mortality, half of all miscarriages and up to 80% all mental retardation.

In spite of the fact that the average lifespan of population has significantly increased in the recent years including those in developing nations like India, the overall health profile has shown a decline with emergence of new threats like HIV/ AIDS and resurgence of eradicated diseases like small box, controlled diseases like malaria showing virulence due to drug resistance and mutation of different strains. We may need to develop effective vaccines and novel pharmaceutical approach to control the menace of such major health problems. In our national context HIV/TB and Malaria need a special attention. Can we evolve an empowered consortium and integrated approach to find permanent and long lasting solutions? Incidents of noncommunicable, stress related and psycho somatic diseases

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are showing a steep rise due to life style changes of modern human being. The mind-body-spirit in the control and management of such illness may be more effective. Biomedical scientists need to adopt such holistic approach to health care delivery.

Preventive cardiology needs to be given a focus for a large country like ours, since cardiac care of the patients is rather expensive. Lifestyle changes which have occurred in the recent past in our society due to cultural invasion have brought with it the inevitable increase in stress level, the preference for high fat diet and sedentary life has become an important epidemiological risk factor. Due to this, there is a steep increase in the incidence of cardiac diseases, particularly among the youth and the adult population in the early years of life. One of our DRDO laboratories, the Defence Institute of Physiology and Allied Sciences (DIPAS) is conducting a very interesting research study sponsored by Ministry of Health on regression of coronary artery disease by lifestyle changes including meditation, low fat high fibre diet and regular aerobic exercise like walking.

This study is being progressed in collaboration with Global Hospital and Research Centre at Mount Abu. I visited that hospital a couple of months ago and talked to some of the patients who are undergoing the lifestyle intervention programme and also discussed with our scientists. I was delighted to see the remarkable improvement in the cardiac health status and quality of life of the patients as assessed by the psycho-neuro-immunological parameters in the well

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controlled study. Similar efforts using non-drug methods of management of these patients will help in reducing the cost of cardiac healthcare in India.

Environmental Pollution, particularly in the Himalayan region is a special issue to be addressed by biologists like you. A number of people visit Himalayas for various purposes which lead to accumulation of waste materials.

Can the biologists and bio-technologists collectively find a solution for human waste management through biodegradation identifying appropriate psychrophyllic bacteria and through genetic engineering? Can they develop more effective strains which can survive at sub-zero temperatures and effect bio-degradations? There are few accomplishments in this direction which need to be further improved upon to develop practically deployable solutions.

The global economy, particularly in the WTO environment, competitiveness will be very important and should become part of building the economy of the nation. It is essential for India to have continuous research and data generation to protect the Intellectual Property Rights. Code of ethics and IPR guidelines have to be streamlined based on the global standards and a nationwide awareness and adherence need to be established. This will ensure protection of our Intellectual Property Rights and ancient wisdom in addition to upholding our scientific credibility in international forums.

Also rigorous sustained experimentation of ancient knowledge is required to understand its scientific rationale for IPR protection. Various islands of excellence, the

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research institutions, need to be connected on-line for sharing their expertise across the boundaries of the institutions to excel nation as a whole by bringing synergized research efforts.

Bio-diversity is a gift of nature. It will give us economic strength. It will be a healer. Scientific research and technological advancements have to go together. Researches in pharmaceutical industries have to work together to provide cost effective herbal drugs to common man, as the herbal drugs will have least side effects fortunately. Friends, during this brief talk, I could give some glimpses of exiting possibilities for India and also about the emerging possibilities of research in the world. There are a number of areas in which India can lead and give benefit to its people, to eliminate poverty, to give better health and also to make a prosperous India. Our scientific and technological community while sharing this excitement may also concentrate on a few areas to make India greater. This should be not only to achieve a great name for India but also to create global business. Young persons in this country are eagerly waiting for such opportunities and intellectual challenges for them. India's rich bio-diversity and the traditional knowledge base give us a unique advantage. I am confident that India can achieve it.

I would like to conclude with the words of Jeff Lyon and Peter Gorner in Altered Fates, "We humans have evolved intellectually to the point that, relatively soon, we will be able to understand the composition, function, and dynamics

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of the genome in much of its intimidating complexity.

Emotionally, however we are still apes, With all the behavioral baggage that brings to the issue. Perhaps one day our spices will rise above it baser heritage and learn to apply its new knowledge wisely."

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Web of Life A report on "Health Care in India" was prepared in consultation with leading doctors, medical technologists and healthcare providers in the country. The report brought out typical problems facing us for two decades in the health care and suggested possible solutions. The expert team has identified eradication of three major diseases namely, Tuberculosis, HIV and water-borne diseases by next decade; followed by cardiovascular diseases, neuro-psychiatric disorders, renal diseases and hypertension, gastrointestinal disorders, eye disorders, genetic diseases, accidents and trauma, which need our attention.

There are two major issues involved. First, we have to augment our primary healthcare system in a big way, empower our secondary healthcare system and integrate both with the tertiary care centres. Second, we should see how the advancement in technology could be put to use to improve the health care system of the country. These two efforts will make modern medicine available and accessible to all the citizens of our country. This will contribute for nation's progress as a strong body and sound minds of the citizens are essential to accomplish development.

The Vision of providing affordable and effective healthcare to our entire population goes much beyond the capability of any individual, institution or organisation. Large amount of resources, both financial and in terms of the skills are required. This vision need to be developed into multi-

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organisational missions leading to the generation of thousands of goal oriented projects. These projects will have to be supported and nurtured not only by the Government, but also by our industry and philanthropic organisations. The most important ingredient of such a multi-organisational mission will be the leadership, decentralised and yet linked together. I have seen this happening successfully.

Telemedicine system providing to the district hospitals expert medical diagnostics and treatment advises.

For the development of indigenous medical products, institutions which do research on various technological systems that are the tools for medical-care, have to be fed with the clinical knowledge. The medico-technical knowledge must then go to the industries which not only productionise cost effective medical products but also adopt nearby villages for medical care coupled with education.

The hospitals of medical research centres can have umbilical with other R&D organisations for developing indigenous medi-care equipments, devices and consumables. I can recall in 1993, we established the Society for Biomedical Technology here at NIMS. In the years that followed there was a great wave of development of medical devices - FRO, catheters, stent, cyto scan system and telemedicine system.

In October 2002, in Almora, Uttaranchal a mobile clinic has been deployed that carry healthcare to the doorstep of the people. It has visited 50 villages and already treated more than one thousand patients who wouldn't have afforded treatment otherwise. I have just seen indigenously developed

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digital cath lab at the CARE hospital. It demonstrates the success of multi disciplinary partnership and technology integration.

The interfacing between medical science, electronics, material science and engineering has given rise to techniques both investigative and curative and has provided the research worker with numerous tools to apply into the working of various physiological functions right up to the molecular levels. Developments in bio-technology and molecular biology have now made it possible not only to design drugs for specific properties but also to deliver them to the specific sites where they are most required. Newer imaging techniques have now made it possible to obtain real time images of the various organs at a physiological and biological level and hence the right treatment is possible.

With the present trend of progress in research and development endeavours in the field of bio-medical technology and pharmaceutical sciences, healthcare will assume a new dimension in the 21st century. Certain newer concepts that have emerged will find application. Some of these are: Electronic Citizen Card with basic health data.

Availability of quality healthcare at affordable cost Use of teleconferencing and tele-sensing to interact with the patients.

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Surgical procedures demonstration using Net-based video.

Knowledge systems to provide expert advice.

Electronic patient records to provide bio-medical information leading to empowerment to make decisions.

Embedded software for telemedicine and tele-surgery including intelligent data-mining for patient treatment and visualization tools.

Health and nutrition broadcast in electronic media including internet.

Our country is rich in human resources, particularly of scientists, doctors, technologists and engineers. The basic infrastructure is available for the advanced research. The need of the hour is to network the existing facilities and expertise with commitment and conviction to augment and facilitate the pace of research and development. There are tremendous opportunities for technologists to work for an 'Integrated Health For All' in a mission mode which can be suitably evolved for implementation. The mission may include: Networking of medical universities, institutions, R&D Labs, industries and social organisations in key areas of assistance to the handicapped and disabled.

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Networked insurance scheme for healthcare coverage Launching of awareness-cum-prevention programmes to check the growing incidence of TB, Cancer and HIV. Creating a nationwide cold storage chain for polio and other temperature sensitive vaccines.

Conducting hospital linked diploma level courses on medical technology maintenance at the state technical education institutions.

Establishing an industry-supported system for maintenance and upgradation of medical equipment.

Productionising selective assistive devices like hearing aids and medical consumables like electrodes, catheters and leads etc.

There is a need to redesign and transform our healthcare system. An action plan can be drawn that may include prime focus areas like prevention, diagnostics and treatment. The prevention will include sanitation, availability of safe drinking water, basic education and nutritional awareness.

The diagnostics will include availability of X-ray, Ultrasound and ECG at every PHC and a CT scan and Colour Doppler at every district hospital. Both would be linked to Tertiary care hospital by telemedicine. Tertiary

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care hospitals will focus on interventional technologies such as angioplasty, brachytherapy, prosthetics, and molecular level management of immune, endocrine and other systems.

Rapid developments are daily events in healthcare delivery worldwide. The combined impacts of new, some even revolutionary technologies, advanced management practices, have created transformations of the mode and means of healthcare delivery. The redesign of healthcare institutions is leading to reshaping the hospital as the main form of healthcare delivery. Other institutions in the healthcare environment are also undergoing radical modifications. All of this is creating challenges and opportunities for researchers and practitioners in "bringing together technology, health care, and management." We will have to gather researchers who are exploring the bridging of these three components of healthcare delivery-with an eye toward the future-and practitioners who are interested in these topics. How will healthcare delivery institutions be shaped in the future? What are the trends and transformations that await us in the coming years? How are we going to merge technology, management, and medicine into a workable and economically feasible combination? What are the barriers that we shall certainly encounter, and how can we overcome them? And, what are the research questions that we should be addressing in this regard?

The following areas will gain highest significance in the future of Healthcare Sector:

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a. Management of technology in healthcare organizations: nature of work and skills in healthcare delivery; processes and performance; knowledge management in health care; strategies for technological positioning in hospitals; managed care and cost controls; uses of technology in primary care; logistics, infrastructure, and architecture of the hospital of the future. b. Management and organization of information technology (IT) in healthcare organizations: applications and processes in the implementation and diffusion of IT in health care; role of standards in communication and organization, networking by using IT; computerized medical records. c.Organization, management, and applications of emerging medical technologies, e-health, tele-health, and telemedicine: role of these emerging technologies; processes, barriers, and organizational issues in the implementation and adoption of these technologies. d. Medical technologies and patient value: how medical technologies contribute value to the patients; the role of patient confidentiality in view of technological developments; ethical issues; healthcare technologies and medical outcomes; the role of standards, regulations, government, and their impacts on medical technologies and the value to patients. e. Medical technologies and emergency medicine: how health care and medical technologies contribute and will

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continue to contribute to emergency medicine, crisis healthcare delivery, and health care in catastrophic situations.

Friends, a nation is great, not because a few people are great, but because every one in the nation is great. I wish you all to excel in your life as specialist doctors and above all the best human beings with traditional value system and societal care. The challenge in the mission of the developed India calls for an important cohesive and focused efforts of the young. To a very large extent the major problem of healthcare is the genesis of disability. Any rehabilitation effort can be made successful only by integrating healthcare with economic activity at the community level. Multiple agencies in our social system - local government, education, business, healthcare - must be brought together. I visualise the clinical connectivity planned to link PHCs will eventually blossom into 'Web of Life' holding together and feeding the grassroot of our Society with nutrients of our technological strength and industrial prosperity.

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Vision and Leadership I am indeed delighted to be with ISRO community at Vikram Sarabhai Space center Thiruvanandapuram and deliver the first memorial lecture of Prof. Satiish Dhawan. I cherish all the great memories in spending twenty years with all of you. I walked with you in the valley hills and Thumba beach, shared our dreams, lessons of failures and excitements of successes. I witnessed the growth of ISRO from those days of MET rocket launching from Thumba to the mighty SLV3. Now you have further grown to launch mightier PSLV and GSLV injecting IRS and INSAT III class of satellites.

When I was recently with a group of students, we watched together a set of displays, including SLV-3, PSLV and GSLV models to the same scale. As children are always innocent, one child quipped "uncle! Were you doing such a small project"? Friends! I was thrilled at the statement of the child as it spontaneously reflected the enormous rate of progress of the technology. It is also so nice and fulfilling to note the stupendous performance of the further generation of engineers/technicians /staff. 40 kg was the capability of SLV-3 in low earth orbit and the capability of GSLV in such orbit is more than 125 times. How were such achievements in a forefront, which is the exclusive domain of only six nations made possible? It is by the sustained effortsof all of you with strong leadership. Institutional framework is very much important to growth of organisations and delivering results. India has made great strides in national resource

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management through space technology only because almost every department of Government of India, industries, academic institutions and several nongovernmental organisations are networked in these efforts. What a great leap forward.

At this hour I cannot forget our Guru's, the visionary leaders, who influenced my thoughts and deeds. Dr. Vikram Sarabhai, Prof. Satish Dhawan and Dr. Brahm Prakash.

Today, I would like to share with you my thoughts on professor Satish Dhawan in this memorial lecture, which I always cherish.

Satish Dhawan was a distinguished academisian, a great leader of technology, a builder of Institutions, a philosopher, and integrater of minds, and above all a magnanimous human being. He electrified ISRO towards unified effort to achieve great missions. He laid a strong foundation of space technology above personalities and at the same time encouraged younger leaders to come to lime light. He systematically planned and evolved ISRO missions integrating launch vehicles, satellites and application programs, and infrastructure build-up. Today we see ISRO as a successful organization benefiting the society. What a great leadership.

When I think of Prof. Dhawan, many incidences come to my mind. I would like to share with you again, one important incident, which is a valuable lesson to the younger generation. Friends, many of you know about the first

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experimental launch of SLV3 on 10th August 1979. The vehicle took-off beautifully at T-0 and the first stage gave predicted performance. The second stage was initiated, but within a few seconds we witnessed the vehicle in a tumbling motion and we lost the flight to the Bay of Bengal. It was 8 am in the morning. The whole team inspite of all its day and night hard work and sweat, they were busy in collecting the data and was trying to establish the reason for the flight failure. Meanwhile, I was called by Prof Satish Dhavan to attend a press conference. Before the press conference, Prof.

Satish Dhawan told me he is going to handle the situation and I should be present with many of the senior scientists and technologists. The press conference room was full with media. There was gloom , many questions were posed, some very powerful, thoughtful and also criticisms. Prof Satish Dhawan, announced " Friends, today we had the experimental launch of SLV3 to put ROHINI satellite in the orbit. It was a partial success. It is our first mission of proving multiple technologies in a launch vehicle. We have proved many technologies in this launch but still we have to prove some more. We have tumbled but not fallen flat.

Above all I realise my team members have to be given all the technological support for the next mission to succeed".

Subsequently, a failure analysis board was formed to establish the cause.

Now I will move to the second mission of SLV-3 that took place on 18th July 1980. It was 6.30 in the morning. The whole nation's attention was towards the SHAR launch

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complex, now named after Prof. Satish Dhawan as a great tribute to him. The mission teams were busy and computer took over the flight sequence from T-4 minutes. At T-0 the vehicle took off and we witnessed a text book trajectory.

After nearly 600 secs of the flight I realised every stage has given the required velocity including the 4th stage. I made an announcement, "Mission Director calling all stations. The SLV-3 has given the required velocity and right altitude to put Rohini satellite in the orbit. Our down range stations and global stations will get the orbit of the satellite within an hour". There was a thunderous applause from all the stations and visitors gallery.

The most important thing happened then. Prof Satish Dhawan asked me to handle the press conference with our team members. The message I would like to convey is, When success comes in after hard work the leader should give the credit of the success to the team members. When failure comes the leaders should absorb the failures and protect the team members. I could not get this beautiful, technological education of failure management in any of the text books written by any of the Harvard or any of the management institutes at that time.

I recall in 1947, at the dawn of our freedom, we had the best of leaders in science, in technology, in history, in politics and in industry. One incident I would like to narrate to you which fascinated me when I was a young boy. On 15th August 1947, my high school teacher Rev. Iyyadorai Solomon took me to hear the mid-night freedom speech of

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Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. We were all thrilled when Panditji spoke that the mission was achieved. On the next day, that is on 16th August 1947, I had a great experience. An experience of best of education I can think of. In the Tamil newspaper, on the front page, two news items appeared. One item was India achieving freedom and Panditji's speech. The other news item and the most important one which has been embedded in my memory is about Mahatma Gandhiji walking barefoot in Naokali, removing the pain of riot affected families. Normally as Father of the Nation Mahatma Gandhi has to be the first to unfurl the national flag on August 15, 1947 in Red Fort. But he was not there at the Red Fort, instead he was at Naokali. Mahatma Gandhi was an embodiment of nobility, elevated thinking and concern for human beings. What an everlasting positive impact in the mind of a school boy?

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Knowledge society and National Development The Planning Commission of India had formed a task force to evolve plan of actions for transforming India into a knowledge power. This team has identified societal transformation and wealth generation as a very important task for the nation, which has to be woven around national competencies. The task team has also identified core areas that will spearhead our march towards knowledge society.

The areas are: Information & Communication Technology, bio-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. Hence multiple technologies and management structure have to get integrated to generate knowledge society. It has to be recognised 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 capitalise the opportunity to transform into a knowledge society. The foundation for a knowledge society is the societal transformation with e-governance.

Becoming a knowledge power within a decade is a very important mission for the nation. While a knowledge society has a two-dimensional objective of societal transformation and wealth generation, a third dimension emerges when

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India has to transform into a knowledge power. The hardearned wealth and the transformed society, which are the two pillars on which the knowledge society is supported, have to be protected in order to sustain a knowledge society.

The knowledge protection is the third dimension to the objective. The knowledge power status will bring responsibility to strengthen Intellectual Property Rights and protect the vast biological and microbial resources. Our ancient knowledge and culture should be protected against multiple attacks launched from many directions. Thus a knowledge power has two important aspects namely economic prosperity and national security. Our communication network and information generators have to be protected from electronic attacks through surveillance/monitoring and building technologies to handle such attacks. Thus the core requirement for knowledge protection is two-fold. There should be a focussed approach to Intellectual Property Rights and related issues and major private sector initiatives have to be launched in the area of technology generation for information security. It has to be economically viable. We need to take a mission for bringing out a national citizen card for usage as voter ID card, to operate bank account, ration card and many other applications. The National citizen card / smart card has to be an integrated approach from multiple departments and industries.

The indices of world competitiveness are based on the global competitiveness report prepared by the world

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Economic Forum. The forum has defined competitiveness as " the ability of a national economy to achieve sustained high rates of economic growth". As per this definition ranking of different countries as of April 2001, according to the forum, are: USA[1], Singapore[2], Hong Kong[6], Australia[11], Taiwan[18], China[33] and India[41]. The world competitiveness is therefore decided by a triangular combination consisting of progressiveness of industry, technology push and status of governmental deregulation, all working in unison. Technology-led industrial growth can be sustained only through establishing an innovation system. It is through the process of innovation that knowledge is converted into wealth. Further, innovation is an important factor for the competitiveness of both service and manufacturing sectors and hence the urgent need to put in place an innovation system. Such a system would involve network of firms, knowledge-producing institutions, bridging institutions and customers/users in a value additioncreating production chain. With such a consortium, the innovation system would tap into the growing stock of global knowledge, assimilate and adapt it to local needs and finally create new knowledge and technology. India must evolve such systems to improve its competitiveness in a global marketplace.

When the child is empowered by the parents, at various phases of growth, the child transforms into a responsible citizen. When the teacher is empowered with knowledge and experience, good young human beings with value systems

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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. The Indian history is witness to this. When the political leaders of the nation empower the people through visionary policies, the prosperity of the nation is certain. The medium for transformation to developed India is the empowerment at various levels with power of knowledge. The second vision for the nation is, transforming developing India into developed India. It should echo in all parts of government organizations including industrial houses, academic institutions, R&D labs, and Law making institutions in all corners of India.

The development of education and healthcare will yield the results of population control and better availability and efficiency of the workforce. It is the key to employability and to social development. Whereas, agriculture and agro food processing leads to food security, employment, value addition, rapid economic growth and nutrition security. The Information Technology links multiple developments like rapid economic growth, export earning and reaching the whole country. Infrastructure including electric power provides energy security so crucial for all sectors. Strategic industries have direct impact on future industries, sustaining growth and technological strength. For economic strength and national security of the nation, all the five areas are of

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importance and there is a need for networking. The integrated effect of the 5 areas would result high GDP growth from 4.5 to 10% and elevating 300-400 million people who are presently in poverty line to a good standard of living. This integrated missions are now nomenclatured as India Millennium Missions 2020 (IMM 2020).

The third example, relates to the multiple rural connectivity.

The fact that there is net migration from villages to cities indicates that, in the opinion of the rural people, cities are better places to live or they get employment for sustaining their family. Ideally, both rural and urban areas should be equally attractive with no net migration either way. Near zero net rural-urban migration is a mark of completed development. How can we achieve that happy state of affairs? Rural connectivity is the only solution and the details are described as a process, which: (a) provides rural areas with all desirable amenities that are currently available only in cities; (b) will generate as a consequence employment on the same scale, and at the same level, as cities do; (c) will provide these benefits at a small fraction of the financial, social, cultural and ecological costs the cities have to bear.

It is the expectation that this combination of employment and natural environment will make rural areas as attractive

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as cities are, if not even more attractive. Then, rural development may be expected to prevent, if not actually reverse, rural-urban migration. Presently, several technologies exist to make this possible provided we use multiple connectivity approach as brought out in Technology Vision 2020.

Experience in India has demonstrated that the true handicap suffered by rural areas is poor connectivity and little else.

That lacuna may be rectified by linking together a loop of villages by a ring road and high quality transport. That transport connectivity, creates in those linked villages a large enough market to support a variety of services, which the villages will not be able to do individually. Thereby, the loop road and the transport service together convert those villages immediately into a virtual town with a market of tens of thousands of people. Such a well-connected rural space (combined with state of the art telecommunication connectivity) will have a high probability of attaining rapid growth by setting up a virtuous circle - more connected people attracting more investment, and more investment attracting even more people and so on. Basically, this proposal involves: (a) selecting a ring of villages. (b) connecting the villages on the ring by establishing a high quality transport and telecommunication system

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(c) encouraging reputed specialists to locate schools, hospitals and other social services around the ring and (d) marketing this well serviced space to attract industry and commerce. (e) Internet connectivity.

It can be seen that rural development is one of the important missions for transforming India into a developed nation as our country consists of 70 to 80% rural habitat. Apart from agriculture, road transportation, storage system, chilling plants, communication relating to multiple technology and management have to be networked.

Involving Panchayati Raj Institutions in the State in implementing this programme is also a step in the right direction. I would, however, like to sound a note of caution and advice. It is customary for us city-dwellers to take for granted the rural people's requirements as we perceive them.

Very often we give them what they do not want and we do not give them what they really want. It is essential that the requirements of the rural people are voiced by them and ascertained from them instead of prescribing them from above so that the money spent is not spent in vain.

We are passing through times when constant dynamic changes in the environment are the order of the day. The whole world is literally galloping from one rung of the developmental ladder to another and any country failing to take steps to join the race, needless to say, will be sadly left

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behind. It gladdens my heart to see that various states in our country are practically vying with one another in getting ahead in the field of Information Technology. This is a healthy competition that should be encouraged.

India is a vast country and sadly some of the areas are still inaccessible on account of lack of proper connectivity. I have had occasion to go to the States in the North East and I saw that some of these areas were practically cut off and it took even days if not weeks to get access to them. I say this only to bring home the fact that communication is so vital for our country to become a developed state. However, one gratifying fact that I discern is the unquenchable thirst being shown in North East also in acquiring communication connectivity at the earliest. This is quite a healthy portent of the good things to come, because unless you yearn for a thing you won't get it and unless you yearn for it, even if you get it you will not cherish it. The rapid developments in States like Kerala, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh are being keenly watched by the rest of the country with a view to learning from them and replicating them in other areas.

Thinking is growth. Non-thinking is destruction of the individual or organization or the nation. India has to have the Second Vision. Seventy per cent of the India's population is young. Only the vision of the nation can ignite the young minds. The ignited mind empowered with knowledge is the most powerful resource on the earth to bring about this transformation.

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The IT and telecommunication growth in India really has highlighted that it is possible the data transformed into the information has a business proposition. By the end of this decade, India would aim at IT enabled services in manifold, consisting of human resource service, customer interaction, finance and accounting, data search and integration and distance 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.

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. In the coming decades, our young will see a confluence of civilisational and modern technological streams. Civilisation that does not have the knowledge of technology or the technological nations without experience of civilization, cannot innovate newer economy. India has rich civilization and post independent India has focused in strength of technology in Space, Defence, Atomic Energy, Agriculture, Biotechnology, ICT (Information-CommunicationTechnology) and certain areas of Industry. This combination is a high-energy system. If properly worked for, India will get transformed into a knowledge and economic power. I have always found the principle that works - "breathe success thoughts". It is indeed a great voyage for the nation

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similar to what we had in 1857, our first vision of the nation was the freedom movement; the second vision is a national voyage for the young with hard work, devotion and dream in the minds that will lead the nation to a developed India.

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Dynamics of the young Let us visualize how India would be transformed in the year 2020. When you grow up as young citizens and occupy various positions in the society, India will be a prosperous country. There is no begging on the streets or no children working as labourers. Children, especially in the age group of 5 to 20, attend good schools and get value based quality education without exception. They have excellent teachers supported by state-of-the-art infrastructural and technological facilities such as video-conferencing and teleeducation through computers. They hear lectures and interact with noted specialists from any part of the country.

Information and Communication Technology plays a vital role in the overall development of an individual, society and nation as a whole. Youngsters acquire more and more knowledge and information through internet, thereby becoming lifelong autonomous learners. Higher education is available at an affordable cost for common man. Lot of employment and entrepreneurial opportunities available in various fields resulting in 'reverse brain-drain'. Innovation in products makes us globally competitive, provides social gain to the entire community and substantially enhances the per capita Gross Domestic Product. India is a member of G-8 countries and a permanent member of the UN Security Council.

Physical distance shrinks and travel time reduces to half or even lower due to excellent transportation system. All the urban amenities reach to the villages in all parts of the

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country. Villages are connected through modern high-speed buses running on multi-lane roads. There is uninterrupted electricity supply even to the remote areas through nonconventional energy sources such as solar energy and biomass. Everybody enjoys pollution-free, clean and healthy environment all around. Fully equipped health care services are available in the villages through mobile clinics and telemedicine facilities. Our country is free from AIDS, Tuberculosis, Polio, Malaria and other water-borne diseases.

The inter/intra-networking of village clusters provides employment opportunities in agriculture and agroprocessing, cottage, handicraft and other small scale industries. Rivers are networked preventing disastrous calamities like drought and flood and ample potable water is available. This also results in progressive transformation in many areas such as irrigation, agriculture, environment, transportation, power generation and tourism.

The economic development is supported by social and cultural growth, leading to social upliftment of downtrodden, especially women. The system as a whole protects the rights of all the citizens. Gender discrimination, dowry deaths, mental and physical harassment do not exist.

Women are 100% literate and are equitable partners in employment, entrepreneurship and democratic decisionmaking bodies at all levels. Women are secure and find a place of pride in the society. Senior citizens and physically/mentally challenged members are active partners

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of the society. Technology applications enable them to live a near-normal and energetic life.

Common man lives a healthy and peaceful life.

Development and implementation of Information and Communication Technology through e-governance leads to assured availability of all the services relating to basic commodities, water, electricity, sanitation, housing, transportation, education, health care, levies and payments etc. with speed and transparency, thus removing the day-today stress of the common man.

Many amongst you are gold medallists in Olympics, Nobel laureates and recipients of many prestigious international awards. Research and advancement in the field of science and technology enables us to transfer technologies to needy countries and we are exporters instead of importers. We are completely self-reliant in defence systems. All our border States flourish with economic prosperity instead of armed forces guarding them from all sides. India's space and nuclear programme reaches new heights. I visualize a scene, in the year 2021, when at the age of 90, I visit a Space Port for boarding the Space plane to reach another planet and return safely as one of the passengers.

Many of you have been asking me what they can do for realizing the Developed India vision. As students, I would suggest you can do the following:

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It is important that you contribute to the realization of the vision to the best of your abilities within your academic and family confines. The biggest concern of the parents and the children in your age group is about the job prospects when you complete your education. Without worrying about minor variations in the subjects of your pursuit, your opportunities and future will be brighter if you excel in whatever subject you undertake to study. At the frontier, there are no borders.

One of the important indicators of a developed nation is the literacy level. Educating a nation of a billion people is not a small task. It requires the participation of all the stake holders starting from the young. Each one of you could visit the villages on holidays and contribute to removal of illiteracy of at least ten persons and light the quest for knowledge in them. Work with consortium of industries, philanthropists, NGOs and ensure that this task is sustainable and its impact can be measurable and quantified.

The educational institutions have to gear-up to evolve a curriculum that is sensitive to the social and technological needs of the Developed India. Student activities towards such missions could be seamlessly integrated with the existing curriculum so that the future members of the knowledge society are fully developed in all aspects of societal transformation.

The trees and vegetation around us are the best transformers of energy from the sun on a sustainable basis for our

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utilization. In the process they provide us the most efficient way of cleaning up our environment, shelter for all living species, a source of food and energy. They are often associated with serene environments that facilitate creative thoughts and actions. Without pain and tears, 300 million of you, if you plant ten saplings, you will add 3 billion trees, and mother India will bless you. The tree planting may be done in your house, school or in the village your school adopts. Few years from now every one us, must be a proud guardian of trees planted by the young. This dynamic movement will echo the children's concern for eco-friendly future.

Now I would like to administer a ten point oath for you to enable you to focus on the task ahead.

1. I will pursue my education with dedication and I will excel in it.

2. I will teach at least 10 persons to read and write who at present cannot do so.

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.

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6. I will not support any communal or language differentiation.

7. I will be honest and set an example for others to follow.

8. I will work for becoming an enlightened citizen.

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.

People have equal respect and tolerance for all faiths. Hate and anger is substituted by love and peace. Religion graduates into spirituality. Universal brotherhood is followed by all the citizens.

Is all this a dream? Dreams always become the vision, vision transforms into missions and missions generate hundreds of goal oriented projects. I am sure all of you will definitely bring about this transformation with your sweat, hard-work, enthusiasm and perseverance. Definitely we will live in a beautiful nation.

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Best Judiciary will do the best for India When I was reading the speeches of the first President of the country Dr. Rajendra Prasad, in the Rashtrapati Bhavan Library, I was inspired and got the message for all of us in our country and of various constitutional functionaries including judiciary. One such speech delivered by Dr. Rajendra Prasad as chairman of constituent assembly on 26th November 1949 when it met to approve the draft constitution prepared by Dr. Ambedkar. Dr. Rajendra Prasad, in his concluding speech, observed that they had been able, on the whole, to draft a good constitution which he trusted would serve the country well. He added : " If the people who are elected are capable and men of character and integrity, they would be able to make the best even of a defective constitution. If they are lacking in these, the constitution cannot help the country. After all, a constitution like a machine is a lifeless thing. It acquires life because of men who control it and operate it, and India needs today nothing more than a set of honest men who will have the interest of the country before them. " Can this Academy transform officers into good human beings who can manage with a sense of purpose towards judiciary and judicial administration? Can this Academy become a beacon light for all other constituents of the Constitution? Fortunately we have a proven constitution with experience of over five decades.

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Law and judiciary have very important role in development of a society. Law essentially plays the balancing role and enables justice and fair play when new opportunities and challenges are opening up in the developing society. In the earlier phase of Indian history before foreign invasions, the laws were basically catering to maintain the then prevailing social order, good morality and upliftment of all segments of the society. With time, the social system had gradually become more and more complex. In the present period such complexities have further grown rapidly with modern industrialisation, tremendous increase in population and resultant increase in scarcity of natural resources. As the Law has to address the imbalances in the society and protection of all the people, gradually, in all countries, laws have progressively become more and more national and specialised in character.

Today we have well-conceived laws in various areas which were earlier unheard of, or some of them were unimaginable in the previous centuries. We already have Laws of the Sea, Laws of Air and Laws on Environment. The Intellectual Property Laws and also Cyber Laws will get a new shape.

Our constitution demands defending air, land and water We have laws on them. There is a need of law for protection of Indian space above 30 kms altitude as the International Law on space may not be sufficient. As new Scientific and Technological knowledge as in bio technology, brain research, sensors and high performance computing systems come into operation, new laws to balance the interest of the

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people of today and the future generations as well as present and future interests of the nation have to be brought about.

In all times and in all countries, Laws have been driven by the social, technological and national goals and priorities and usually reflect the best of human thoughts and their own consideration about the weak and the poorest of the society.

Laws are framed to ensure equality of opportunities to all and fair practice in trade and related dealings. India is now on the path of rapid industrial and technological advancements Our laws have to provide adequate protection in this national endeavour. Government has adopted policies of technoeconomic liberalisation which are attracting corporations of the other parts of world. They see India as the greatest untapped business opportunity. India's market is one of the most attractive, and fast growing. India is world's one of the largest economies, seventh largest land area and second largest rail system, in addition to being the second largest population with young people in high percentage. India is a democratic country with very strong and independent legal set-up. Thus, they perceive India as very attractive and safe market for their goods and technologies. Further, India may attract increased amount of Foreign Direct Investment. We are also getting networked into the global economy.

This brings for us the opportunities for rapid industrial and economic growth and at the same time, the problems related

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to fierce trade competition and corporate merges and takeovers. Many tiny and small sectors of industries and even artisanal goods will be facing the forces of modernisation in the form of market forces, technologies and other forms of public information systems including advertisements. There are major issues of protecting the local and global environment.

Every human activity has many sided efforts on society, people, economics, culture, politics and therefore law and judiciary. Let us look at science and technology which has emerged as a strong force during the current period of human history. Basically science and technology is driven by human curiosity and in its best sense aimed at spreading benefits to all people. They are basically universal in outlook. Similarly, laws are meant to protect people, their rights and make them feel secure in the society. I think this is the common meeting ground of Law, Science & Technology, People and Society.

In addition the modern forces of business briefly described above and globalising aspects would need to be harnessed in the best interest of our people, those living now and the future generations. This cannot be achieved by economic activities and science and technology alone. Legal Instruments to maximise the benefits of our people and nation are necessary to be put in place and would need to be made to work for our people and our nation.

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India is today making rapid strides in certain technological fronts. India has been successful in establishing good network of dams, power stations, railways, communications and a large industrial infrastructure. We are self-sufficient in agricultural food production and even export food grains and processed food products. We have also succeeded in developing our own indigenous satellites with launch capabilities; nuclear power reactors; sophisticated telephone exchanges; radar systems and satellite communication systems, many medicines and drugs which save lives and remove pains and suffering etc. In the recent years, with the successful development of state-of-the-art surface to surface missile, our scientists and engineers have demonstrated that we are capable of developing world class technological systems. The above successes have attracted mixed response from our friends in the developed world. Our drive for technological self-reliance contributes to our national prosperity, but reduces other countries' export to India.

Thus our increased strength in this direction has an adverse impact on the sale of their goods and techniques. Also self reliance in critical technologies will enable independent foreign policy. Law and judiciary must play the balancing role so that our technological growth can continue in a manner beneficial to our people and nation, free from any undue interferences or unfair practices by any party with vested interests, domestic or foreign.

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With the revolutionary advancements in the fields of information technology, communications, transportation and travel coupled with good international network of banking and financial services, the markets and economies of most of the world countries are becoming more closely linked with each other. Gains of one country may lead to certain losses for other country sometimes in a catastrophic manner.

Industrially developed countries are trying to make laws and treaties to protect their own national interests and priorities, instead of working for win-win partnerships. India should work for Win - Win situation even in business and trade with ethics.

Many developed countries have made laws to restrict/deny export of certain class of state-of-the-art goods and technologies, in selective manner, to developing countries even while making international laws which make it mandatory for the developing countries to open their markets to be access by foreign entities with very little restrictions. Our country has successfully faced such technology denial measures adopted by certain countries.

When our laboratories needed certain type of alloy steel to develop indigenous defence systems, certain countries imposed ban on export of such alloy steel to India. While we were not allowed import vital raw material, but we could get the ready-built full system from those countries. As soon as we succeeded in the development of that particular alloy steel or high performance computers, the ban on export of that steel or supercomputers was lifted. But such an

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unbalanced world order is something on which our legal luminaries may have to think, while framing our commitments to international treaties.

The post World War-II saw steady escalation of cold war tensions and a vigorous use of UN Security Council forum where the two superpowers used the 'veto power' to protect their respective interests, friends and allies. A predictable state of bi-polar world order was getting established with the UN forum providing the necessary platform for maintaining a sense of balance between the nation states of the world.

The discriminatory or restrictive laws of the developed nations seemed justified on the basis of denial of technology to the enemy. However, after the collapse of the Soviet Union this east-west axis has taken a north-south orientation and the export controls and technology denial regimes now are directed mainly to the developing nations including India, to maintain the techno-economic superiority of the advanced countries. This is again the place where the universality of scientific approach to the life and the universal principles of equality and natural justice have to meet and play a key role Laws, technologies, nation's priorities and people's wellbeing are inter-dependent and have multi-faceted relationships. Laws must protect the indigenous technologies and trade to the extent they impact peoples living and their welfare as well as to ensure national interest.

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A number of our laws were framed on the basis of similar laws already in force in the colonizing countries - in our case Britain. Those laws had been framed by them keeping in view their particular societal and industrial structure. Now certain international treaties influence our national laws.

There is need to innovate on new laws to suit the Indian environment so as to be able to solve our specific problems and to accelerate the overall developments of the nation. We need to frame the special laws in areas of economic growth, trade and technological developments.

Signing of International Trade Treaties, which has brought the World Trade Organisation(WTO) into being, has also brought certain challenges and opportunities, which have to be addressed by our Law. India, as a signatory to the agreement, is under obligation to amend the laws on Intellectual Property rights (IPR) including Patent Laws to bring it in conformity with the laws of the developed countries who are at the moment sitting at the height of technological advancement.

India is a signatory to the Washington Treaty on Integrated Circuits but is yet to frame laws in this field. Trade Related aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) also makes it obligatory for the member countries to frame laws for intellectual property protection of genetically modified micro-organisms and micro-biological processes. The TRIPS also warrants the member countries to develop their own ( sui-generis ) system by year 2005, for protection of new, distinct and stable varieties of plants. Patenting of

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Software is another area, which will offer fresh challenges well as opportunities to Lawmakers and Practitioners in the near future. These are the fields which have to be researched and laws have to framed to meet the international obligations under the TRIPS. I feel it will become necessary very soon in our country to set up suitable systems to deal with such cases with knowledgeable judges who will build on their experience to innovate with interests of our nation and people Social development largely depends on economic growth of a country. Both economic growth and social development cannot be achieved in countries where the judicial system fail to be effective, un-biased, timely and conscious. For a country to become a developed nation, Judicial Officers functioning with efficiency will play a major role.

This Academy may aim at developing necessary attitudinal changes to improve judicial integrity and efficiencies. One of the recommendations that interest me from the report made by Review Commission of Working of Constitution headed by Justice M.N.Venkatachaliah is: " to cope up with the workload of cases at the lower level and also curtail arrears and delay, the States should appoint honorary judicial magistrates selected from experienced lawyers on the criminal side to try and dispose less serious and petty cases on part-time basis which would relieve the load on regular magistracy". This Academy can perhaps be a training, orientation centre for experienced lawyers before appointing them as such honorary judicial magistrates. In

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addition to recommending / appointing judges, National Judicial commission has properly thought of to have a very important mission of providing intensive training packages for judges at various levels and brainstorming sessions on quality and quantity of judgements given and their impact on Indian socio- economic structure.

Every citizen in the country has a right to live with dignity; every citizen has a right to aspire for distinction. Availability of a large number of opportunities to resort to just and fair means in order to attain that dignity and distinction, is what democracy is all about. That is what our Constitution is all about. And that is what makes life wholesome and worth living in a true and vibrant democracy.

At this point, I would like to remind all of us that at social levels it is necessary to work for Unity of Minds. The increasing intolerance for views of others and increasing contempt about ways of lives of others or their religions or the expressions of these differences through lawless violence against people cannot be justified in any context. All of us have to work hard and do everything to make our behaviours civilised to protect the rights of every individual. That is the very foundation of the democratic values, which I believe is our civilisational heritage and is the very soul of our nation.

Judiciary is the guardian of civilised life. Wherever life exists in our planet, no life, by any body can be allowed to be devalued. Particularly, judiciary cannot be a mute witness to this in-human act.

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Judiciary is the Angel and the Marshal that ensures that such a democracy survives. Judiciary is not simply making judicial pronouncements or enforcing law in a case.

Judiciary is the whole process of interpreting the social, political, economical and human environment to ensure that that wholesome life with dignity and distinction is sustained.

The edifice of justice thus stands exalted, high on a pedestal that the whole Nation looks up to. The fundamental and over-riding importance of the system cannot be overstated and the need for constantly maintaining its purity not forgotten. There cannot be any erosion of values, corrosion of quality or any cobwebs in the procedure. The majesty of law and justice has to be maintained with magnanimity and magnificence. The members of judiciary therefore become inviolable role models, the perfect incorruptible ideals of a civilized society. It is this that we have to strive for, attain and sustain.

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Education, Learning and Creativity Technology has multiple dimensions. One leads to economic prosperity and the other creates the capability for national security. For the past 40 years, one way or other I have witnessed these multi dimensions of technology. For example, the developments in chemical engineering brought fertilizers for higher yield of crops while the same science led to chemical weapons. Likewise, rocket technology developed for atmospheric research led to the launching satellites for remote sensing and communication applications which are vital for the economic development.

The same technology led to the development of missiles with specific defence needs that provides said security for the nation. The aviation technology development has led to fighter and bomber aircraft, and the same technology assisted in designing a passenger jet and also help operations requiring quick reach of support to people affected by disasters. When nuclear science was born in 1940s, with in two decades multiple applications like nuclear medicine, nuclear irradiation for preservation of agricultural products, nuclear power and later nuclear science led to weapons development and even deployment.

Computer science and mathematical science coupled with communication technology led the world to information technology . Using Information Technology, various fields of administration, commerce, health and education have transformed into e-governance, e-commerce, tele-medicine, and tele-education . One phenomenon which we have

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witnessed, particularly in India with demand for software development because of national and international requirement, the availability of elementary school, primary and secondary school teachers who love teaching reduced for the reasons that there were many opportunities in the other fields The number of teachers, who love teaching as a GURU level, has to increase in large numbers. In view of the various demand pattern, shortage in this area may also be increasing. One side we saw prospective fields including Information Technology absorbing prospective good teachers. But now we have an opportunity to use same Information Technology with Communication Technology for entering into the era of tele-education by creating network of multiple class rooms located in various schools built on the quality teachers bi-directional teaching and learning in the national level.

The model I envisage is the following: Every state can identify x thousand number of excellent teachers of primary and secondary schools. Using these teachers as resource in tele-education using connectivity, with proper software and with bandwidth, the student strength can be increased from a normal strength of 40-60 students to more than 1000 students with multiple class room. Increased use of eeducation will bring down the cost of operations.

Simultaneously rural connectivity ( physical, electronic, knowledge and economic ) will assist quality teachers preferring teaching in rural schools.

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On this important occasion, I was thinking what thoughts I can share with you. Every one of us have gone through the various phases of education from the childhood to profession. A scene appears in front of me where there is a child, a teenager, an adult and a leader. Let me narrate to you how each one reacts to one particular situation? The situation is: human need. The child asks, "what can you do for me"? The teenager says, "I want to do it alone". The young person proclaims, "let us do it together". The leader offers, "what can I do for you". So, the educational system have got a tremendous responsibility to transform a child into a leader - the transformation of 'what can you do for me' to 'what I can do for you'. That will demand a principal to be a visionary with an inspiring capability. Also the principals and teachers have to impart learning to the children in such a way to bring out the best in them, for this he or she has to be a good teacher himself. With the trends of recent reform efforts in mind, how does technology fit into the scheme of revolutionizing education? Computers provide ample assistance in accomplishing numerous reform goals. In terms of actual instruction, computers are an invaluable tool for providing active collaborative learning and assessment.

While basic word-processing programs allow students to become independent publishers of ideas and opinions, email provides opportunities for peer review and group editing. More sophisticated interactive multimedia packages offer true inquiry-based learning, where students must construct and demonstrate solutions to a variety of in-class projects. This is not to suggest that computers are used in

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reform to replace the role of the teacher; realistically that would be both undesirable and impractical. Instead, the computer must be recognized as an effective teaching tool which assists the educator. Software offer students individualized learning, so while some students progress on a subject at their own paces, those who begin to fall behind can receive proper interpersonal attention from the instructor. The computer assists the teacher to concentrate on interaction and individualized assistance.

The best part of a young person is his or her childhood in school and the best time spent is 0800 Hrs to 1600 Hrs in the school. The prime learning environment is 5th to 16th years of age. The student spends approximately 20,000 hours in the school campus. Of course, at home, love and affection are imparted but again most of the time of the day is spent in preparing school's homework and study, eat, play and sleep.

Hence the school hours for children are the best time for learning and need best of environment, mission oriented learning with value system. I still hear the echo from Bestolozzy, a great teacher's saying, "give me a child for seven years. Afterwards, let the God or devil take the child.

They cannot change the child." For parents and teachers, school campus and home have to have an integrated mission: education with value system. Children have to be given value based education in the school so that government or society can establish a transparent society or a society with integrity. Principals and teachers are the gurus, the role model, the gurus can instill creativity.

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Computer becomes user friendly tool. The vision is indeed bigger than who have assembled here.

Another incident was at St. Joseph's College, Tiruchirapalli.

As a young student, we had the opportunity at St. Joseph's College witnessing a scene, a unique, divine looking personality walking through the college campus every morning teaching Mathematics BSc (Honours) and MA (Mathematics) students. Young students looked with awe and respect, a personality symbolizing our own culture.

When he walked, knowledge radiated all around. The great personality was, Prof.T.Totadri Iyengar, the great teacher.

At that time, 'Calculus Srinivasan' was my mathematics teacher. Calculus Srinivasan used to talk about Prof. Totadri Iyengar with deep respect. During those days, he and Prof.

Totadri Iyengar had an understanding to have an integrated class by Prof. Totadri Iyengar for first year B.Sc. (Hons) and first year B.Sc. (Physics). I had the opportunity to attend his classes, particularly on the subjects of modern algebra, statistics and also once I heard him teaching complex variables. When we were in the BSc first year, Calculus Srinivasan used to select top ten students to the Mathematics Club of St. Joseph's to where Prof. Totadri Iyengar used to give lecture series. One day, in 1952, I still remember, he gave a one hour lecture on ancient mathematicians and astronomers of India and introduced four great mathematician and astronomers. For nearly one hour he spoke. The lecture is still ringing in my ears. I was introduced to the pride of the nation: pioneers in astronomy

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and mathematics (4th to 20th century) Aryabhata, Bhaskara and Ramanujam who gave to the world, the value of zero to number, orbit period of earth around sun and recently number theory. The two incident narrated have become the foundation for my education, learning with hope and value system. My teachers of primary, secondary and college education had put me few decades ahead. This is indeed the vision. Today's young dream transforming India into a knowledge society. I am sure the younger generation, with the amount of inputs and exposure they gain using various information technology tools, will be able to understand the technological developments and prepare themselves with competencies and courage to face the global competitive environment.

A task team of Planning Commission has worked on the study on how India can be transformed into a knowledge society in a decade. 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. During the last century the world has undergone a change from agriculture society, where natural labour was the critical factor, to industrial society where the management of technology, capital and labour provided the competitive advantage. 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 in the form of better

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health, education, infrastructure and other social indicators.

Such a 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, weather forecasting, disaster management, tele-medicine and teleeducation, technologies to produce native knowledge products, service sector and Infotainment which is the emerging area resulting from convergence of Information and entertainment. The driving force for a knowledge society is the primary and secondary education. There is shortage of competent teachers who love teaching.

Computer literacy will facilitate teaching competency and increase the scope of student audience to every good programs. have a network of good schools.

One solution is to adopt distance education as a means of bringing education to every eligible child, together with innovative schemes and incentives to attract all children to attend the school. One full satellite transponder gives adequate bandwidth to provide a full range of curriculum

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from pre-school and nursery to the 12th standard.

Technology based learning has to become an important curriculum in schools.

While classroom learning is important, what the child learns by self-observation outside the classroom is equally important. A child must become an active participant in the process of learning through observation, field studies, experiments and discussions. A child's individuality and creativity needs to be given due importance in our education. Further, in addition to innovation in curriculum, priority needs to be given to the reorientation of the outlook of the teachers and more effective examination system so that it recognises and evaluates creativity and new thinking.

The schools must move from becoming educational centers to knowledge and skill centers. I am sure that computers and vast information source available in the internet can assist the teachers and hence the schools There is a national mission for universal primary education.

Good teachers and parents select the schools for high academic standards, focus on teaching and learning, education philosophy with value system close to their own and above all innovative approaches in instruction. Of course, schools are sought where students are challenged to achieve higher levels.

In conclusion, the schools have a great mission to ignite the minds of the young. The ignited minds of the young are the most powerful resource on the earth, above the earth and

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under the earth. Thinking is progress. Our schools have to lead the education in which the creativity of the children blossom and the nation prospers.

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Knowledge society and developed India During the last century, the world has undergone a change from agriculture society, where manual labour was the critical factor to an industrial society where the management of technology, capital and labour provided the competitive advantage. Then the information era was born in the last decade, where connectivity and software products are driving the economy. In the 21st century, a new society is emerging where knowledge is the primary production resource instead of capital and labour. Efficient utilization 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.

A knowledge society can be one of the foundations for a 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

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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.

During the last century the world has undergone a change from agriculture society, where labour force was the critical factor, to industrial society where the management of technology, capital and labour provided the competitive advantage. 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 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 attained a stage of knowledge society is judged by the way the country effectively deals with knowledge creation and knowledge deployment.

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.

Wealth generation is a very important task for the nation, which has to be woven around national competencies. The

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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 knowledgedriven society is the role of multiple technology growth engines. With India carving a niche for itself in Information Technology, the country is uniquely placed to fully capitalize the opportunity to quickly transform itself into a knowledge society. If we have generate talented young generation we have to spot and nurture competence where ever it is. I would like to narrate an incident which took place a few years back.

A young man, Loveligen, from a remote area of Kerala, who could not complete his science graduation, wrote to me saying that he has discovered a new mathematical theory and he would like to talk to me. I saw in the letter that the boy was very sincere. Since he has written to me, I thought our specialist team can study his work and direct him to the right type of researchers. I called this boy to Delhi for a few

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days. What surprised us was that he had arrived at part of the equations of the Ramanujam's number theory, which this boy was not at all aware of. He had discovered something and added some new points to it and the result is new. To a great extent the achievements in the field of mathematics generally seem to come out of a desire to look into the beautiful aspects of nature, including natural phenomena such as the star studded skies, which have always interested the astronomers from time immemorial. An additional contributory factor seems to be an inherent drive towards recognition of patterns even if it be in the sense of mathematical sequences or series. It is interesting to note that Loveligen has currently delved into the equally exciting topic of power sequences and series. What I felt was that he needed a good mathematical education or a patronage of a good mathematics teacher. It is like having Prof Hardy for Ramanujam, the mathematics genius to come. I asked this boy, why he didn't meet a mathematics teacher. He said, meeting a mathematics teacher is an expedition. He says, it is below their dignity to meet somebody who is not even a graduate. How do we promote this kind of young and enthusiastic minds? Can our teachers and philanthropists or the social activists spot these buds to blossom? Those who spot such talents and make them flower and blossom will themselves be a different kind of a flower as described in the Bhagwad Gita: "See the flower, how generously it distributes its perfume and its honey. It gives to all, gives freely of its love. When its work is done, it falls away quietly. Try to be like the flower unassuming despite all its

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qualities". What a beautiful message for all generations of this Nation. Now I would like to discuss with you the Vision for the Nation for transforming India into a developed nation by 2020.

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 economy. Our target should be a GDP growth of 9 percent annually and that the people below the poverty line to be reduced to near zero. (b) Near self-reliance in defence and needs of weapon, equipment with no umbilical attached to the 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 core competence for an integrated action. (1) Agriculture and food processing - we have to place 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 economic growth. (2) Reliable and quality electric power for all parts of the country. (3) Education and healthcare - we have seen, based on experience, education and healthcare are inter related. (4) Information communication technology - this is one of our core competences. 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 growth in nuclear technology, space technology

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and defence technology. Other areas like advanced sensors and materials would need a push. The nation has a plan towards 70 percent 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 research and development, academia, industry and the community as a whole with Government departments will be essential to accomplish the Vision. In addition there must be unity of minds among our one billion people for realizing this goal. In this connection I would like to share with you an interesting experience which I had during my recent visit abroad.

I visited to a Christian Monastery in RILA located in the hills of Bulgaria. It is the biggest Bulgarian revival, spiritual and cultural centre with a 16,000 volume library including 134 manuscripts from 15th to 19th century. This holy site played an important role in the spiritual and social life of medieval Bulgaria. Destroyed by fire at the beginning of the 19th century, the complex was rebuilt later and is now surrounded by a big fort. While being in that divine environment amidst the Reverend Fathers aged between 80 and 90, I felt like praying. I went to the altar and asked permission of the Reverend Bishop to recite the part of the prayer of St. Francis of Assisi. The prayer was repeated by all the people present in the Monastery.

Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace;

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Where there is hatred let me sow love; And where there is injury, pardon; And where there is doubt, faith; And where there is despair, hope; And where there is darkness, light; and where there is sadness, joy?

For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

The silent message in this prayer was felt by the Reverend Bishop, who blessed me by saying "You work for world peace". My young friends, may this beautiful divine message of love, enlighten your life to work for national development and universal peace.

So far, I have interacted with three hundred thousand children in different parts of our country. I also interacted with nearly 10,000 students in the three countries which I visited recently. My interaction with these children reveal that the aspirations of the young, whether in India or in other nations, are the same: that is to live in a peaceful, prosperous and secure nation. All of them are looking for challenging missions, good role models and leaders who can be their

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guiding spirit. A combination of knowledge, enthusiasm and hard work of the youth, is a great dynamic force available for the societal transformation. We belong to one society and we should work for the universal prosperity and world peace

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Women education In our country women constitute 48% of the total population which almost half of the total population of the country. If this whole 48% contribute to the national development then the National Vision 2020 of transforming India to a developed nation can be easily achieved. Now-a-days women are entering in every field. They are becoming doctors, engineers, advocates, teachers, political leaders, administrators, police, professionals and they even have joined the Armed Forces also become pilots. Particularly enlightened women are very important for nation building since their thoughts, the way of working and value system will lead to faster development of a good family, good society and a good nation.

I would like to emphasize that women education has to be given highest priority. When the women are empowered, society with stability will get assured. We have to ensure the continuity of secondary education and university education for girls. It is essential to establish connectivity between the university and secondary schools. Distant education packages has to be evolved to cater towards women education. Periodically, secondary level students should be counseled to continue their education both in diploma level and degree level. I am happy to note this college is giving due importance to these thoughts and promoting women to be full fledged engineers who will work for development of the nation particulary Tamil Nadu.

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When I am in the midst of future women engineers and scientists with an urge to participate in the national movement, I am reminded of Mahakavi Subramaniya Bharatiar, who in 1910 composed the poem envisioning women of India:

National Development and Entrepreneurs India has a vision to transform itself into a developed nation by 2020. In the journey of India from vision to mission, contribution of people from all walks of life is necessary.

The need of the hour is to sensitize people towards this journey. Hence mobilization of right type of human resources becomes the prime responsibility of managers and entrepreneurs.

When we go through the development patterns and dynamics of connectivity between developed countries and

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developing countries, we find that a developed country has to market their products in a competitive way to different countries to remain as developed country. To get transformed into a developed country; the developing country is also required to market their products to other countries in a competitive way. Competitiveness has three dimensions: quality of the product, cost effectiveness and supply in time. This dynamics of competitiveness in marketing of products by developing and developed countries, called the law of development, is one of the areas which require continuous attention of entrepreneurs, managers and industry.

Management has five basic functions - Planning, Organising, Directing, Coordination and Control. India, over the years, has acquired enormous experience in planning, organizing, directing and control. The problem is regarding coordination. This is so because economic development is a wealth generating activity. Today in the competitive world, wealth generation can occur only through innovation in technology. The greatest problem today is acquisition of technology. This technology is scattered between scientific laboratories, development agencies, production agencies, private sector, public sector and the academic institutions.

Coordination of all such institutions, which are geographically separated and organizationally dispersed, is the most difficult job which a manager faces. This is an area in which the MMA can find novel methods of coordinating multiple agencies through virtual organisations to generate

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home grown technology for application in our products. This is the only way we can make our products competitive.

India has demonstrated its immense capabilities and corecompetence to the world with large talented manpower. On account of the green revolution, India is now self sufficient in food. The operation flood has made India, the largest producer of milk in the world. Health services have also been improved since independence with increase in life expectancy from 33 to 64 years; fall in infant mortality from 148 to 71 per thousand, and eradication of diseases like small pox, cholera through vaccination etc. Small-scale industries provide a significant percentage to the national GDP. India is in a position to design, develop and launch world-class communication and remote sensing satellites.

India is having capability of building large Thermal and Nuclear power stations. Defence research has led to many significant developments in weapon systems like strategic and cruise missiles, sonar's, underwater weapons, light combat aircraft, tanks, electronic warfare systems and various armours. India has a strong base in the development of information technology and the country is progressing in hardware and software business of more than $10 billion.

Many Indian companies including MNCs are not doing well as they find it difficult to face competition, pressure and take "quick right" decisions. It is said that you cannot do business with yesterday's methods and be in business tomorrow. An effective manager gets the job done through high

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quantitative and qualitative standards of performance with satisfaction and high degree of commitment.

A managerial culture emphasizes rationality and control.

Manager has to achieve results so that people will continue to contribute to this organization. It takes neither genius nor heroism to be a manager, but persistence, tough mindedness, hard work, intelligence, analytical ability, tolerance and goodwill. He needs to develop good leadership quality. I think, management education should transform a person to a leader. A leader is one who thinks what he can give to others instead of asking what others can do for him. The style keeps changing as the situation with the types of people.

Leadership style should blend with managerial functions.

The management education needs to give this ability to manage and lead the change. Indian entrepreneurs should not be just home grown industrialists but they should also become leading MNCs. Leadership with nobility and change management are the two important elements needed from Management Associations to the nation.

The key characteristics required in an entrepreneur are desire, drive, discipline and determination. I am confident that the Entrepreneurship Development Cell promote following important traits among the would be entrepreneurs :(a) Vision and pioneering spirit. (b) Being able to see possibilities where others do not.

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(c) Always searching for new opportunities and challenges (d) Being creative - 'able to think out of the box'. (e) Constantly striving to do things better (f) Confident about taking risks (g) Proactive and focused on the future (h) A good knowledge and skill base.

I am happy to know that the MMA has assisted small and medium entrepreneurs in management education through an Entrepreneurship Development Cell, with funding assistance from Konrad Adenauer Foundation, Germany. I am sure the MMA will continue to expand the scope of its activities through research, innovation and coordination for the larger benefit of Indian industry.

I have participated in many space and defence programmes.

Putting a satellite in the orbit needs a large rocket system.

Rocket system and the satellite put together will have atleast 50 sub-systems and more than 80 thousand components mechanical, electrical and chemical. To put a satellite in the orbit all the systems have to work to full performance requirements. Even one sub-system or one component fails mission will be a failure. Same is true with launching of missile systems. It has to reach the required target by flying thousands of kilometers. The message I would like to convey here is that those in the programme have to learn

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quality of a product has to be built in during the design phase and carried forward till the test phase. It has to be constantly improved. The man who designs and manufactures must love what he does.

Entrepreneurs have to aim for total quality management that is quality design to production and testing, leading to market. This will ensure success of the product and system. I hope the Madras Management Association would aim to align the organizational management system, human resource management system and the total quality management system for promoting a successful TQM initiative by any enterprise.

In the present context, key problem areas faced by Tamil Nadu, especially the city of Chennai, are inadequate supply of water, power, congested transportation and pollution created both by transportation and the industry. The MMA can work for a novel solution for this problem of water through developing solar energy powered seawater desalination plants which will provide a perennial source of drinking water to the city at an affordable cost. In addition, Chennai being located very near to the equatorial region has enormous sunshine, and thus is an ideal place for solar power plants which can even feed power into the grid. Also there is an urgent need for finding solution to the growing transportation problem in the city by designing innovative traffic control systems and working on pollution free automobiles. Pollution free transport systems combined with solar power based industrial units will automatically reduce

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the pollution in the city. There are institutions which are working on these technologies in different parts of the countries. I would suggest that the MMA should bring them together to find a lasting solution to the problem of potable water, energy, traffic congestion and pollution in the city and the State. I am sure, MMA has the potential to undertake this task and become a role model for other institutions.

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Removing the Human Pain: Challenges Since you are all going to work with the integrated system of psychology and physiology of human beings, I would like to share with you, friends, some of the predictions of Ray Kurzweil written in his book "When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence - The Age Of Spiritual Machines".

World Wide Web will make tremendous impact in the way we communicate and live. Most of the computers and accessories will be of micro sized, wearable and will have wireless communications with each other. Moderately priced PCs capable of performing about billion calculations per second today will be able to perform about trillion calculations per second with in next 10 years. And by 2020 computational ability of an ordinary PC will exceed the capability of human brain. By 2030 the capability of a normal PC would be around 1000 times of human capability.

By the end of this century there would be a strong trend towards merger of human thinking with the world of machine intelligence that the human species initially created.

When there would no longer be any clear distinction between human and computers, how are we going to retain the supremacy of man over machines? Computers are going to give us a challenge. It is not only for the biologists and bio-technologists, the entire scientific community would have greater responsibility of keeping the mankind above the man-made computers. Fortunately, the creativity and

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imagination components of human are supreme and will continue to excel which need to be explored and utilized.

The human genome is full of software that is yet to be activated to unleash the ingenious potentials of human spices.

Time has come for our scientific community to prove our abilities in the field of bio-science and bio-technology for harnessing these technologies in multiple fields for wealth generation for societal transformation as we have accomplished in the field of information technology.

Technology is the most nonlinear tool that can effect the most fundamental changes in the ground rules of economic competitiveness. Science is linked to technology through applications. Technology is linked to economy and environment through manufacture. Economy and environment link Technology to the society.

I would like to share my experiences while I was in Anna University, Chennai. A unique research effort resulted in getting a patent for a new molecule discovered from an herb as an anti cancer drug. This came out of the fusion of two great minds, one was a bio technologist and the other was a traditional siddha medical practitioner. The traditional system of medicine like Ayurveda, Siddha etc have advocated and practiced preventive and curative medicinal recipes specific to individuals. The body, mind, food and environment were looked at holistically to suggest a preventive or curative approach to health. New technologies

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such as human genome sequencing, proteomics, pharmacogenomics, ultra high throughput screening are revolutionizing drug discovery. Medicinal plants offer enormous scope for development of drugs. We need to create database of traditional medicinal plants for specific bioactivity and lead for development of new drugs. India has got tremendous potentials for herbal farming and research.

In India, fourth largest number of heart surgeries in the world are conducted. More than 50,000 heart surgeries are performed every year in our country. Also it is reported that India has the highest number of persons suffering from heart diseases. Why? Is it due to genetic defect, improper food habits or indifference to health awareness? Hence the mission of the medical doctors have to be directed towards the best possible cardiac healthcare in a cost effective manner with surgeon's heart with love. Yet there is a most important mission that is bigger than the gathering here and bigger than even a nation: Bringing down heart ailments, heart defects through proper preventive methods, evolving preventive technology such as early diagnostic tool, training for stress free life and above all doing research to learn from a few rural areas and hilly regions where minimum heart ailments are reported. With this background, it is all the more important to have full time research centres with medical doctors.

Since every cardiac surgeon is involved in cardiac surgery for removal of the defect and the pain of the heart patient, he or she can also play a vital role in preventing heart diseases

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through proper health education to the patient as well as to his or her relatives and friends through the life style intervention. This can consist of a proper diet with low fat and high fibre, regular aerobic exercise like walking and stress management through Yoga, meditation and other methods. This can help in preventing the recurrence of the disease in the heart patient as well as promote preventive cardiology at the national level. When the cardiac surgeon performs the heart surgery by opening the chest, the patient becomes part and parcel of the surgeons and considers the doctors almost as God. Hence, the patient will definitely accept your health education considering you as the most respected guru. Every patient receives his family members, relatives and friends when he is receiving healthcare in the hospital. That is the occasion when the heart surgeons can give this message of a healthy life style to all of them. If the doctors do this I can foresee that the incidence of heart disease requiring surgical intervention will come down and also the quality of life of the heart patients will improve.

These teachings will be true to all branches of medical sciences The recent identification and characterization of progenitors with stem cell properties has opened new avenues that may be useful for treating functional impairments caused by the death of specific cell population. The stem cells may help restore functioning of certain defective organs, by repopulating or rescuing the damaged cells from further degeneration. There will be a revolution in the medical

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treatment for heart care, cancer, blindness and mentally challenged. It is essential to launch an integrated national stem cell research program.

Whether India has to eradicate leprosy or TB, to prevent spread of HIV by developing anti HIV vaccine, or to control cardio vascular diseases by multiple technologies and practices, we in India need something important apart from resources. That is creative leadership in all fields, particularly in medical field. Who are the creative leaders?

What are the qualities of a creative leader? The creative leadership is exercising the task to change the traditional role from commander to coach, from 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 the medical field, the higher the potential for successes in medical field in diagnosis, treatment and research for discovering new avenues in healthcare.

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Challenges & opportunities: Indian Pharma Industry Indian Pharmaceutical Industry worth $ US 4 billion retail sales in domestic market, in addition to US $ 2.6 billion in exports. Export growth is due to export of new molecules (Generic), especially to regulated markets. Through molecule exports we are only helping the developed countries for value addition. As reported in SCRIP WORLD PHARMACEUTICAL NEWS UK, India ranks 4th in the world accounting for 8% of world's drug production by volume and 1.5% by value. It ranks 17th in terms of export value of bulk actives and dosage forms. Indian exports are sent to more than 200 countries around the globe including highly regulated markets of US, Europe, Japan and Australia. The larger Pharma units number around 200 in addition to 8000 Small & Medium Enterprises (EMEs) during 2002-03, value of bulk drugs (Rs 65 billion) and dosage forms produced (Rs 242 billion) has grown by 15%.

With the excellent infrastructure and production setup, the prices of Indian medicines are also one of the lowest in the world. A number of buyers from developed markets from North America, Europe regularly source APIs (Associated Pharmaceutical Intermediate) and drug intermediates from India. Many Indian companies maintain highest standards in international 'SHE' requirements namely Safety, Health and Environmental Protection in production.

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Due to the Government policy initiatives for strengthening research and development in Pharma sector by way of fiscal incentives and other steps to strengthen regulatory mechanism, new R&D set ups with excellent infrastructure are coming up in various regions of the country. Compared to the reported average R&D spending of 2% of turnover in the sector, a few leading Indian Pharma companies have increased their R&D spending to over 5% of their turnover, which is a noteworthy achievement. Results of the R&D, manufacturing of drugs with high quality cost effectiveness and availability world over and higher market penetration will make India to become the first in production from the present fourth place in the world.

Indian companies have also been making rapid strides in the field of Biotechnology. Recombinant DNA technology, in addition to the production of Hepatitis B Vaccines, is also being put into use for the manufacture of rDNA Insulin by two leading Indian companies. Companies have developed cost effective processes for Interferron besides working on newer vaccines and Diagnostic kits.

Pharma equipment industry in India is not only very well established and modernized but in comparison to similar equipment from a number of western countries, it is also cost competitive. We should provide thrust and aggressively market this product in the international market.

In the Developed India Vision 2020, one of the important areas identified by experts is "Health Care", with the aim of

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promoting affordable and accessible health care. The expert team has identified three major diseases viz. tuberculosis, HIV and water-borne diseases and methods to combat these diseases.

The report has brought out multi-dimensions of health care problems in our country. The Vision of providing affordable and effective healthcare to our entire population goes much beyond the capability of any individual, institution or organisation. Technology is an important tool to give fast healthcare and we have to use it. This vision has to become multi-organisational missions leading to the generation of thousands of Goal oriented projects. These projects will have to be supported and nurtured not only by the Government, but also by our industry and philanthropic organisations. The most important ingredient of such a multi-organisational mission will be the leadership decentralized and yet linked together. For example, the academic institutions which do research on various technological systems, have to feed their knowledge to the industries, and should become tools for medical-care, which would not only produce cost effective medical products but also lead to adoption of nearby villages for medical care coupled with education.

The indigenous drug development in the form of vaccines, medicines and diagnostics will be very important to provide cost effective drug therapy to the one billion population.

This will also help us in competing in the world market

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through export. Our products will have edge due to the product cost. Indian Pharma industries need to gear up to use this ample opportunity.

The interfacing between medical science and various other technologies has given rise to numerous techniques, both curative and investigative, and has provided the research workers numerous tools to pry into the working of various physiological functions right up to the molecular levels.

Developments in bio-technology and molecular biology have now made it possible not only to design drugs for specific properties but also to deliver them to the specific sites where they are most required. Newer imaging techniques have now made it possible to obtain real time images of the various organs at a physiological and biological level and hence the right treatment is possible.

Medical research will lead to identifying not only the genes that cause disease but also correcting the defects through gene therapy. Recent breakthroughs in stem cell research are likely to lead to the regeneration of diseased organs.

It is time that we develop a molecule to drug in the country.

Human power for this is available in the country, but what we need to do is to organize ourselves to attain global standards which are essential if we have to develop a product that is internationally approved. This can be done by obtaining approvals from dynamic health councils and with partnership from pharmaceutical industries in India and abroad to develop the process of converting of a molecule to drug. As this now involves different technologies, pre-

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clinicals, phase-1 and phase-2 clinical trials, pharmacologists, bio-informatics etc. to work together, we need to develop skills of working together so that all the necessary questions in this regard are answered. Economics, time frame for development and risk of failures is high. A molecule can fail at the fag end of the process. These may be the major reasons for the lack of our country not being able to bring about this conversion. The regulatory authority for clinical trials and granting approvals for introduction of new drugs, needs to be made more efficient for speedy introduction of new molecules and drugs for human applications.

However, in the present scene of globalization, the West is looking forward to cut costs of production, without compromising on quality. India, with all its thrust on Biotechnology, stream lining of procedural methodologies in obtaining permissions etc., has to help in rapidity of such developments, rather than getting lost due to regulatory formalities. Although the governmental agencies reflect to such a mood, industries are yet not convinced of such an action, especially in Biotechnology. Governmental agencies thus should work together to achieve this, especially in the area of drug discovery to production. Our specific aim is to focus on anti-cancer, anti-diabetic and immuno-modulator compounds.

The need of properly harnessing all the powers of information technology is very important. IT has become

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very relevant to areas like pharmaceutical research because of the enormous amounts of data which has to be mined to arrive at some conclusions. By way of example, I would like to mention about the Human Genome Project on which a massive amount of data has started to be generated. The amount of data processing required is so huge and specialized that the new branch of 'bio-informatics' has started developing. As the volume of data generated grows, so does the demand for faster data processing technologies.

Thus, to arrive at some destination in the area of 'bioinformatics', it is very necessary to deploy powerful information and communication technologies so as to be able to get a hold on gene sequences, expressions, protein structure delineation and population genetics etc. This all means that many Pharma education and research institutes should be keen to study and develop the area of Information Technology, particularly bio-informatics, and deploy it widely to make the best use of it in the pharmaceutical sector.

It is generally felt that much work is not being done abroad on tropical diseases like malaria, typhoid and tuberculosis etc., because there is a feeling that multi-national drug companies do not hope to find high profit markets for their research products. India has to take the lead in these areas to remove the pain of poor masses of the tropics, which suffer from these diseases.

The pharmaceutical business in the WTO environment will have to be competitive. Competitiveness springs from the

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technological strength. The research and drug design, development and acceptance for introduction, is indeed a big mission. Particularly institutions of Pharmaceutical sciences need to understand the challenges - design to drug development and marketing. When you evolve Pharma vision 2020, you must identify all missions which will make drug production by India first in the world with a target of 20% in total value of the production in the world and global sales of drugs with the multinational companies established in the world. Here the most important component of success comes from creative leadership. In the present environment we need leaders whose leadership styles move from commander to coach, manager to mentor, from director to delegator and from one who demands respect to one who facilitates self respect

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Energy and Water- our mission Normally, government decision makers look for good suggestions expressed by Science and technology societies.

It depends on the quality of the society and typical traditions. I am sure the nuclear society qualifies fully in this regard. Certain new futuristic thoughts for the period twenty to fifty years should always be forecasted, discussed and debated by the society. Government must be altered well in advance on the issues of national importance. For example, the impending energy crisis in developing world in fifty years and in the developed world in hundred years due to the depletion of fossil material of gas and oil is well known.

Definitely, alternate source can come only through clean solar power and nuclear power. It is also essential for nuclear society to alert the government on what type of technology is required to reduce the storage area or fast technological disposal of the spent fuel. Latter needs lot of research.

For India to become a developed nation, we must give thrust to the Nation's core competencies. The GDP has to grow annually by 8 to 10% with consistency over years instead of the current 5%. This year, it is reassuring that our economy in three sectors - agriculture, manufacturing and service are in the ascent phase. If we put united efforts to keep up the momentum we can reach 8% growth rate in about a year.

We should reinforce our gains in the agriculture, power thermal-hydroelectric and non-conventional energy, ICT,

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industrial and education sectors, space, nuclear, and defence technologies, chemical, pharmaceutical and infrastructural industries, oil exploration and refining, and more importantly on the critical technologies.

When we are consolidating our strengths in all the areas energy and water are the primary inputs for all sustained developmental activity. For the last five decades we have gained strength in many critical areas including the development of nuclear technologies leading to nuclear energy.

We have achieved a unique status of being best performer in running nuclear power plants with 90% capacity. The criteria for performance assessment have been based on availability, reliability, safe operation and the power plant practices followed.

We need to evolve and develop specific integrated missions sector-wise to take the country forward on the path to selfsustaining development. These missions will provide the thrust for the realization of developed India in a time bound manner. They will also provide large scale employment opportunity for the youth through creation of various types of industries and enhancement of the national infrastructure.

In this gathering, I would like to discuss two important missions on Energy and Water security.

As you are aware, for meeting the targets of developed India our generating capacity has to get tripled by 2020 from the

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existing hundred thousand Megawatts of power. This has got to be achieved through three different sources namely hydel capacity, nuclear power and non-conventional energy sources primarily through solar energy. The hydel capacity generated through inter-linking of rivers is expected to contribute nearly 34,000 megawatts of power. Large scale solar energy farms of 800-1000 megawatts capacity hundred in number could contribute around hundred thousand megawatt. The nuclear power plants should have a target of fifty thousand megawatts of power. The balance has to be generated through the conventional thermal plants. The present nuclear power capacity of 14 reactors which is 2720 megawatts is expected to go to 7420 megawatts by 2010 with the completion of nine reactors which are now in progress. Eventually as per present plan BARC is expecting the capacity to be 20,000 megawatts by 2020. Hence, there is a need to plan right from now to increase this capacity by 30000 megawatts.

Our modest uranium resource can support generation of about 15,000 MGW through present generation of Pressurized Heavy Water Reactors (PHWR) which consumes less one percent of uranium resource. The recycle of PU-239 along with balance uranium in depleted form to second stage Fast Breeder Reactor (FBR) will provide us access of about 130 times more energy potential from our limited uranium reserve. Finally we have to fall back on waste thorium resource (about one third of world's total thorium resource) for our energy security. For this we have

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to introduce, thorium in the blanket zone of second stage FBR's at an appropriate growth level of installed nuclear capacity. This would enable us to build inventory of U-233 ( from thorium ) for use in the third stage of our nuclear power programme based on yet another type of fast breeder reactor using (Th-U233) MOX fuel in the core.

India possesses pilot scale experience in thorium U-233 fuel cycle including the experience in building research reactor Kamini. However we need to master all the technologies at the front end and the back end of thorium U-233 fuel cycle at a plant scale to address all the technological problems involved in thorium utilization. We should plan to build the first thorium fuel based advance heavy water reactor with a capacity of 1000 MGW immediately.

The next area of concern is water scarcity.

Today, with a global population of 6 billion only 3 billion have access to limited or perhaps the satisfactory supply of water. It is estimated that 33% of the world population has no access to sanitation and 17% has no access to safe water.

But by 2025 the world population is going to rise to 8 billion but only one billion will have sufficient water. Two billion (25%) will have no access to safe water. Five billion (62%) will have no access to sanitation water. We should collectively find solution to this problem.

Globally, there are a few solutions to solve water shortage. I would like to give certain suggestions relating to our

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country, it may be applicable to other countries also. The first solution is by redistribution of water. India has already started this by wide spread promotion of rain water harvesting in both rural and urban areas, but it has to done in mission mode as few states are already doing. In addition we need to put a stop to large scale wastage of water and promote water recycling on compulsory basis in urban and rural areas. It is essential to note that the mansoon rain we get only for three months in most of the places, whereas the consumption is for all 365 days using the ground water. The other major programme which is under the consideration of the Government of India is the interlinking of rivers.

Fortunately, we have a resource of 97% of water in the form of oceans and seas. Therefore, second solution would be to create new perennial sources of fresh water by seawater desalination. There are many desalination plants already established.

Global status: World over there are more than 7,500 desalination plants in operation. 60% of them are located in the Middle Eastern countries for the reasons of desert conditions. Fortunately, these nations have the energy potential of gas and oil from fossil materials to power the desalination process. The pattern of the seasonal change and water scarcity necessitate the consideration of desalination of sea water as one of the possible options by many countries. Of course, the cost of drinking water in this process has to be made affordable through technological

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innovations.

Every year in our country, the drought or flood conditions are experienced damaging the habitat and loss of life. We resort to partial solutions with large amount of expenditure.

Presently in India there is certain water management for irrigation purposes which has lead to sufficient food production. The demand for food may get doubled in two decades. Therefore the planning of water through desalination process, interlinking of rivers have to be integrated in the development of additional water resources for irrigation. Research on desalination technology India attaches importance to research and technological solution for various desalination processes. Fortunately Department of Atomic Energy, DRDO, CSIR and academic institutions are working in different processes for desalination whereas we should recognise that there are already operational plants elsewhere in the world.

Nuclear Desalination Demonstration Project (NDDP) at Kalpakkam has demonstrated the safe and economic production of good quality water by desalination of seawater comprising of 4500 cubic meter per day Multistage Flash (MSF) and 1800 cubic meter per day Reverse Osmosis (RO) plant. The plants can be scaled up to 10 times from the present configuration with out any difficulty.

The design of the hybrid MSF-RO plant to be set up at an

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existing nuclear power station is another solution. The MSF plant based on long tube design requires lesser energy. The effect on performance of MSF plant due to higher seawater intake temperature is marginal. The preheat RO system part of the hybrid plant uses reject cooling seawater from MSF plant. This allows lower pressure operation, resulting in energy saving. The two qualities of water produced are usable for the power station as well as for drinking purposes with appropriate blending. The post treatment is also simplified due to blending of the products from MSF and RO plants.

Another approach is the use of dual-purpose plants, where the desalination plant is connected to an electricity plant, utilising the waste heat from the electricity plants run by nuclear energy. I understand, under favourable conditions, dual-purpose plants decrease the cost of desalinated water below those of conventional desalination methods, primarily through energy conservation.

Recently I visited the Umm Al Nar desalination plant in Abu Dhabi, which produces nearly 500 million litres of fresh water per day using the MSF (Multi Stage Flash) process.

This one plant has totally transformed the ecology of the desert, and is an example of how large scale water supplies may be obtained from the oceans. In this process the sea water has to be flashed into steam by heat addition at low pressure. When the steam is condensed to produce fresh water, part of the energy is used to run steam turbines to produce electricity to feed back to the grid. However, even

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with this energy recovery, no major breakthrough in technology has acquired since then to reduce the specific desalination energy to values below 10-15 units per cubic meter of fresh water. The gulf region produces aggregated quantity of 4 billion liters of fresh water consuming 1.5 Giga Watts of electricity burning enormous amounts oil and gas in the process. This process may be the cost effective solution for gulf region due to abundant availability of gas and oil for few decades to come.

But other regions like India need new processes and new solution like use reverse osmosis using solar energy and MSF using nuclear energy. It is essential to setup the desalination plants next to the nuclear power stations to reuse the waste energy effectively.

Technologies in sea water desalination using nuclear energy through Reverse Osmosis and MSF are already demonstrated by BARC. It is imperative that the water requirements of many of the states need to be addressed immediately though sea water desalination process. BARC in collaboration with the industries like BHEL, NPC should provide solutions to the state governments. I suggest forming of a consortium between BARC, BHEL, NPC, private sector institutions and the concerned State and Central governments to tackle this issue in a mission mode.

The critical problem our planet will encounter in the next few decades is the shortage of water and energy. But, many of the nations are preoccupied either in war or finding

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solution to terrorism. It is essential; as far as India is concerned that we must have a water and energy management schemes that unfurls our vision for next two decades. Integrating desalination of sea water coupled with solar energy generation and nuclear energy plants would form the centre-stage of our planning. In the mean time wherever nuclear power plants have been planned it is essential to have a desalination plants as part of the power plant complex. Also international initiatives and cooperation may be considered in the energy and water sector wherever required.

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Multi- dimensions of Aerospace technologies I visited Poorna Prajnaya Public School, Vasant Kunj, New Delhi where the children had created a painting exhibition on my life based on the events described in "Wings of Fire".

In the exhibition, nearly 100 children have painted various phases of my life; about Rameshwaram, my house, my kith and kin, college where I studied etc. They took me around and showed me the gallery where series of pictures of Satellite launch vehicles were depicted - first one tiny SLV3, next slightly bigger ASLV, next bigger PSLV and then the bigger GSLV. Suddenly one girl asked me, "Uncle, which one of these rockets you built? You built all of them?" I showed the tiny SLV3 and told her that I built this. She quipped and laughed and told me, "What Uncle, you built this small one?" Through this event, the child indirectly gave a nice message of the growth of technologies which had taken place during the last twenty years, since SLV3 was built. At that time, the SLV3 had the first generation guidance control system with just a 30 ton vehicle carrying a payload of 40 kg, whereas the GSLV with its advance guidance control systems with 350 ton vehicle capable of carrying nearly two tons of payload. This is the type of technological growth which has taken place in the last twenty years. During the last twenty years ISRO has built the PSLV and GSLV. DRDO has built a larger version of AGNI and its variants, Prithivi and its variants, Super sonic cruise missile - BRAHMOS and LCA and the nation has grown technologically and also these systems have been

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operationalised. I am witnessing the technological upgradation of the generation. Similarly, when we look back at the systems being delivered now in the year 2020, they look comparatively small, since the rate of change of development is exponential.

I would like to share with you certain experiences from the events I have participated during the last decade. The first event is about a missile system. On 11th April 1999, the AGNI-II took off with computer command from the beautiful island range. 600 parameters from the missile were monitored in real time through a series of radars, telemetry stations and ship borne instrumentations networked with our own communication satellites. The AGNI with its payload reached with close accuracy on the target 2000 kms away.

The partnership of DRDO labs with academic institutions and industries brought this important success and it is another triumph for self reliance, in spite of the technology denials.

Another event is about India's rocket technology. The successful launch of the GSLV-D2/GSAT-2 on May 8, 2003 takes India closer towards self-reliance in the satellite launch business. Typically, the telecommunications satellites INSATs - are heavy, going upwards of 2 tonnes each. While India can launch the remote sensing satellites, using the well-proven `Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle', or PSLV rockets, the country still has to depend upon overseas launchers such as Arianspace in French Guyana for putting

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telecommunications satellites into space. These launchers charge about Rs 15 lakh per kg (of satellite), and therefore the bill for launching a telecommunications satellite could come anywhere between Rs 300 and Rs 400 crore. The GSLV programme is meant to bring in self-reliance in this area too. Studying the telemetry data thrown up by the first launch, ISRO scientists made a few "fine tunings", in the cryogenic stage. These fine tunings and changes made in the rocket - such as more fuel, fired at higher pressure - enabled the GSLV-D2 to carry a heavier satellite. Since this launch was perfect, India has learnt the technology for launching more than 2-tonne class of communication satellites into geo-synchronous orbit.

On 4th Jan 2001 the first flight of the technology demonstrator TD1 of Light Combat Aircraft (now TEJAS) took place. This was designed by ADA and HAL - DRDO Programme. Subsequently, TD2 was launched on 6th June 2002 and PV1 on November 2003. So far we have had 129 sorties cumulatively from the three aircrafts and we have reached 1.1 mach speed. Very soon we will be reaching 1.4 mach. This demonstrator has used the following technologies: the carbon fiber wing, fly by wire, high performance composites, virtual reality, CAD/CAM/CAE and simulation.

These three events demonstrate that India has the capability to achieve a higher level of technological goals in spite of technology denials and control regimes. It means, if we have mission oriented programmes with leadership and political

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commitment, we will achieve these goals, however difficult they are. India definitely has multiple high technologies that may lead to convergence of technologies and hence new systems.

The system of space, missile and aircraft have many common technologies in materials, structure, control and guidance systems, instrumentation, ICT, simulation, manufacturing. The differences between the technologies are diminishing and enabling the integration seamlessly. Now it is a right time that space, defence research, aircraft, missiles organisations should work together and synergise each other to go for big missions.

Prof Satish Dhawan, in his book "Bird's flight" has given monogram for components of flapping wing design. This is another area for future technology with the large power to weight ratio engines, adaptive flight control systems, very low radar and infrared cross section structure. The newer type of flight vehicle is in the horizon. The technology area macro to micro vehicles will emerge and the MEMS/NANO high performance materials will influence all the flight vehicles. Flexibility in engineering and integration of MEMS with advanced software are the technological challenges to be addressed. These above missions can provide excellent challenges for the aerospace community in the next two decades.

The technologies derived from the space, missile and aircraft have tremendous potential for developing new systems.

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With proper technical effort, it should lead to the development of following systems: 1. Long range Unmanned Aerial vehicle with the varied payloads with the mission of reconnaissance and delivery of payloads.

2. Miniature Unmanned Air Vehicle with miniature sensors.

3. Development and production of 150-200 Seater Passenger Jet with two or three nation Partnership (Short term goal) 4. Long range missile systems 5. Single Stage to Orbit Hypersonic Reusable Vehicle 6. Solar powered satellite for bringing electrical power through microwave communication.

7. Constellation of satellites for digital contour mapping and aerial imagery for the mission of Interlinking of rivers.

In the last two decades major breakthrough have taken place in the country in the areas of space technology, missile technology and aircraft technologies and has provided a sound platform for launching major missions in the aerospace areas. Our experience of the past shows that we were more preoccupied in developing systems than technologies. If we as a nation aspire to be the first in every mission and move away from the fifth country syndrome, large scale investment and focus is required in technology

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development and technology incubation area. The space, defence research and development, CSIR, HAL, ADA should have intense partnership and collectively invest in technologies of the future complementing each others strengths.

With the maturity obtained through our present projects, the R&D and production units must produce competitive products. The components of competitive products will include quality, cost effective and timely delivery. This aspect has to be kept in mind in all our future systems.

Aerospace systems have many users mainly from the armed forces. Competitiveness along with just-in-time supply will certainly attract many new international users apart from Indian users. Particularly, Indian aerospace users have to appreciate self-reliance which will enable them to stand steadfast during critical times, with the flexibility to make configuration changes.

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Vision for weaving and Handicrafts Handicraft sector, which provides livelihood to more than 12 million people in our country, plays a significant role in the national economy, as it possesses enormous potential to provide productive employment to large number of craft persons and budding entrepreneurs especially in rural, semiurban and urban areas and earn foreign exchange through exports by blending traditional heritage craft skill with contemporary development approach.

Majority of our rural community get their livelihood from Crafts and artisan area. When I think of craft work I am reminded of handloom weavers of Mangalagiri, to the chappal makers of Kholhapur, to the potters of Panchmura, to the sandalwood carvers of Bangalore, to the palm leaf basket makers of Pulicat, to the durrie weavers of Fatehpur Sikri, and the dhokra metal worker of Jhigdi. I would like to share one of my experiences with The Palm Leaf Basket Makers of Pulicat, which triggered my thoughts of my school days at Rameswaram. It was in 1940s. I found in many houses, one or two persons would be involved in making many products from palm leaf including baskets.

This activity was supposed to be an additional unstructured small-scale business. Each day, a trader used to pay and collect all the finished products from these craftspeople.

Rameshwaram temple pilgrims were the main purchasers of these products. After my early schooling at Rameshwaram, I went to Ramanathapuram for my high school and then to Tiruchirapalli for my college. During 1950-60s, I found the

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products of craftspeople started diminishing because plastic products started entering the market.

At Pulicat and later in the different parts of the country, I have personally witnessed the type of hard work put in by the craftspeople. I have developed sensitivity over years about the need for providing thrust through training and confidence in their area of work. Technology and crafts work need to be integrated. Emerging technology need to be provided to the craftsmen and weavers which will lead to value addition of their products. Marketing of the finished product is the crucial factor in view of the intense competition they face from multinational companies particularly from China and South East Asia.

We have to look at the major problems that have led to weaver's pain. This has arisen due to their dependence the government agencies and certain captive customers for the sale of their products. Inability of these customers to buy from the weavers on a sustained basis had put them into difficulty and created unsold inventories in their godowns.

Time has come for the small scale industries, handlooms weavers not to depend on sale entirely through government subsidies. It is important to generate new class of entrepreneur and new class of training. "Manufacturing locally and marketing globally" must be their motto. For this, they can use many of the recent advances in communication and marketing, including the Internet. When the Roses of Bangalore can be auctioned over the Internet

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for global supply, why can't we use the same colourful medium of the Internet for marketing out extremely colourful and aesthetically pleasing products of our weavers and craftsmen through the medium of Internet marketing and E-Commerce. Instead of selling as a cloth they must migrate to selling finished customer products like garments and augment this with innovative marketing ideas. This type of value addition will provide reasonable revenue to the weavers and avoid intermediaries benefiting at your cost.

One of the major problems in our country is that many of the handloom/handicrafts/artisan cooperative societies are not doing well due to competition in the market, non-availability or high cost of raw materials, inadequate finance and ignorance of the supply and demand in the market, lack of quality consciousness and the ethics of the members of the co-operative society.

The state and central governments should analyze the causes of the sickness of the cooperative industries and facilitate them to work with the successful cooperatives, industries and association. In the country we have many successful models like Milk cooperative in Anand, Thirupur knitwear industries, Chatrapatti bandage cloth industries, Ludhiana wool ware etc., These models can be studied and their expertise can be made available through consultancies for reviving the co-operatives, which are in difficulty.

I came to know from my friend Dr. Bowonder who had

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made a detailed study about the successful experience of silk industry in Kancheepuram and Kolhapuri chappals where technology, training, partnership and marketing have produced spectacular results. I would like to share with you.

The silk industry in Kancheepuram is one of the fastest growing industries in India. The industry currently employs more than 30,000 weavers in the art of saree making. The industry had to compete with the synthetic fiber industry in many aspects. The industry was on the brink of extinction due to the obsolescence of the designs and design making procedures. This is because, design adds splendor to a saree and forms an integral part of its exquisiteness. Introduction of computerized Jacquard borders in Kancheepuram silk saree has helped in the revival of the industry. The use of ICT has not only helped in creating new and complex designs but also reduced the time involved in the design.

There has been an increase in the exports. The acceptance of these silk sarees by the consumers has also increased with the automation of designing process. Visualization of saree designs ahead of its production and the ability to create new color combination at the click of a mouse has increased the flexibility and reduced the time for realizing new designs.

Though the materials and the techniques are changing with the market demand, the motifs are still conventional to hold the custom and tradition of the Kancheepuram saree. The silk industry in Kancheepuram has transformed into a high growth industry by opening up new avenues for the traditional weavers. The example illustrates that computer

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aided design can help renewal of a traditional industry provided the new technology is simple to use and users are trained properly.

Leather industry is a traditional industry. Kolhapuri is a traditional chappal manufactured through a manual process.

This is a case study of the manner in which the design process, manufacturing process and marketing was reengineered using ICT interventions. Use of ICT helped this industry to reposition itself. The main reason for the early adoption and rapid diffusion of the new technology has been the systematic training carried out by Central Leather Research Institute for imparting skills in the local craftsman using two people from the same community. The income of craftsman increased considerably after the adoption of ICT for designing and market access. The production increased from about 20 pairs per week to almost 200 per week. CLRI also helped in changing the manufacturing process such that the productivity has gone up apart from the use of computer aided design. The designs have shown a quantum jump both in terms of quality and variety. The whole project was implemented under the National Leather Technology Mission. An NGO from Bangalore helped in selling the Chappals on line thereby enhancing the price realization.

The exports have shown an increase. On the whole this is an exciting experience of using new technology to reengineer and renew a traditional industry. The main reason for the success has been the training of the local craftsman by CLRI.

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These two experiences clearly indicate the success components of such missions. They are application of Information technology, partnership with the R&D and entrepreneurs; value added training to the crafts man and marketing support. This model should be replicated across the country by the industry, academia, non-government organisations and the village bodies. State and Central Government should proactively facilitate nurturing of the industry.

In addition to the training of craftsman and weavers, official, administrators and technologists from the government and private sector who manages the handloom and cottage industry also need higher level of training at management schools technology centres to enrich their knowledge in handicrafts, textile design, quality, market analysis, export promotion to revive and reengineer the sick weaving industries and promote new industries.

The work of craftspeople and artisans is the result of creativity. Creativity comes from traditional knowledge.

However this traditional knowledge and skill need to be upgraded through research and development and integrated with technology for sustainable development of this sector.

We are all aware of the various constraints being faced by this industry such as non-availability of adequate quality raw material in time, lack of timely credit facilities, lack of training for using modern technological applications, inadequate organizational and marketing support and

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services etc. I am happy to know that in order to address these challenges and empower the craft persons and weavers, a few schemes have already been launched in partnership with State agencies, voluntary organizations, national institutes and entrepreneurial community. The problems about how to market with value addition the finished products of craftspeople, how to integrate multi departments and provide assistance in an integrated way can be addressed with the concerted efforts and technocommercial assistance of all agencies like local self-help groups, panchayat and co-operative societies. Instead of craft persons and weavers coming to urban marketing centres, the reverse phenomena have to take place. This can be made possible through implementation of PURA model.

As you are aware, our Prime Minister in his Independence Day announcements has declared a rural development programme called PURA - Provision of Urban amenities in Rural Areas. It involves identification of rural clusters with growth potential and creating Physical Connectivity, Electronic connectivity, Knowledge connectivity and thereby Market connectivity. In the identified and developed periphery, apart from schools and primary health centres, there will have to be vocational training-cum-work centres for craft persons and weavers, warehouses for storage of products and marketing centres for promoting these products. Each PURA should have a separate handicraft cooperative society which will ensure timely supply of sustainable raw material, availability of credit facilities and

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marketing services. The small scale industrialists and entrepreneurs can establish handicrafts and handloom production units using the core competence of the region.

I find that so far the nation has awarded 763 master craft persons and weavers during the last four decades. I would suggest we can make use of their talent in shaping the industry by asking them to be facilitators in their areas of specialization in respective regions. They can provide innovative ideas on product design, guidance and suggestions on improving the productivity, conduct training and vocational education for the younger generation and also give ideas on alternative products. In some cases they can also be funded to become entrepreneurs with suitable entrepreneurship training. These master craft persons should be supported by the entrepreneurs by providing them all the infrastructural support and marketing support.

Craft persons and weavers are an important component for our upliftment of rural economy. Over 12 million people are earning their livelihood from this industry. For example, in Nagaland and Arunachal pradesh every house weaves, knits and produces gadgets using the animal horns and other natural inputs and become a family craft centres. Most of the items are used by themselves and rest of them they sell in the barter basis in the local markets. We have seen some of island of success and number problems faced by the industry as a whole. Concerted action is needed to promote this

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industry into a thriving wealth generator bringing prosperity to rural craftsman and weavers.

I would suggest that the concerned State and Central ministries in the textile, handicrafts and artisans domain can have an eight point programme to bring vibrancy to this sector in partnership with NGOs, R&D Centres, Academia and other industries: 1. Create design centres at district level for computer aided design of products and also monitor the performance of existing centres how they are working and provide corrective action wherever necessary.

2. Identify the core strength of the village cluster and infuse the technology to the relevant weavers, craftsmen and artisans 3. Create core strength specific vocational training centres value added with state-of-the-art technology at district/Taluk level 4. Create a consortium of Industry, R&D, academia and successful co-operative societies which can provide consultancies on total business development in the village cluster 5. Create mobile qualify assurance service centres with the state-of-the-art equipment at the district level to provide

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quality assurance services to weavers to ensure quality delivery of garments 6. Create entrepreneurial training centres for promoting craftsmen, weavers, artisans into successful entrepreneurs to manufacture locally and market globally 7. Expose internet method of marketing to the village industry and provide right kind of buy back arrangements 8. Work for creating a business volume Rs. 80,000 crores per annum by the end of 10th plan and 11th period.

I am reminded of a Tamil saying:

Which means that the dress that a man wears makes half the man - Thus if you create good garments and not stop with just weaving only cloth, you will make half of our Nation Then we can go on to capture half of the world.

I am sure that these initiatives by the state and central governments and also successful entrepreneurs will bring prosperity and happiness to our traditional weavers, craftsman, and artisans and give a thrust to the rural economy.

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Nation Smiles "When guns are silent, Flowers blossom on the earth Fragrance engulfs good souls Who created beautiful silence?"

Honourable members, I am really fortunate to have worked with you on many occasions and also to share my views three times in the Parliament during the last 16 months.

Particularly, I recall the breakfast meetings I had with the Members of Parliament from all the States and Union Territories in the Rashtrapati Bhavan. Through you, I could directly be in touch with the citizens of our nation and could feel their aspirations. We exchanged our views to put the nation ahead and to make India become a full member in the G8 group of countries - which is a great mission of transforming our nation into a developed country.

When the Rajya Sabha is celebrating its 200th session, what can be a better mission for the peoples' representatives of Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha than to combat the poverty of 260 million people out of one billion and lead them to prosperity and bring a smile in their face? Can we do that?

Will "the nation smile?" .

When I was preparing for this very important address, this thought came to my mind. I got an answer from the events that took place on this Tuesday, 9th December 2003. Let me share them with you.

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Tuesday morning, I went to Vigyan Bhavan to address an international conference on Water Management. As you all know water is the essence of life. Water brings prosperity.

Internationally out of 6 billion people, today only 2 billion get adequate water. As most of the nations are busy with their national and international problems such as wars, terrorism etc., the potential threat of water shortage in the coming years is not fully realized by them. Since most of the rivers are flowing through many nations, they could generate international disputes. We discussed two solutions with the international community on India's possible plan of action: one is the interlinking of rivers which you are fully aware of, and the other, desalination of sea water using solar energy; a new thought especially since we are blessed with seas on all three sides of our country and also possess adequate relevant technologies.

International community has fully acknowledged this as the right solution not only for India but also for the global community.

Also a very interesting event happened at the same venue.

Suddenly about 200 children made me to sit with them and interact for 20 minutes. During the interaction, I asked the children what they would like to do after their 10+2 study.

Many said, they want to become engineers, doctors, fashion designers, lawyers etc., Then surprisingly I found, in that gathering one boy and one girl lifted their hands simultaneously to tell me that they want to become political leaders. I asked them why they want to become political leaders? You will be happy to know the type of answer I got.

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The boy said, as a political leader I can give a vision to go to different planets and bring wealth to the country. There is nothing wrong in dreaming. But we have to work for it. The girl student said, she wants to become a political leader, to clean up the whole political system, particularly of corruption. One point I want to share with you, first time during my interaction with children, I could see the ambition of our children to become political leaders even though they realize that this is the most challenging task calling for continuous success, hard work and the courage to defeat the defeatist tendencies.

When my mind was hovering continuously on the children's dream and the future water problem, two pleasant things happened on the same evening. One artist, Prof.S V Ramarao, from south who had settled down in America and is well known particularly for modern paintings, met me. He narrated his life-time experience. The artist went to Europe, and he studied European paintings. He made up his mind that he wanted to excel in the European modern paintings.

He worked continuously for two years and generated a series of paintings. He brought Picasso and Glandstine in his paintings. He created a newer set of western paintings with the Indian touch of color. Every one who had seen this was astonished and never failed to admire his creativity. Today he is one of the recognized artists in the world and a great painter. This experience demonstrates the creativity and the determination of Indian mind to excel in whatever they do and wherever they are. There are many such good examples.

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In India, during the first vision of independence, many political leaders, scientists, industrialists, educationalists emerged to prove that they were an order better then those who ruled us. I am sure that the second vision of developed India will generate such enlightened citizens.

On the same evening, I met one of the CEOs of an Industry.

When we were discussing various aspects of ascending performance of Indian industries, he informed me, that some Indian industries recently had acquired certain manufacturing firms, in the industrially developed countries and are transforming them into true multinational companies.

It was a happy day for me as these events established that our people have started becoming confident, competitive, entrepreneurial and creative. These are the foundations for the developed country. From the young students with a vision and dream in their eyes, the artist who made it big outside India to the Indian Multinational, they are symbols of the up beat mood in which our country is currently in - a mood which will form the foundation of all our dreams to become a developed nation.

Many newer missions will come for discussion in Rajya Sabha with the objective of transforming India into a developed nation within the next two decades. I would like to discuss some of the issues.

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Over the last 50 years the Rajya Sabha had played a critical role in addressing some of the major societal issues concerning relationships between some sections of the society, especially judiciary, women welfare, healthcare, property, behavior etc. These are very well articulated in many of the well treasured publications of the Rajya Sabha and have had salutary effects on our post independence society.

With the passage of time, the compelling needs of the nation and the geo-political environment have also changed. The emphasis today has shifted towards solving issues in economic development, geo-politics, world trade, national security, energy and water security, growth of agriculture, manufacturing and services in the backdrop of the emerging global village and advances in science and technologies that follow the law of accelerating returns.

The role of the UN as envisioned by the founding fathers was that of a true representative of every nation of the world. The end of the cold war has witnessed the inequitable influence of a few powerful nations on the UN. The need to evolve to a multi-polar and equitable world order is of paramount importance. UN has to be transformed into a powerful international organization with the voice heard from small or big nations, rich or poor nations. These issues are intricately intertwined with the national development.

There are also problems of global violence taking many forms, including terrorism and intolerance between individuals and groups.

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One of the important characteristics of democracy is tolerance for criticism. Analysis of criticism leads to understanding of truth. Normally only criticism brings reality. Based on my visits to many parts of the country and exposure to the field problems, I find that there is a need for faster economic development in certain States. If committed people have to work selflessly, we have to ensure their safety without which their families and brethren will not allow them nor want them to work in such an uncertain environment. Freedom to move, freedom to think and freedom to express are ingrained in the freedom to live; it is also enshrined in our constitution. We cannot have interstate barriers or inter-regional curbs that would snap the thread of unity. All of us will have to work together to create a conducive atmosphere for unhindered progress of developmental activities.

Creating a standardized quality education with value system across the population or even creating a corruption free society are the problems that are challenging enough to demand out of the box unusual solutions. A fair and equitable access to judicial systems that are sensitive to changes in technology and society, pollution free and energy efficient urban transport systems that are scalable nationwide are also equally challenging problems that need immediate attention. Rajya Sabha can be an architect leading to providing practical solutions during the debate. Such decisions will be the typical bricks that would be necessary to build the edifice of developed nation by 2020.

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The major problems and issues of the 21st Century are emerging as highly inter-ministry, inter-departmental, interstate matters. The Ministries, Departments and States should be able to work cohesively in a borderless way for each mission. This is much the same way that today's Internet, Intranet and Extranet all work in a coalition of convenience to create Virtual Organizations depending on the problem to be solved. In addition, since private investors and entrepreneurs will participate, we need to involve them as partners. The institutions of the State should aim to become partners of entrepreneurs and friends of citizens. Coherence and congruence in national and State development policies in the 21st century can come about only by a well-debated long-term vision for the nation as a whole, implemented efficiently and effectively by multiple inter-institutional and inter-disciplinary missions, programmes and projects. Most of them for e.g. the national river water mission, Providing Urban Amenities and Rural Areas (PURA) and other suggested five areas are highly complex, technically and managerially; and they involve complex relations between Centre and States, private entities, citizens and indeed with other nations as well.

The System of Committees to implement Vision Developed India 2020 - jointly with the Lok Sabha - thus needs to expand for new roles and responsibilities and develop capabilities to progress inter-ministry and inter-state tasks, focused to costs, speed and timeliness, efficiency and benefits of specific missions.

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It is imperative to provide intensive and regular exposure to our esteemed Rajya Sabha members who are coming from various walks of life on the development of Political vision, Political system management and the art of becoming role models for the youth of the nation. This exposure can be mutually beneficial- the Programme Management would benefit from the rich and varied experience of the Members of the Rajya Sabha and the Honorable members would also get sensitized to the needs and priorities of the Nation. This house can consider and create a framework for providing this unique knowledge base required for managing the largest democracy in the world with the sole focus of development.

Vision 2020 has been generally accepted by the nation, now the time has come to transform the vision to mission. Vision 2020 implementation needs to be viewed as set of joint centre-state-industry-academy people missions. These include Socio-economic missions such as Interlinking of Rivers, Providing Urban Amenities to Rural Areas (PURA), Healthcare, Electrical power. Techno economic missions such as large scale use of solar and other Non-conventional Energy Sources and Socio-technical missions such as Low Intensity Conflict Management and Information Security.

For these missions, the nodal agency for individual missions may have to be carefully planned without following the current methods of departmental compartmentalization. The empowered management structure, innovative systems of

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execution, public accountability etc. would need to be conceptualized, debated upon, designed and implemented.

The national mission demands the large inter-departmental budgetary provisions. Let me discuss with you a case study.

Our parliamentarians and legislatures are given local area development scheme fund which in a plan period amounts to over Rs. 15,000 crores. My careful study and analysis indicate that in India we have adequate resources. We suffer from a system of implementation, which requires to be made economically efficient. Benefits will then reach the people.

For example, I suggest the honourable members should become facilitators for executing the PURA projects through these funds in their regions, which will bring visible development changes in their constituencies and meet the aspirations of the people. All these will also lead to greater employment generation and more efficient and effective governance, not necessarily in the traditional sense of job but often as self-employed skilled persons.

I would suggest that Honorable members become the ambassadors for these missions and make the one billion people participate in the noble task of "Developed India Movement."

Ours is a vast country - a sub continent. As it happens with any such large country, there are multiplicities of everything, the language, religion or even ethnicities. Even natural resources are strewn across the country far and wide.

If one area is rich in a particular resource, another is in

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another and yet another is in still another. If one area is excellent for agriculture, another is excellent for information technology, another in manufacturing and so on. All these diversities not withstanding, we Indians all along have been genuinely proud of our innate unity, our heritage and our civilization. In fact that has been the singular reason for our having been able to hold ourselves together as a proud nation with the glorious past looking forward to a still more glorious future of developed India by 2020: a happy, prosperous and safe India.

"Where there is righteousness in the heart, There is beauty in the character.

Where there is beauty in the character, There is harmony in the home.

Where there is harmony in the home, There is an order in the nation.

Where there is an order in the nation, There is peace in the world."

The Joy of Human Life While assuming the office of the President of India, during the swearing-in-ceremony, I made two assurances to the nation. One is to work with the nation for transforming India into a developed nation; the other is to endeavour to work

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for bringing about unity of minds among the divergent traditions of our country.

In India, there are 260 million people below the poverty line and 300 million young citizens who are below 20 years of age. This is the hard core of India that is in need of social and economic development in an ambience of peace and harmony. India has a road map, our national dream, India Vision 2020. This encompasses five important areas relevant and vitally important to bring in sustainable prosperity, to this vulnerable section of our population: agriculture and food processing, education and healthcare, information and communications technology, infrastructure development including networking of rivers, and Providing Urban amenities in Rural Areas (PURA). These areas need to be taken simultaneously. When the villages prosper, the States prosper. When the States prosper, all India prospers.

As you are aware that Prime minister in his independent day speech on 15 August 2002, has already announced that India will become a Developed nation by the year 2020. Also the Government has initiated number of schemes such as Interlinking of Rivers, PURA (Providing urban amenities in Rural Areas) towards this vision. He also announced that the creation of 5000 PURAs in 5 years in different parts of the country. All the State governments, Non-Government organisations have all started working in this direction.

For the successful implementation of the missions of Vision

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2020, there is should be an integrated action through a moral, ethical and spiritual foundation. It is here that national development and spiritual connectivity acquire paramount importance. The question arises as to how this partnership might be developed. We have to establish the powerful interconnectivities and trade offs that are possible between economic prosperity and religious enrichment, since our mission is to build prosperous world with value system derived from our civilizational heritage. This is possible only through unity of minds. How to bring unity of minds?

In my search for unity of minds, I have visited great many religious places and houses of worship, temple, mosque, church, Buddhist monasteries and Christian monasteries throughout the length and breadth of this great country and abroad.

I want to share some experiences during my visit to these places in a quest for unity of minds.

Tawang, as you know, is a virtual Shangri-La tucked away at an altitude of 3,000 metres in a misty corner of Arunachal Pradesh. The people there seem truly happy and tranquil, living under the kindly umbrella of one the world's oldest Buddhist monasteries. During a visit, I asked the chief monk at the monastery about the secret of Tawang's tranquility that seemed to go beyond mere goodness. You're the President of India. You know everything, he replied, trying to avoid answering the question. When I persisted, however, he

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called out to all the 300 monks to come and sit around the imposing statue of the Buddha with us and delivered the following sermon: 'If you look at the 3,000 years history of India, you'll find that the country has always stood for peace. It worked for peace; it prayed for peace and it will live for peace. But these days, peace does seem to be in short supply. 'So, how does one bring back peace? the monk asked rhetorically.

Paradoxically, the `I' in you wants peace. Nevertheless, to get peace you have to first get rid of the `I' and `me'. (This is what the Buddha realized after his enlightenment, when he grasped the principle of causation and the lack of self in all that is.)

'So, can you get rid of the self? Seems like a tough proposition. For in virtually every sentence, every thought we have `I' and `me'. But if you remove these entities, the ego will vanish,' the monk said to me. 'When the ego vanishes, hatred fades away. When hatred goes away then violence in mind and body will disappear. Therefore, peace comes when you forsake ego and the sense of self. (For as the Buddha says, 'All this is not mine, I am not this, this is not myself.

During my recent visit abroad, I visited a Christian Monastery in RILA located in the hills of Bulgaria. It is the biggest Bulgarian revival, spiritual and cultural centre with a 16,000 volume library including 134 manuscripts from 15th to 19th century. This holy site played an important role in

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the spiritual and social life of medieval Bulgaria. Destroyed by fire due to invasion at the beginning of the 19th century, the complex was rebuilt later and is now surrounded by a big fort. While being in that divine environment amidst the Reverent Fathers aged between 80 and 90, I felt like praying. I went to the altar and asked permission of the Reverent Bishop John to recite the part of the prayer of St. Francis of Assisi. The prayer was repeated by all the people present in the Monastery.

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace; Where there is hatred let me sow love; The silent message in this prayer was felt by the Reverent Bishop, who blessed me by saying 'You work for world peace. My friends, may this beautiful divine message of love, enlighten our life to work for universal peace.

In my childhood (Age 10) one experience deeply entered into me. I would like to share with you. Everyday when I return from my school in the evening, my father would have gone to namaz (Prayer). And my mother will look angelic in the namaz. After Thakbhir position, she will recite two suras from holy Quran. One starts with Alhamdhu, and the other 'Lakkum, Thenukum. One day I asked my father and mother what is the meaning of Lakkum Thenukum? My mother in a graceful voice recited the sura 'Lakkum Thenukum Valiyatheen that is the end of the sura Alkhafbeerun. My father interpreted, it means 'everyone follows a path. He or she who decides the path is accountable for the actions. And

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also my father said, my son I being a Muslim meet my friends quite often as would have seen Pakshi Lakshmana Shastrigal. A great Hindu devotee of Rameshwaram Siva Temple with the priesthood and Reverent Father Bodal who built our Islandâ€&#x;s first church. In childhood I am indeed blessed to hear the discussion of the great three. At least once in a week the met and discussed on integration of thoughts from Holy Quran, Old Testament of Bible and Bhagavat Gita of Mahabaratha. From the essence of their saying, I learnt.

Whatever religion you are, the path you select will lead you to the bliss, based on your good action. Mankind is indeed is the salt of the earth. Your life should be just like a flower that gives fragrance and beauty in the morning and silently it falls to the ground in the evening where it was born. I have never come across in my life; I am 72 now, such a beautiful message on essence of life and how religions graduate into spiritual force.

During the last 18 months, I have traveled almost all the parts of the country. The message I have received from my extensive travels in the country is that most Indians experienced and old, energetic and middle-aged, young and innocent, they all look to religion for solace and safety. The religions are like exquisite gardens, places full of surpassing beauty and tranquility, like sacred groves filled with beautiful birds and their melodious songs. I truly think that religions are beautiful gardens. But they are islands. They are enchanting islets, veritable oases for the soul and the

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spirit. But they are islands nevertheless. However, if we can connect all these islands with love and compassion, in a `garland project' for the new millennium, we will have a prosperous India in front of us, a billion people through India millennium mission and even for our planet.

Towards this direction, I participated in the Surat Conclave on 15th October 2003. I met Swamijis, Maulavis, Rev Fathers, Spiritual leaders and devotees at Surat in Gujarat in the venerable presence Jain Muniji Acharya Mahaprajna. I had discussed with the religious leaders the vision of developed India. They explained the rich culture and civilisational heritage of thousands of years that our country is proud of; the traditional bonds in a well-knit family system, where love, affection, mutual help and service are the prevailing emotions particularly in the rural India of 700 million people.

There are two components religion has. One is theological component as put forth by saints and prophets. The second portion is the moral codes particularly good way of life.

Almost all religions the good way of life generally reflected compassion and love. The signing of the Surat Declaration by fifteen religious leaders was a testimony of the existence of a single noble core of all religions. This declaration has come out of two days of deliberation and discussion in the higher plane. It is a good experience for me. I have gained new insights about the ascent of man from a body running on breath and driven by sensory inputs to a networked entity on the earth, in the solar system and around the cosmos.

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The Surat conclave discussed the enrichment of religions and worked by ploughing the essence of the religion. They saw a bridge of love and compassion of connectivity as a garland for all religions. Finally, Surat Spiritual Declaration outlined five Garland Projects. These projects included celebration of inter-religious festivals; multi-religious community projects; education in and with the ambience of unity of religions; interfaith dialogue; and finally national level independent and autonomous organisation managed by religious and spiritual leaders as well as scholars and enlightened citizens. Hence the developmental mission has to have a focus on the spiritual way of life. The meeting led to the release of Surat Spiritual Declaration aimed at transforming India into a developed nation in partnership with the spiritual community.

God has created the human being with brain and thinking faculty. He has commanded His creation that the faculty must be used with reasoning to reach His image. This is the mission of the human life. Science is the best boon, God has bestowed upon mankind. Science with reasoning becomes the capital of the society. In whatever field we work, be it science, technology, medicine, politics, policing, theology, religion or judiciary, we have to remain in the service of the common man whose well being is central to all human knowledge and endeavour.

Every religion has a central component - spirituality that is driven by compassion and love. Rationality and logic are

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intrinsic to science and spirituality. A spiritual experience is the goal of a deeply religious person whereas a major discovery or an invention is the goal of a scientific mind. If both the aspects are unified, amalgamated in our own patterns, we can transcend to that level of thinking, in which unity is a cohesive aspect. For this environment the two major components- the Science and Spirituality, have to interact. A Peace prayer can be the foundation for both.

Oh Almighty, create thoughts and actions in the minds of the people of the nation So that they live united.

Oh Almighty, bless the people To take a path of life with righteousness as righteousness gives the strength of character.

Help all religious leaders of the country to give strength to the people to combat the divisive forces.

Guide the people to develop an attitude to appreciate different ideologies and transform enmity among individuals, organizations and nations, into friendliness and harmony.

Embed the thought Nation is bigger than the Individual in the minds of the leaders and people.

Oh God, bless the people to work with perseverance to transform the country into a peaceful and prosperous nation and promote world peace.

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I am sure that this International Summit towards Harmony and Peace will address some of these thoughts in its deliberations, and emerge with recommendations relevant to the whole world which shares the same burdens and joys of life and living.

Spirituality, Development and Peace These young people, they all had smiles in their faces, all had the will power to play games, participate in the sports and to win. Not one or two, but thousands of them. They were national players and participants in Abilympics. I invited them to the Mughal Garden. They were all happy, not because I was with them, but they were moved by the new environment and the natural scene with flowers blossoming, jasmine giving fragrance, parrots chirping, peacock dancing and deers jumping. The whole environment was beautiful and pleasant. The participants were coming from nearly 36 countries. I asked them what you want me to do. What will give you happiness? They all told me, "Mr. President you come and shake hands with every one of us."

More than thousands hands greeted me. At the end, I interacted with them. I told them that I have composed a poem, which I would like to share with you.

The poem runs like this: We are all God's children, Our minds are stronger than diamond.

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We will win, win, win with our mighty will.

God is with us, who can be against?

On hearing this, I saw a great emotion flowing on the people. A boy from Iran by name Mustafa came to me, who didn't have both the legs and was fitted with artificial limbs.

He thrust a paper in my hand. He had written a beautiful poem titled "Courage", in Persian language. It was translated in English and it reads like this: I don't have legs.

My mind says: Don't weep, don't weep For, I need not bow even in front of a King.

I was really moved by the positive thinking of that boy. It shows his courage to face the life with optimism. Now I realise that it is because of their courage and will power, they were at home with happiness.

Whenever I see a physically or mentally challenged person, I start thinking that God has not completely perfected his creation. Sometimes he makes his image of the human being in different way, it may be his perfection. At this point I recall an apt event that highlights how blissful it is to be born as a man or a woman without any deformity. A great poet, Auvaiyar, who had been singing and singing, visiting all parts of Tamil Nadu, had composed a poem on how precious it is to be born as a perfect human being. First I will

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recite the poem in Tamil then I will give its meaning in English.

When God asked what is rare in this world, Auvaiyar told him: If you asketh what is rare It is rare to be born as human Even if one is born as a human, It is rarer to be born without deformities Even if one is born without deformities, It is rare to acquire knowledge of self and the world and expertise in arts

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Even if one is endowed with these qualities, it is rare to acquire the habit of giving to the needy and do penance If one does so, the gates of Heaven will surely open to that soul All of you assembled here are blessed with many of the gifts described by the poet "Auvaiyar". In addition you are also uniquely blessed by being a part of Brahmakumaris organization to understand spirituality. In the entire world, we witness the mystery in God's creation. There is happiness, there is sorrow, there is wealth, there is poverty, there is flood, there is drought, there is peace, and there is war. With all these dualities, the humanity seeks peace and amity. I am also seeking where is the peace? When the peace will come? When will I see happy faces in the whole country like yours? That occasion will bring peace to me.

The important factors which contribute to happiness are peace and prosperity. Peace comes through spirituality whereas prosperity comes through development for which science and technology are essential.

When I went to Mount Abu few years back, one evening I happened to interact with 40 young Brahmakumaris. During this interaction I gave them a problem through a story from my own experience. The story was about the initial days of the Space Centre at Thiruvananthapuram in the year 1962.

Thumba in Kerala was selected by the scientific community for space research as it was near the equatorial region and was ideally suited for ionospheric research in upper

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atmosphere apart from study of atmospheric structure. When Prof. Vikram Sarabhai visited Thumba, the locality had series of villages and thousands of fishermen folk were living in that area. It also had a beautiful ancient Church, St. Mary Magdalene Church, Pallithura and a Bishop's House.

Prof. Vikram Sarabhai met many politicians and bureaucrats to acquire the place for space science research work. It could not materialise because of the nature of the place. He was asked to see the Bishop His Excellency Rector Revarent Dr. Peter Bernard Pereira of Thiruvananthapuram. It was a Saturday when Prof .Vikram Sarabhai met the Bishop. The Bishop smiled and asked to meet him the next day, i.e Sunday. In the morning Service, the Bishop told the congregation, "My children, I have a famous scientist with me who wants our church and the place I live, for the work of space science research. Dear children, science seeks truth by reasoning. In one way, science and spiritualism seek the same divine blessings for doing good to the people. My children, can we give the God's abode for a scientific mission?" There was a chorus of 'Amen' from the congregation and the whole church reverberated.

Subsequently, the big event took place in 1962. His Excellency Rector Reverent Dr Peter Bernard Pereira, the Bishop of Thiruvananthapuram, took the noble decision to dedicate the Church in recognition of the national goal for the establishment of the Indian Space Research Organisation at Pallithura, Thumba. That was the Church where we had our design centre, started rocket assembly, design of

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filament winding machine for FRP product and the Bishop's house was our scientists' drawing office. Later, the Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launching Station (TERLS) led to the establishment of Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC) and multiple space centres throughout the country.

I asked the young Brahmakumaris, what did you understand from this event? There were many types of replies. Some told that this is a unique case and may be an exception. Few told that it is not at all possible now in any parts of the World. Only one sister told me that here religion in itself has not worked, but it has elevated to spirituality and converged with science. That is the chemistry, which laid the foundation for such a national mission. The interaction led to the discussion on the science and spirituality. It emerged that 'silence' is the unifying factor between science and spirituality. The aim of both scientific approach and spiritual approach is the establishment of truth. Science approaches the problem through experimental means and spirituality approaches through experiential learning. For establishing the truth both approaches need to watch the process silently without turbulence. This non-turbulent phenomenon arises out of the lifestyle intervention suggested by Brahma Kumaris, which is applicable to all human beings for realizing inner tranquility and peace. On 15 October 2003, 15 saints and seers of different religions and faith met at Surat for evolving a scheme for transforming religion into spirituality. Brahma Kumari Sudesh Didi has participated in this function and signed the declaration for the GARLAND

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PROJECT for creating Unity of minds and there by creating enlightened citizens in India.

My first association with Brahma Kumaris dates back to 1997 - 98. There was a joint project of Defence Institute of Physiology and Allied Sciences (DIPAS), DRDO and the Global Hospital Research Centre governed by the Brahma Kumaris for studying the effect of "holistic lifestyle intervention" on the patients suffering from Coronary Artery Diseases. The project involved both Control Group and the Experimental Group. The Control Group was subjected to conventional treatment whereas the Experimental Group was supported by an intervention involving low fat, high fiber vegetarian diet, walking and aerobic exercises and Raja yoga meditation. This psycho-physiological mind-body approach in treating heart patients of the Experimental Group resulted in dissolution of angiographic plaque and improvement in micro-circulation of blood in heart muscles of the patients. The treatment was also supported by participation of spouses and other family members of the patients, leading to a unique family system approach to Medicare.

When I conducted the first review of the project, I found that nearly 60 people had reported positively about their wellbeing and their clinical reports showed remarkable improvement. When I visited the hospital again after two years, nearly 400 patients gave us a joyful presentation about their experiences. It was an experience of great

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happiness to see the patients presenting their X-ray records, showing us how this unique way of treatment has given great relief to their hearts. The conflict between cardiology, psychology and theology still persists, but this experiment has given a new thrust and a lasting cure for heart patients.

The message I would like to convey is that through the integration of medical science, physiology, health care, psychology and spirituality, a native Indian knowledge system in combination with allopathic systems can emerge.

This is how Brahmakumaris provide solace to the needy patients and give them peace. Through a total lifestyle intervention you are purifying the human minds and promoting peace. How can we radiate this fragrance of peace to the entire nation and the world?

Peace comes out of compassion, love and righteousness.

Now I am reminded of a Tamil Poetry and a story which brings out the power of righteousness and provides the code of conduct for the people in high and responsible positions:

It means, people who are in high and responsible positions, if they go against righteousness, the righteousness itself will get transformed into a destroyer. Whoever deviates from righteousness, whether they are individual or states, they are

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responsible for their own actions. This message is brought out very clearly by the Elangovadikal (a Jain monk) in Silapathikaram. Silapathikaram is one of the five great epics written nearly 2000 years ago in Tamil language. The story of Kannagi plays an important role in history of Madurai.

Kovalan a successful business man married "Kannagi" who was the beautiful daughter of a merchant by name "Maanaikkan".

Later Kovalan's lifestyle changed due to his association with the dancer called "Madhavi" and he lost all his property.

This led Kovalan to go back to his wife for help. Both of them went to Madurai to start trade after selling their only property, that is a pair of anklets called "Silambu".

In the meantime, the queen of Pandiyan King Nedunchezhiyan, lost her anklets ("Silambu"). Actually, the court Jeweller had robbed the queen's anklets. Once the wicked jeweller happened to see Kovalan with Kannagi's anklets in the market. He seized the anklet from Kovalan and informed the King about it. The King sent guards to arrest Kovalan. Kovalan was accused of having stolen the queen's anklets and was killed as per the King's order.

When Kannagi came to know about the news, she went out into the town, with her eyes ablaze with anger, carrying the remaining anklet in her hand as proof of her husband's innocence. She made the King realise the truth by breaking her anklet which was made of Manickam. When Pandiyan

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King came to know that he had punished an innocent, he died in his throne by saying "Oh! I am the thief and he is not the thief." The queen also died at that spot. Kannagi burnt Madurai into ashes in consequence to the injustice caused to her husband Kovalan. Since the Pandiyan King failed to preserve justice and punished an innocent person, righteousness transformed into a destroyer. This shows the importance of righteousness in our day to day life.

In summary, I have discussed with you so far: Courage of special people, human evolution in the image of God, religion transforming into spirituality and the importance of righteousness. Righteousness contains all elements of human character. A Divine hymn what I heard, I would like to administer to all of you, the name of the divine hymn is Righteousness: Where there is righteousness in the heart There is beauty in the character.

When there is beauty in the character, there is harmony in the home.

When there is harmony in the home.

There is an order in the nation.

When there is order in the nation, There is peace in the world.

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Towards Global peace Righteousness is born out of civilizational heritage. A human life is not complete with righteousness alone. He or she should have the employment and have the capacity to earn. We have to create employment for the 260 million people who are below the poverty line. We have to wipe out their tears.

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Legal system and its dimensions Law and judiciary have very important role in development of a society. Law essentially plays the balancing role and enables justice and fair play when new opportunities and challenges are opening up in the developing society. In the earlier phase of Indian history before foreign invasions, the laws were basically catering to maintain the then prevailing social order, good morality and upliftment of all segments of the society. With time, the social system had gradually become more and more complex. In the present period such complexities have further grown rapidly with modern industrialization, commercialization tremendous increase in population and resultant increase in scarcity of natural resources. As the Law has to address the imbalances in the society and protection of all the people, gradually, in all countries, laws have progressively become more and more national and specialised in character.

Every citizen in the country has a right to live with dignity; every citizen has a right to aspire for distinction. Availability of a large number of opportunities to resort to just and fair means in order to attain that dignity and distinction is what democracy is all about. That is what our Constitution is all about. And that is what makes life wholesome and worth living in a true and vibrant democracy.

At this point, I would like to remind all of you that at social levels it is necessary to work for Unity of Minds. The increasing intolerance for views of others and increasing

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contempt about ways of lives of others or their religions or the expressions of these differences through lawless violence against people cannot be justified in any context. All of us have to work hard and do everything to make our behaviours civilised to protect the rights of every individual. That is the very foundation of the democratic values to become an enlighten citizen of the country which I believe is our civilisational heritage and the very soul of our nation.

Nobility is the foundation of the legal system and it is the responsibility of every component of the legal system to preserve it.

Opportunities for rapid industrial and economic growth today co-exist with new problems arising out of trade competition and corporate mergers and take-over. Many tiny and small sectors of industries and even artisan goods will be facing the forces of modernization in the form of market forces, technologies and other forms of public information system including advertisements. There are major issues of protecting the local and global environment. Let us look at science and technology which has emerged as a strong force during the current period of human history. Basically science and technology is driven by human curiosity and reasoning and in its best sense aimed at spreading benefits to all people. They are basically universal in outlook.

Similarly, laws are meant to protect people, their rights and make them feel secure in the society. I think this is the common meeting ground of Law, Science and Technology, People and Society. Legal instruments must maximize the

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benefits for our people and nation. Laws must protect the indigenous technologies and trade to the extent they impact peoples living and their welfare as well as ensure national interest.

We have to start use of Information and communication Technology (ICT) in legal dispute resolution at the grass root level. I understand that there are a very large number of civil and criminal cases under the consideration are accumulating particularly in High Courts and District Courts. Pending cases in various courts leads to enormous mental stress, agony, hatred, loss of transparency and huge loss of earning & wastage of manpower and delay in the progress of national development. ICT tools can be used to create an electronic advisory system to assist the public / local agencies as reportedly made available in healthcare through Internet. Legal Mentoring and revitalizing village panchayat system through electronic connectivity to the Courts by using ICT will create human rights awareness among the common public.

Economic prosperity by 2020 will also mean that many of the Indians will be doing business in the digital world on the web. In this new era, crime, law and justice will be completely different from the present. In the present law, for example, the jurisdiction will correspond to the location where the crime is committed and where the damage occurs - very often both being the same location. Whereas in the digital world, the crime may originate from a strange place even outside our own shores and may damage organizational

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wealth which will be in the digital form in multiple locations. In the 20th century, a nation's business transactions and wealth creation were based on transfer of materials (atoms) from one place to the other. In the 21st century wealth is created whenever information in the form of electrons is transferred across the networks in a borderless world. Indian judicial system has to build its capacity to define jurisdictions in a way that any crime committed against India or her assets by anyone from anywhere shall be punishable by Indian law. It may be true for other countries also. The legal community must enable formulation of progressive and innovative laws for the digital economy that will be one of the vital components of a developed nation.

Military Law has been derived for enforcing discipline among the armed forces personnel serving both in the operational and peace areas. It provides summary powers for the commanders at various levels. The Indian Armed Forces have gradually become knowledge workers with the growth in the education level and the technological progress made in the equipment regime. The management of knowledge workers is slightly different from the conventional system of managing the soldiers. The commanding officers at all levels have to use the powers vested with them judiciously for getting the best out of the men under their command. Also over a period of time number of decisions taken by the district and general court marshals have been reviewed in the High Courts and Supreme Courts, leading to revision of orders. There is a need to make a systematic study of such

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revisions and suggest appropriate modifications to the Army, Air Force and Navy Act. I suggest the Army Institute of Law can carry out a special study on this subject by evaluating hundred typical judgements.

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Beautiful Smile to the people Advances in materials like composites, polymers, ceramics, and fiber reinforced composites, silicon have found their place in dentistry. By using laser technology, emerging nano technology, tele-radiology, digital imagery and virtual reality etc., the rehabilitation process will be modeled and energized for providing customized Prosthodontics treatment. Scientists from genetic engineering are working towards development of individual tissue organs through the use of stem cells. When any organ of the human body can be rehabilitated using individual's own stem cells, it will not be far off when we can see reconditioning of the teeth through stem cells used for promoting the growth of tissues and bones. Intensive research is needed for realizing this breakthrough. Very soon we may see a person having real natural teeth either replanted or repaired in place of the missing teeth.

I would like to share the experiences witnessed in Indian soil on the development of dental implants. Maj Gen. Ravindranath, Director - INMAS, DRDO has been working on this development project for over fifteen years. He and his team have developed dental implants, bone plates, titanium mesh and bone augmentation materials. They had identified NFTDC (Non-Ferrous Technology Development Centre) as the production agency for bone plates. For implants and surgical kits, they have transferred technology to private firm. So far, they have made more than 400 implants and supplied to 14 health centres in the country

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both in the civil and defence establishments. Trials are taking place at four centres in south, two in north, one in east and six armed forces institutions. The oldest standing case in this test is twelve years old and the patient is extremely happy with the implants. Trials proceeding in different places have given good results. In some cases, the implants have been used as part of restoration after post cancer treatment. The development team has shown enormous perseverance in progressing this project. I am sure dental implants developed by DRDO will reach medical and business centres in-time in the world, so that it should have competitiveness of the three dimensions such as quality,cost effectiveness, and supply in-time.

Even after sound development, there is no guarantee that the equipment/material will be smoothly produced and inducted into the dental care market. It may be true both in India and abroad. I have been closely associated with the development of titanium dental implants and associated fitment hardware by our laboratories. Work in the laboratory gets carried out with utmost enthusiasm but beyond that the scientists encounter hurdles at every stage. The Society can create a consortium of doctors, industrialists, hospitals and development laboratories. This consortium in consultation with the corresponding government agencies could empower the development process and enable the smooth transition from development, trial production, quantity production, multi-centric trials leading to the induction of equipment or product into the hospitals by the ethics committee. Such a

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forum is essential for compressing the time between concept to induction currently encountered by the development institutions and scientists.

I understand that Prosthesis is the replacement of an absent part of human body by some artificial part such as an eye, a leg or a denture. Prosthetics is the art and science of designing and fitting artificial substitutes to replace part or missing tissues. Dental prosthetics deals with its application in oral and para oral structures. It aims at restoring and maintaining all oral functions like mastication, speech, swallowing, comfort, appearance and health of the patient by the replacement process. But the main problem in this treatment is that all the equipment and materials needed for the designing and fitments are presently imported. Even the consumables in many cases are imported. Dr Ravindranath told me the dental chair with all the connected instrumentations was imported. But as an engineer I believe, Indian industries with R&D lab assistance can build the dental chair in a cost effective way. It is my experience whenever a doctor and an engineer work together, we have witnessed many breakthroughs - for example cardiac stent and Floor Reaction Orthosis (FRO). I was told that some industries have started manufacturing few types of materials and equipment in the country. But this is not adequate.

I would recommend that the members of Prosthodontics Society should contribute 5% of their profit to an "equipment development fund". Prospective equipment

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manufacturers could provide a matching contribution for this development fund. Government on its part could provide income tax exemption to the extent of 200% for the contribution made to this fund. Similar exemption to an extent of 125% for income tax payers is already available for contribution to research and development in governmentfunded institutions. The resource generated could be deployed for the development of selected high cost dental equipment. An expert committee appointed by the Society could select the equipment and prioritize. It is also essential to establish the partners for development. Such an approach will synergise the resources and efforts of all the participants and enable us to get cost effective medical and dental equipment for treating the community.

There is a need to network the dental centres particularly research centers located in different parts of the country to generate clinical database which will be useful for research.

It can also be made available in the Internet for sharing of information and academic research leading to path breaking findings. This type of connectivity will enable research on different dental problems pertaining to different regions in the country. Also the clinical database of one particular surgeon will be available to other dental surgeons for deciding on the line of treatments for similar cases. The region specific research database could be used for suggesting preventive medicine or preventive care to the local community based on doctor's experience. We need to have a centralized database on Indian dental problems,

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cases, remedies and solutions. Also it will enable detection of related diseases arising out of water and other environmental factors in a particular region. This could help proper treatment of water and provide better health for the community as a whole. Better use of tele-medicine for the dental care in the remote villages will enable the doctors to examine the patients using intra oral X-rays through digital sensors and provide consultancies through Virtual Dental Clinics which can provide knowledge to the field centres.

I am told mobile dental clinics are functional in certain places like Delhi, Bombay and some cities in Karnataka.

They are providing treatment in certain urban slums and certain selected village areas. I suggest that this experience of mobile clinics has to spread all over the country. The Prosthodontics Society in consultation with Government and Non Government Organisations need to undertake propagation of these mobile clinics to all parts of the country, especially in rural areas. They should inculcate the knowledge among the rural population and provide proactive Medicare among the village community, which will enable them to have a better quality of life.

There is a need for educating the masses on dental care particularly in the rural areas. Many of them are in the habit of chewing pan, gutka, tobacco and smoking which have a detrimental effect on the dental health leading to cancer. For preventing such occurrences a campaign is needed to educate the rural masses on dental hygiene and suggest simple means of preventing damage to the dental system.

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Every doctor who takes care of oral treatment should consider himself as an educator of the society and educate the patients and the family who accompany them on preventive dental care. Families in turn should educate other people in the village leading to a mass movement towards community dental care. Like eye camps, dental surgeons could have dental camps in different regions where apart from providing simple treatment, training session can be organized for giving them exposure on methods of protecting their dental system. During the routine examination if some loss of tissue is detected, the patient can be advised treatment for restoration of the tissue.

In different parts of the country, there are many traditional practitioners who are providing health care products from herbal plants in the form of powders for the dental care. Still many people in the villages make use of these products and some of them are able to maintain sound dental health. My father lived for 103 years. Up to the age of 98, all his teeth were intact. He had not gone to any dental clinic throughout his life. Only during his later years I realized that he was using neem sticks for brushing his teeth both in the morning and before going to bed. It was an isolated case in my family. This practice is slowly vanishing because of the aggressive marketing of modern medical products. There is a need to identify some areas of excellence and carry out systematic research in the area using the knowledge base of the traditional practitioners. A case study could be conducted about the use of neem tree material as a cost

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effective solution for promoting dental care in the villages.

Apart from neem, efficacy of ingredients like clove and herbs could also be studied for use in dental paste and powder. We need to examine them more critically and make use of traditional system knowledge base for the welfare of people. This could be done by having a workshop specially dedicated for assembling the traditional system practitioners and having a constructive discussion.

Self-reliance is very essential in the health care sector. The technologies have been conditioned to function optimally for the ambience of a particular country. The effective support services for proper maintenance of expensive medical and dental equipments are generally not readily available. The Prosthodontics Society could facilitate conduct of a special diploma course for imparting maintenance training on dental equipment. This has got tremendous employment potential. I urge the Society to be a catalyst to reinforce self-reliance effort for promoting indigenous technology and traditional health care system for dental treatment, as it is country centric. Presently 80% if our dental surgeons are engaged in looking after 20% of our urban population. PURA (Providing Urban facilities in Rural Areas) has been accepted by the Government for empowering the village clusters and economic progress. This will have education, healthcare, employment and marketing centres. Dental care with mobile clinics, treatment centres and tele-medicine will become an important addition. Initiatives has to come from the Society with the assistance of Government,

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philanthropists and NGOs to promote dental care units in the village clusters. This contribution towards the education and healthcare of rural community will add to the prosperity of the nation as a whole. I suggest the Indian Prosthodontics Society and world partners to start our mission to give "beautiful smile to the people".

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Ramanujan: A continuing source of inspiration Srinivasa Ramanujan was one of the greatest geniuses known and acknowledged of his time. He lived only for 33 years and did not have formal higher education or means of living. Yet, his inexhaustible spirit and love for his subject made him contribute to the 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 Prof G H Hardy. In fact, it is not an exaggeration to say that it was Prof. Hardy who discovered Ramanujan for the world. Professor Hardy rated various geniuses on a scale of 100. While most of the mathematicians got a rating of around 30 with rare exceptions reaching to 60, Ramanujan got a rating of 100.

There cannot be any better tribute to either Ramanujan or to Indian heritage. His works cover vast areas including Prime Numbers, Hyper geometric Series, Modular Functions, Elliptic Functions, Mock Theta Functions, even magic squares, apart from serious side works on geometry of ellipses, squaring the circle etc. One of the tributes to Ramanujan says that, 'every Integer is a personal friend of Ramanujan'.

Ramanujan used to say "An equation means nothing to me unless it expresses a thought of God".

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For him the understanding of numbers was a process of spiritual revelation and connection. In his investigations into pure mathematics, he drew extraordinary conclusions that mystified his colleagues, but were usually proven, eventually, to be right. He opened a universe of theory that still today is reaping applications. The landscape of the infinite was to Ramanujan a reality of both mathematics and spirit.

He would talk for hours on the relationship he saw between God, zero and infinity. He spoke of the quantity two to the power 'n' minus one ("2n -1"), explaining that it stood for "the primordial God and several divinities. When n is zero, the expression denotes zero, there is nothing; when n is "1", the expression denotes God; when n is "2", the expression denotes Trinity; when n is "3", the expression denotes "7", the Saptha Rishis". (A group of seven stars called the "Great Bear"). And he continued with the idea that "Zero represents Absolute Reality. Infinity is the myriad manifestations of that Reality.

Their mathematical product, Infinity x 0 is not one number, but all numbers each of which corresponds to individual acts of creation". For Ramanujan, numbers and their mathematical relationship were the measure of how the universe fits together. Each new theorem he explored was one more piece of the infinite to fathom.

One of the important applications of Number Theory is in designing error correcting codes which are robust against

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noise introduced in communication channels. The idealistic communication models can be described as follows: Source to Encoder to Channel (added with noise) to Decoder to Receiver.

The problems of defining a suitable measure of information and of efficiency of coding have been satisfactorily solved.

The second problem of coding is concerned with finding a method whereby for each message received we can identify the message transmitted with the least amount of error, even when the transmitted message is corrupted by noise. The fundamental theorem of information theory assures us that under certain conditions this can be done. The construction of error correcting codes have been a difficult and fascinating mathematical problem and its more or less successful solution has made it possible for us to think of channels or great reliability to work with computers and automation equipment.

In the area of analogue signal processing one uses a mathematical technique called Fourier Transform. When one enters the digital world a different tool called Discrete Fourier Transform is used. Whereas, if one has to analyse noise signals, engineers have recently come to the conclusion that an efficient mathematical tool would be the Ramanujan Fourier Transformation or in short RFT . This once again demonstrates that though Ramanujan did the work on RFT purely to satisfy his urge to explore the beauty

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of mathematics, it had come to be of use in day-toapplications like communications- almost six decades later.

Friends, the genius in Ramanujan had to be discovered by Prof. Hardy. This has been cryptically remarked at that time

by Poondi Namasivaya Mudaliar with anguish "It is the destiny of our nation that an Indian brain requires an acknowledgement from a foreigner. Why our people are hesitant to appreciate such a personality". I would like to narrate another incident which took place a few years back.

A young man, Loveligen, from a remote area of Kerala, who could not complete PUC, wrote to me saying that he has discovered a new mathematical theory and he would like to talk to me. I saw in the letter that the boy was very sincere.

Since he has written to me, I thought our specialist team can study his work and direct him to the right type of researchers. I called this boy to Delhi for a few days. What surprised us was that he had arrived at part of the equations of the Ramanujan's number theory, which this boy was not at all aware of. He had discovered something and added some new points to it and the result is new. To a great extent the achievements in the field of mathematics generally seem to come out of a desire to look into the beautiful aspects of nature, including natural phenomena such as the star studded skies, which have always interested the astronomers from time immemorial. An additional contributory factor seems to be an inherent drive towards recognition of patterns even if it be in the sense of mathematical sequences or series.

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It is interesting to note that Loveligen has currently delved into the equally exciting topic of power sequences and series. What I felt was that he needed a good mathematical education or a patronage of a good mathematics teacher. It is like having Prof Hardy for Ramanujan, the mathematics genius to come. I asked this boy, why he didn't meet a mathematics teacher. He said, meeting a mathematics teacher is an expedition. He says, it is below their dignity to meet somebody who is not even a graduate. How do we promote this kind of young and enthusiastic minds? Can our teachers and philanthropists or the social activists spot these buds to blossom? Those who spot such talents and make them blossom will themselves be a different kind of a flower as described in the Bhagwad Gita: "See the flower, how generously it distributes its perfume and its honey. It gives to all, gives freely of its love. When its work is done, it falls away quietly. Try to be like the flower unassuming despite all its qualities". What a beautiful message for all generations of this Nation.

Recently, I have asked Dr. R. Chidambaram, Dr. R.A.Mashelkar and Prof.N Balakrishnan to evolve a system that will provide an outlet for innovativeness in the budding mathematicians. One of the suggestions that I have is that, to bring out Indian talents, like the way Hardy did for Ramanujam, many of you must agree to host these talents at least for a few months in your establishments. You are the ones who could become tomorrow's Hardy by helping to

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shape the uncut diamond to a best jewel that we could be proud of.

Let me now share with you the latest development in the field of Information Communication Technology and Information Security.

Number Theory once epitomized pure mathematics. Today the applied Number Theory usually refers to Cryptography, which enables Secure Communications. Very simple mathematics, cleverly used, occasionally produces spectacular practical results and indeed the first public key crypto systems needed only the most rudimentary number theory. But the modern elaborations of the number theory use all the number theoretic tools one can reasonably expect from an undergraduate. Thus, cryptography motivates a new generation of students to study number theory.

Cryptography aside, applied number theory might also mean communication networks. Expander graphs are basic building blocks in the design of networks and have vast number of applications in areas of computer and communication sciences. In the last two decades the theory of Ramanujan Graphs has gained prominence primarily for two reasons. First, from a practical point of view these graphs resolved an external problem in communication network theory. Second, from a more aesthetic point of view.

In the digital world, bits and bytes represent knowledge which in turn represents the nation's wealth. For example,

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the source codes of the software that a company sells, the long term strategies of companies, bank accounts, the purchase through e-Commerce and even our land records are in digital form today. Movement of bits across the network creates further wealth in the digital era. More than 25% of most nations soon will be directly or indirectly connected with Information and Communication products. In this new world, the economic and physical securities are tightly intertwined by Information Security. Nations that are capable of generating and managing information in a secure way will become world leaders and world super powers.

Cryptography - the art of hiding information is central to information security. There are two major ways by which information can be cryptographically secured in computer mediated communication. One is the symmetric cipher where the same key is used for encryption as well as decryption. The other is the Asymmetric key cryptography, wherein the encryption key and the decryption key are different. The latter can be also used for Public-Key Encryption. The Asymmetric key cryptography like the widely used RSA (Ron Rivest, Adi Shamir and Len Adleman) is dependent on the complexity of calculations needed for finding out the two prime numbers p and q, given their product n =p x q.

This is where the Number Theory comes in - a field wherein Ramanujan made long lasting contributions. Had Ramanujan lived for a few more years, had we continued to maintain the

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lead that Ramanujan gave us in the field of Number Theory; today we would have become the "Leaders in Secure communication" and possibly made many innovations that would have made our nation proud and also rich.

Ramanujan, in making contributions to Number Theory was well ahead of his time- blissfully unaware of the potential of his work either in securing information or in creating wealth.

He did what he did simply for the beauty and purity of all he did. What Ramanujan said is so much, what he implied is even more, what he left behind is the legacy that many generations that would never forget and perpetuate his mission.

ICT has established that the data transformed into information has a business proposition which has given a competitive advantage. I am sure by the end of this decade countries like India will have IT enabled services in the fields of human resources, customer interaction, finance and accounting, data search and integration, e-education, telemedicine and e-governance.

Core competencies that can be exploited in addition to the above include Information Security, Scientific Software development that can spearhead a strong domestic market, Entertainment, Education, Hardware and chip design and Wireless. In India the software industry is exploring these areas to create a wealth of $80 billion by the year 2010. We strongly believe by a proper planning and the ability to move up the value chain we may even touch a target of $150 billion by 2010.

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When we all talk about the nation's strides in IT, Space, Defence, Agriculture and academic institutions we have not yet fully recognised the importance of mathematics. It is becoming even more difficult to get bright students taking to Mathematics - the purest of the sciences as a career when they are young. This will in the next few years would stifle innovations and make the role of Science & Technology in societal transformation a saturated ground. On this historic day, can we launch a National Mission to generate Mathematicians in large numbers and also create suitable employment potential for them, so that we will enrich our scientific work and enrich our nation which had a tradition of mathematics right from Aryabhatta. This is eminently possible since India for several centuries had been the home of some of the best talents in mathematics - a tradition that should be nurtured for the world to benefit.

There may be hundreds of such minds spread over in the country. They are looking for many of the gifted senior scientists and professors to encourage their thinking and lead to best contribution in the field. We have to shed the 'minimum educational qualification' syndrome for the sake of discovering and encouraging the young minds' dreams.

Throughout the country, the educated community, blessed with higher educational potential, should spot and encourage the creative minds wherever they are, irrespective of their regions.

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Rural Prosperity: Challenges As per the Census of 2001, women account for 48.3% of our total population. Many agencies, both Government and private, are taking initiatives in the areas of training and capacity building, employment and income generation, welfare and gender sensitization with the ultimate objective of empowering women both economically and socially for making them equal partners in development. The efforts of RASS have the power of unleashing the full potential of half of the population of the country.

The next two decades are very important for India for transforming from a 'developing' to a 'developed' nation. The responsible citizens, particularly women are all the more important for the nation as their thoughts, the way of working and value system will lead to the growth and sustenance of a good family, good society and eventually a good nation.

I am reminded of Mahakavi Subramaniya Bharatiar, who in 1910 composed the poem envisioning empowered women of India: The work of craftspeople and artisans is the result of accumulated skills of generations fused with creativity of the young and traditional knowledge. This area is under constant attack from urban industrial and multinational products based on mass production and industrial materials. We have to preserve this traditional knowledge under this adverse

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environment. For this, traditional knowledge has to be integrated with technology, value addition, proactive cooperative societies organizations and empowerment of craftspeople and artisans. Under these conditions, instead of craftspeople coming to urban marketing centres, the reverse phenomena will take place.

This can be achieved by creating Knowledge powered village complex called PURA (Providing Urban Amenities in Rural Areas) having physical, electronic, knowledge and economic connectivity in clusters of 10-20 villages. This cluster will have, in the periphery, schools, primary health centres, craftspeople working & training centres, silos for storage of products and markets for promoting products of craftspeople and cottage industries. This knowledge powered village complex will also have markets attracting urban business to the villages. RASS has already got innate potential to realize PURA in their regions with the support of State and Central governments. However the spirit of PURA must emerge from the soil of the villages. I would like to administer an oath for enriching the village life: Children are our precious wealth We will give equal importance for male and female children in providing education and rights for growth of our society.

For health and prosperity we will have a small family.

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Earnings come out of hard work. We will not waste it in gambling and liquor.

We need to tell our children about the importance of education as learning gives knowledge and knowledge makes the children succeed.

We need to jointly protect our forest and prevent pollution.

We will plant at least five trees/saplings.

We will become the role models for our children.

When a child is empowered by the parents at various phases of growth, the child gets transformed into a responsible citizen. When a teacher is empowered with knowledge and experience, good young human beings with value systems emerge. When an individual or a team is empowered with technology, transformation to higher potential for achievement is assured. When a leader of any village empowers his or her people, leaders are born who can change the nation in multiple areas. When the political leaders of the nation empower the people through visionary policies, the prosperity of the nation is certain. When women are empowered, society with stability gets assured. Such an empowered stage will lead to creation of enlightened citizens with value system resulting in prosperity of the nation.

The process for transforming India into a developed nation

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has already commenced. All of you are working towards this cause in your own way. We find increasing number of success stories of women for income generation. Rural women are also becoming socially conscious.

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Second Green Revolution and Beyond As you are aware, the First Green Revolution launched by great visionaries Shri C. Subramaniam and Dr. M.S. Swaminathan with the help of agricultural scientists, farmers and entrepreneurs, liberated India from the situation of what was called "ship to mouth existence." Through an effort of historical magnitude, India attained self-sufficiency in food and we can now export certain quantity of food-grains. The contribution of this University in the green revolution by providing high quality "Pantnagar Seeds" to the farmers is well known. As part of this first green revolution, the country has been able to produce over 200 million tonnes of food grains per year. But there are challenges ahead.

India has to now embark upon the Second Green Revolution which will enable it to further increase its productivity in the agricultural sector. By 2020 India would require to produce over 380 million tonnes in view of population growth. The increase in the production would have to surmount many impeding factors. The requirement of land for the increasing population as well as for greater afforestation and environmental preservation activities would force a situation whereby the present 170 million hectares of arable land would not be fully available. It might shrink to 100 million hectares by 2020. In addition, there will be shortage of water. Our agricultural scientists and technologists have to work for doubling the productivity of the available land with lesser area being available for cultivation with less water.

The type of technologies needed would be in the areas of

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development of seeds that would ensure good yield even under constraints of water and land. The second green revolution is indeed a knowledge graduation from characterization of soil to the matching of the seed with the composition of the fertilizer, water management and evolving pre-harvesting techniques for such conditions. The domain of a farmer's work would enlarge from grain production to food processing and marketing. While doing so, utmost care would have to be taken for various environmental and people related aspects leading to sustainable development. I would like to mention some of the areas in which we need to focus to realise the second green revolution.

In 1980, the agriculture sector employed, in parts or in full, 76% of people of India. It reduced to 65% in 1994 and is expected to be 60% by 2012. It may further fall to 50% by the year 2020. This will happen for two reasons. The agriculture technology would assist the future farmers engaging lesser number of workers and simultaneous growth in the service sector and to some extent in agro-food processing and industrial sectors would be preferred by more people for employment. We must therefore assume in this period, lesser numbers of people will be available for farming. Many will be migrating to food processing and marketing. Hence, it is important for Pant University faculty members to work in generating graduates who can spread and work for high productivity of wheat and paddy from what it is today and empower the farmers with the capability

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to take up food processing and food marketing. It is indeed a big mission. I would suggest Pant University to set a trend in expanding the conventional role of the Indian farmer from a producer of the food to an entrepreneur engaged in processing and marketing of international standard farm products.

Over a period of time by continuous usage of fertilizers, pesticides and insecticides, there is deterioration in the quality of soil particularly reduction of carbon content and increase of salinity. Rejuvenation of soil characteristics is an important area for the specialists to tackle, with specific emphasis on recovery of its nutritional value. More thrust need to be given on adopting methods such as multicropping, rotation of crops and organic farming. A farmer in Haldwani district of Uttaranchal has already exemplified adoption of unique organic farming techniques for increased and sustainable productivity. The University can play a major role in making the State a leader in organic farming.

Integrated nutrient management continues to be a focal issue in dry lands as the fertilizer use is not likely to pick up significantly unless water supply is assured. One of the reasons ascribed to low response of bio-fertilizers in dry lands is their low status of soil organic matter. Soil fertility in dry lands can be sustained only through maintenance of organic matter and achieving better fertilizer-use efficiency through integration of moisture-conservation practices along with soil-fertility management. Strategies for on-farm generation of organic matter need to be evolved.

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Universities and research organizations have to lay more emphasis on developing and leading to production of the seeds which require less water, to the farmers for achieving increased productivity even in critical environmental conditions.

Geography is very closely linked to quality of life in our vast country. Wherever there are people enduring economic hardships there is also problem of the availability of water. It costs energy and money to bring water for specialized agriculture to such dry areas. We need to develop proper agricultural technologies and water conservation methodologies that can help enhance agriculture productivity and lift the people above the poverty line.

Solutions may be just beyond agriculture alone spanning to animal husbandry, poultry, agro processing and other related activities.

Our agriculture is still dependent on timely arrival and intensity of monsoon. It is high time that we have an overall water management plan for conservation of water, preparation of water shed schemes, rainwater harvesting and recharging of ground water. These measures will help prevent loss of a crop by using the harvested water for nursery development and delaying transplantation in case of late arrival of monsoon. The University, with its vast human resource potential, can popularize the water management techniques in distant parts of the State and elsewhere in the country in collaboration with Ministry of Water Resources.

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The changing life-styles of the modern generation are giving rise to demand for processed food. For example, special type of corn is required for making corn flakes and unique potato crop for making wafers. The agro-processing industry has to take into account the retention of the nutritional value and safeguarding against possible side effects of additives and preservatives. In addition the agriculture and agroprocessing industry in India have to master many new standards and perceptions for cleanliness, generally described as phyto-sanitary requirements. The University can extend their support to agro-processing sector through research and application of innovative technologies.

Management of agricultural waste is another important area which can turn out to be a source for revenue generation.

Farmers can realise better value from the agricultural residue by paying special attention to its usage into organic farming and making value added products out of it before disposal.

Agricultural waste should be put to use by developing appropriate and cost-effective technologies such as generation of biogas, production of vermi-compost and paper for example.

Information Technology should be used for maintaining an updated and enriched database of region specific agricultural information and timely dissemination of the information pertaining to soil enrichment, seed selection, actions relating to arrival of monsoon, etc., to the farmers. In addition, information regarding agricultural product preferences -

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both national and international, demand-supply status in respect of different products and the current price should be made available on-line to the farmers for taking timely decisions on crop product diversification strategies and positioning of the same in right market to get optimum revenue. The University can extend their support to the district and panchayat level institutions to take a lead in central acquisition of the latest information using IT as a tool and making it available to the farmers in their native language. IT should be used by networking agricultural universities to generate data bank for at least 20-years. The data-bank should provide information on seed management, water management, treatment for typical diseases, and above all annual output, distribution and market dynamics.

In India, a large number of people earn their livelihood from agriculture and farming. Agricultural universities have to do research to reinforce the efforts of farmers for enabling enhancement of per hectare productivity and graduating to food processing near large farms and also marketing their products. Simultaneously, they should network with multiple universities to enhance cost-effective, long life storage methods and evolve a scheme for stabilized cost structure, so that high volume production does not bring the farmer to despair. Also, they should facilitate farmers to produce grains, vegetable and fruits meeting international standards. As you all know, today any farm product when it is exported, a certification is required in terms of its nutrient value and that it is free of chemicals. This aspect has to be

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focused right from development of seed to final product acceptable in the international market.

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Core competence and National Development Last two years, I was studying the development patterns and the dynamics of connectivity between nations, especially in trade and business. As you all know the world has a few developed countries and many developing countries. What is the dynamics between them and what connects them?

Developed country has to market their products in a competitive way to different countries to remain as developed country. A developing country to get transformed into developed country; also has to market their products to other countries. Competitiveness is the deciding factor for the successful business and trade. Competitiveness has three dimensions: quality of the product, cost effectiveness and supply in time. Indeed this dynamics of competitiveness in marketing of products by developing and developed countries is called the law of development. Technology is the key to competitiveness. Academia and research institutions must provide this input to the industry for making our products competitive, to enable India to become a developed nation in less than two decades.

I consider that each one of our IITs should develop a unique core competence needed for the nation and related to the region in which that IIT is established, apart from their multidisciplinary roles and research. IIT Roorkee is uniquely placed with technological strength in the areas of Civil and Structural Engineering, Building Science, Soil Science, Hydrology, Irrigation and Water Management, Geotechnical Engineering, Rock Mechanics, Remote Sensing,

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Information Technology, Computer Science and Mathematics. The strength in these areas should enable IIT Roorkee to build its core competence on Earth Quake Prediction and Disaster Management through validated model and proven technologies.

The loss and damage due to natural disasters like earthquakes can be reduced if timely warning becomes available to the people as well as the administrative authorities. It is a general opinion of the scientific community that accurate prediction of time and location of an earthquake is still a distant possibility. However certain countries, particularly Iceland are carrying out earthquake prediction with reasonable accuracy in local areas. Their experience and mathematical modeling can facilitate reasonable prediction of earthquake with more accuracy in our country.

IIT Roorkee must study all the natural disasters which have taken place in the country in the last 50 years along with prediction research inputs, which could probably enable us to evolve prediction model, to accurately predict the natural disaster in a timely manner. Concurrently, codes for building construction for earth quake prone zones can be evolved which can form part of the standard building codes.

Earthquakes are complex and extraordinarily varied involving a number of factors and phenomena. Perhaps one common feature is the release of large amount of accumulated stress. I understand that monitoring the build-

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up of stress by analysis of shear-wave splitting leads the increasing likelihood of a future large earthquake to be recognized. This is known as stress forecasting. Such stressforecasting would allow appropriate preparations to mitigate hazard that specific short-term predictions would not. It is said that stress-forecasting was possible in South West Iceland only because of the unique seismic activities of the onshore transform-zone. It is also said that Stressforecasting gives reasonable estimates of time and magnitude but gives little or no information about location.

But we should also keep in mind that earthquake prediction is always local. Hence with the help of stress-forecasting if it is known that a large earthquake is going to occur and the rate of increase and the time when fracture criticality could reach is estimated, local information may be able to indicate the fault that would break.

Though it is not possible to avert the natural disasters, the suffering and misery due to loss of life and adverse socioeconomic impact can be minimized. It is not the earthquake itself, but rather the collapse of structures, which does most damage. Our building researchers should focus the attention of their research on design, fabrication and layout of lightweight, strong, durable and yet cost-effective structures.

This would prove useful in earthquake-prone areas having human habitation.

The prime purpose of disaster management is to minimize the effects of disaster. It is a time critical dynamic process which covers systematic planning, organizing, staffing,

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communicating, controlling and coordinating. Application of Information Technology in the form of GIS, Remote Sensing, Satellite communication and Internet play a vital role in disaster mitigation programmes. With the use of these technologies we need to prioritize the area of relief particularly in the Seismic zones IV and V and deploy the resources needed to mitigate the disaster in a time bound manner. Our disaster management teams must be alert and well equipped to timely handle the situation. Particularly, the ever ready disaster management system of Switzerland is noteworthy. During Kutch earthquake, Swiss assistance was very helpful.

The school of management studies in IIT Roorkee can take up research projects on designing an integrated disaster management solution for various type of disasters occurring in the country in collaboration with various agencies working in this area.

There is a need to generate building code for structures which are constructed in earth quake prone areas. The code may include methods by which the building can be made ductile, designed for providing lateral stiffness/resistance.

IIT Roorkee, in collaboration with Central Building Research Institute and other R&D Organizations in the country should work on these areas and evolve codes for building cost effective, reliable and earth quake prone structures in Uttaranchal and other parts of the country.

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The core competence available at IIT, Roorkee and the experience in multi disciplinary projects will empower you for contributing in national missions, such as Interlinking of rivers and Providing Urban amenities in Rural Areas (PURA) to transform India into a developed nation.

Interlinking 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.

Remote sensing to survey and evolve optimum water routes, environmental mapping and afforestation requirements and GIS for continuous monitoring of the networked water flow through all seasons and at all times may require a dedicated satellite constellation for our interlinked river systems.

Above all, the interlinking will lead to enhancement of environment and national connectivity.

It is possible to evolve a scheme by which 14 Himalayan tributaries of Ganges and Brahmaputra rivers in northern India can be linked and the same transferred to south via a series of canals and pumping stations across the Vindhyas to replenish the 17 southern rivers. Interlinking of the rivers is the challenge for the young. It is an interdisciplinary task involving civil engineers, space scientists, hydrologists, power systems specialists, mining engineering, Information technology and environmental engineers etc

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Evolution of e-judiciary In the last 5 years, I would have interacted with many High Courts and the Supreme Court for more than 15 times on various occasions. I am very happy that substantial progress has been made in the courts to improve the justice delivery system such as specific efforts for bringing down the pendency of cases, fast settlement of cases especially pertaining to women and children and the use of technology for handling certain special cases. I also see the websites of various courts and I am convinced that the courts are constantly improving the systems and procedures using ICT tools and are making timely information available to people thus ensuring courts are friendly to citizens.

I appreciate the e-courts: efforts taken by the Supreme Court of India in three phases as a mission mode project under the National e-Governance Plan (NeGEP). It is planned to provide necessary infrastructure and concentrate on capacity building, judicial process from filing to execution and finally making the information available online between the courts, prosecuting and investigating agencies, prisons, land records and registration offices thereby accelerating disposal of civil and criminal cases.

While you are concentrating on the computerization of courts for transforming them into e-Courts in three phases, I would like to focus on creating the e-judiciary by establishing the Judicial e-Governance grid from the district courts to the Apex Court, thereby creating a vertical e-

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Governance grid for covering the whole judicial system of the country. This Grid will ensure seamless flow of information and case objects across the inter-departmental barrier in a G2G mode across the vertical grid. This will be supported by the other horizontal e-Governance grid from the State and Central Government related to the particular case object which will facilitate the case objects to flow across the judicial process at various stages ensuring the speed, transparency and inter-operability thereby eliminating duplicity and ensuring the speedy justice. For an effective eJudiciary, national identity card has to be the primary database linking all the e-Governance activities.

Computerization of the High Courts and the District Courts is essential for the development of e-judiciary system. From the time the case is filed till it is disposed off with judgment, the entire processing must take place electronically. This will enable easy search, retrieval, grouping, information processing, judicial record processing and disposal of the cases in a transparent manner and enable quicker disposal of cases. At any time the complainant should be able to find out, what the stage is? Which Court? Which date? and which subject will be dealt with by the Court during a particular hearing, enabling the parties to be fully prepared for the case. Apart from bringing in total transparency in the case, the judges can also see how the case has progressed, how many adjournments have been sought, whether the grounds are trivial or serious and many such information which will make the delivery of justice impartial. Supreme Court

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should transform the present mission into e-judiciary mission. In certain High Courts, e-Court system has started functioning. The proposed action for connecting all the fifteen thousand courts in the country from the District Court to the Supreme Court through a Wide Area Network will further enhance the efficiency of the judicial system. The eJudiciary initiative within the overall justice delivery system should help in transforming the Court service into a better focused system in meeting the needs of the citizens. eJudiciary will have to be in a position to provide information in real time on the rights and responsibilities of the citizens.

It is my experience that computerization of a large organization or mission is successful only if the process themselves are re-engineered for realizing the full benefits of automation. In a connected world, e-Courts should lead to e-judiciary by judiciously interconnecting various organs of the society, government, institutions and citizens. The objective of e-Judiciary should be to ensure the seamless flow of information across the various units of government, judiciary, institutions, and citizens crossing the interdepartmental barriers leading to: - Availability of authentic information on the fly.

- Linkages established between all transactions.

- Improvement in overall productivity.

- Reduction in multiple levels of appeal.

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e-Judiciary thus ensures the overall improvement in efficiency of the judicial system. With the progressive improvement that I am seeing in the Judicial System in our country, you will certainly achieve the vision of transforming the present system into e-Judiciary system. In this context, let me now explain, my visualization of a typical scenario in the environment of e-judiciary.

My visualization of a typical scenario is where a citizen files a case for a civil dispute of a piece of land in the e-Court using his or her National ID CARD and he gets a justice within two weeks of time.

Let me unfold the scenario. A litigant comes with his national ID to the e-Court Service Centre in a District Court with all the documentary evidence which he possesses. eCourt Service Centre helps electronically to identify a civil lawyer to present his case. The lawyer files the case with a prescribed format in the e-Court. Once the case is filed, the e-Court web service agent crawls across the state and central e-governance grid and collects the relevant land records registry and gets the encumbrance certificate details of the litigants and the defendants. If necessary, it also collects the credit history of the parties from the banking grid, criminal record if any from the police grid, litigation records if any from the other courts, property tax and service tax payment data for the particular disputed land from the State egovernance grid, legal heir verification from the Registrar of Deeds and classification and conversion details of the particular land from the district e-governance grid. The

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judicial officer now has the documentary evidence submitted by the litigant and defendant and the certified and authentic documentary evidence collected from various government units which have relevance to this case on the fly in front of him. This will enable the judicial officer to apply his or her mind objectively with optimal examination and crossexamination of the witnesses leading to taking a fast decision in the particular case.

This entire process happening in the network speed reduces the time gap in judgement. Affected party can go online for appeal with the judgement giving reasons and further documentary evidence to the higher court electronically if required. Higher courts get the entire data electronically and they can apply their legal provisions to entertain the case based on its merit and give their verdict without loss of time.

The entire e-governance framework should facilitate the case to flow digitally in a secure environment with digital signature across the various stages within the court and across the courts. The data collection and verification with different respondents cutting across various institutions and individuals takes place in a seamless interoperable manner through the e-governance grid data collection mechanism.

This data is presented in the form of text, audio, video right from the FIR, interrogation, enquiry, arguments and judgements. The case object is flowing digitally from District Courts to High Courts and High Courts to Supreme Court in a seamless fashion. The other horizontal and vertical e-governance grids such as police grid, banking

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gird, institutional grids, state grid and central government grid will assist the e-judiciary electronically and facilitate the decision making process in a transparent manner.

Basically, in an e-judiciary environment, a case object is traveling into various stages of judicial process and creates Meta data in each stage of the judicial process, thereby creating a foot print of data about the case. An ICT legal expert system assists the advocates and the judges with the legal provisions, previous case history, previous judgement details in various courts thereby helping them to arrive at a decision based on the spirit of the legal provisions. Hence a fully operational e-Governance GRID is vital for the success of E-Judiciary.

E-judiciary system should also help the judicial officers to categorize various cases and group them into number of categories so that innovative mechanisms can be found to reduce the pendency of cases in categories which have common law point. For example, in more than 50% of the pending cases Central or State Government is the respondent. These cases have arisen due to certain anomalies in the rules, regulations, interpretation and its implementation. E-judiciary system should be able to classify all the cases which are filed against the government into specific categories which can be collectively examined by the judiciary. This type of examination will enable the judiciary to provide advice to the Government for incorporating suitable modifications of policies and

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procedures in meeting the ends of natural justice for every citizen of the nation.

Though ICT has been a tool for speeding up the justice system, we would soon witness in our digital economy, more and more crimes committed using ICT itself. These are now known world over as cyber crimes. In the present law, for example, the jurisdiction will correspond to the location where the crime is committed and where the damage occurs - very often both being the same location. Whereas in the digital world, the crime may originate from a strange place even outside our own shores and may damage organizational wealth which will be in the digital form in multiple locations. In the world of cyber crimes, the distinction between fun and crime, accidental and premeditated offences and even indirect and insinuated crimes become blurred. In such situations, the judges, the lawyers, the police and the law officers should be trained to be aware of such possibilities of technology centric crime much the same way they have been trained to understand crime in the physical world. To ensure timely implementation of the ejudiciary system, certain actions related to the process and education are essential.

1. Encouraging increased awareness of legal rights and responsibilities as a part of life long learning in a knowledge based society. To realize this the members of legal literacy group should train self-help group members who are undergoing courses on tailoring, beautician and other vocational courses on family laws, marital laws,

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maintenance and inheritance under various religious legal systems. The provisions of consumer protection act, food and adulteration act and other relevant laws should also be explained to them. This will enable them to protect their lives and also become ethical entrepreneurs.

2. Ensuring that the whole judicial process is transparent and is a true reflection of our societal values.

3. Helping ensure selection of most appropriate form of dispute resolution.

4. Ensuring that there are training programmes at all levels including among law students, teachers, various levels of courts, so that there is no gap in realization of the system and its implementation.

It will be necessary that certain Courts are chosen as model Courts in the country to implement all the elements of ejudiciary so that the pros and cons of the system can be studied by all the constituents of e-governance system. This study should enable freezing of the overall specification of e-judiciary before implementing in all the 15,000 courts in the country.

The three phase approach for e-Courts formulated by Supreme Court is an important step towards the development of a comprehensive e-judiciary system. I would like to make the following suggestions so that the planning e-judiciary system can be well interfaced with the

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national e-governance system to ensure the robust and fast judiciary process with transparency.

1. e-Judiciary may work with the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology to drive seamless information flow with national ID as a primary data base and full utilization of National e-Governance Grid across the State and Central Government cutting across inter-departmental barriers.

2. Consider creation of a Judicial e-Governance Grid supplemented with the creation of Police e-Governance Grid, State and Central e-Governance Grid particularly for Land records, Service and Property Tax, Knowledge GRID, Healthcare GRID, Civil Registration System, e-Governance GRID, Essential Institutional Grid for providing support to Judicial system may be taken up in a First phase with PKI infrastructure in a secured VPN Environment with dynamic workflow mechanism.

3. Consider formulating standards, protocols, infrastructure, platforms and language independence by Unicode adoption for interoperable e-Governance system across the National E-Governance GRID in the nation. These standards will enable realization of optimal gain from the overall eGovernance project under the NeGEP. 4. Instead of choosing the conventional video conferencing system, with the growth in ICT technology and the MPLS network and increasing bandwidth, we have the opportunity

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to transform in to an IP based multimedia tele-conference system in a cost effective manner across the network.

5. Consider establishing the e-judiciary service centers in all the court complexes for generating the digital inputs to the e-Judiciary system, so that from then onwards, the case object will flow through the various stages of judicial process and thereby creating a meta data of events and thus delivering the speedy justice.

6. Consider taking integrated action in all the areas of eGovernance systems stated in 1 to 5 above for synergizing the efforts which will lead to economy, speed and responsiveness of the overall governance including the judicial system.

7. Aim of the e-Courts system should be to bring down the pendency by more than 60% in district courts from the existing 2.5 crore, in the high courts from the existing 36 lakh and in the Supreme Court from the existing 41,000 cases to 10,000 cases by the year 2012.

Our judicial system is dynamic and an institution which is throbbing with life catching up societal and technological evolution. As the ultimate protector of human rights and the final resort for dispensation of justice, the citizens of India look up to this institution with hope. Our Society is going through a unique dynamics due to the shortage of leadership with nobility. The only hope the nation cherishes and looks to is the judiciary with its excellence and impeccable

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integrity. We should do everything to make the judicial system succeed. It is said that a nation fails not because of economic progress but because of an increase in decision makers with small minds.

This casts a very heavy responsibility on the entire judicial system to live up to the expectations reposed in it and to maintain the sacred aura attached to it unsullied. Qualities of honesty and integrity are synonymous with each member of the judicial system. e-judiciary will be an enabler in the realization of transparency, speed and equity in the judicial decision making process. With these words, I launch the Computerization of Courts by the Supreme Court of India. I am confident that with the effort taken, Indian model of ejudiciary can become the best in the world.

Oath For Law Students 1. I will uphold the spirit of justice in all my actions and ensure that the affected persons get justice.

2. I will create an awareness among the citizens about the rights, law and the constitution and also about their responsibilities 3. I will work for reducing the pendency of court cases at levels of judicial process.

4. I will adopt the e-governance to improve the transparency and smartness of justice delivery system.

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5. I fully believe in e-Judiciary, I whole-heartedly extend my support to achieve 100% e-judiciary in the country.

6. I will always uphold righteousness in the heart in all my actions.

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Digital- radiology: A New Dimension to medicare Tele-radiology as I understand is a means of electronically transmitting radiographic images of the patient and consultative text from one location to another through digital, computer-assisted transmission. Within a large hospital, tele-radiology can be used to send images from one department to another, particularly for emergency treatment of patients in intensive care units. Transmission of data in DICOM Compatible form is an essential requirement for tele-radiology.

While most tele-radiology systems installed in the country, over the last decade were intended for on-call purposes, the past two years have seen a rapid increase in the use of teleradiology to link hospitals and affiliated satellite facilities, other primary hospitals, and imaging centers. This has been possible due to the maturing of a number of enabling technologies such as high-band width telecommunications networks, improved data compression techniques, quality standards and reduction in cost.

I understand that the country at present has only less than 6000 radiologists. The introduction of tele-radiology will not only enable efficient utilization of this scarce expertise but also enable training and continuing education of radiologists throughout the country. This can significantly improve access to imaging experts for needy patients living in remote or rural areas and also enable world-wide consultation of complex medical conditions.

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The inherent benefit of digital imaging as a diagnostic tool and the tele-radiology should be taken as an opportunity for reaching the unreached in a cost effective manner. This brings out the importance of ECIL gearing up for designing and manufacturing high resolution monitors which are essentially involved in practicing tele-radiology. With the population of one billion, the number of equipment needed will be so large, the cost must come down drastically.

Simultaneously, while we consider the saving due to the consumable in films and other forms the life time cost will make digital radiology viable.

In conclusion, tele-radiology opens up new opportunities for providing quality health care to the people in the remotest areas and development of skill in the country. It will also give a great boost to manufacture of indigenous DICOM compatible equipment. The availability of tele-radiology in hospitals enables easy data storage and retrieval of patientsâ€&#x; history and use of this history as valuable diagnostic tool to deal with the current medical situation. I would recommend ECIL to become a tele-radiology solution provider to the healthcare industry aim for entire South East Asia market.

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Aerospace Transportation systems for 2050 The aeronautical community is ready with a roadmap for a 150 Seater civilian Aircraft as a public - private partnership mode and the R&D and infrastructure build up for the same has to start right away with innovative programme management methodologies. ISRO has initiated programmes for a reusable two stage to orbit launch vehicle demonstrator and air breathing propulsion modules. Work has started on the feasibility studies for a manned mission to low earth orbit by 2014. DRDO has goals to develop stealth air crafts and long range reusable hypersonic cruise missiles. In the next two decades, I visualize the integration of multiple technologies of supersonic aircraft, missiles and spacecraft to transform into an unmanned supersonic long-range and low radar cross section aircraft replacing manned fighter aircraft. The academic institutions and the public and private sector industries have large roles in successful accomplishments of these national initiatives. Particularly the current production activities in aggregate and total systems will move over to industries.

Mankind has acquired tremendous capabilities in aircrafts, both civilian and military. The aircraft industry has also become a strategic, viable and competitive business proposition. However the quest for excellence continues with targets of covering end-to-end journey of the world in fewer hours. Advances in the transatmospheric propulsion research assumes great significance for this. As far as space is concerned, today the capability exists for design,

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development and deployment of any type of launch vehicle, any type of spacecraft, any type of instrumentation and any type of launch complex for societal and exploration missions. Mankind has also progressed challenging interplanetary missions and also orbited space stations. However the space development is constrained by the current large costs of access to space. While I visualize in another 50 to 75 years, an industrial complex on the Moon and a beginning of human habitat at Mars emerging, one of the major driving factor will be the low cost of access to space, which would require certain disruptive technologies to emerge. Can the synergy of aeronautical and space disciplines do this magic? How to make it happen? You are the people who can do this.

The vision of various space faring nations as well as discussion in various international forums by space experts suggest that space missions beyond earth are vital for sustaining the spirit of deep space exploration and for build up of space infrastructure leading to space industrialization.

Such missions would include bringing minerals and other special materials from Moon, Asteroids and Mars. Such missions would also enable building of infrastructure for solar power generation, building industrial complexes on the Moon and initiating human habitat on Mars. These missions would call for large mass flow into space., While space industrialization and space exploration will expand initially using the current generation launch vehicles, the real value of space exploration for human advancement will occur only

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when mankind builds fully reusable space transportation systems With the background and strength of technological progress in Aerospace systems, I have suggested to the world space community to evolve Space Vision 2050 with the following three components: 1. Space exploration and current application missions 2. Comprehensive space security 3. Large Scale Societal missions and Low cost access to space World Space Vision would enhance the quality of human life, inspire the spirit of space exploration, expand the horizons of knowledge and ensure space security for all nations of the world. I have also suggested creation of World Space Council which could oversee the planning and implementation of exploration, space security and societal missions. Such a unified approach will enable the world to see a quantum jump in the progress in space science and technology for the benefit of all the nations of the world.

These details are available in my website: As I am with the aerospace community, I would like to focus on the third component of the world space vision on large societal missions and low cost access to space.

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As you are all aware, the payload fraction of current generation expendable launch vehicles in the world does not exceed 1% or 2% of the launch weight. Thus to put one or two tonnes in space requires more than one hundred tonnes of launch weight, most of which-nearly 70% - is oxygen.

Such space transportation systems, with marginal payload fractions, are wholly uneconomical for carrying out mass missions and to carry freight and men to and from the Moon.

There is definitely a need for all the countries to work together to develop reusable launch vehicles which can bring down the cost of launch from the present US $ 20,000 per kg to US $ 200 per kg.

Natural Partners for Progress towards Reduction of Cost of Access to Space.

High speed air and space transportation in collaboration can lead to a step-jump in the basic goal for reduction in cost of access to space. Space transportation systems that are fully reusable 100 to 500 times enable the cost of access to space reduced substantially. The aeronautical community has experience in designing air-breathing engines that have very high fuel efficiency. They can partner the space community to design reusable launch vehicles that perform like an aircraft while flying in the atmosphere, and like a rocket while flying in the outer space. Further, partnership in designing a multi-role aerospace vehicle would bring down the development costs substantially. While cost effective space transportation system will bring in new applications to

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absorb development costs, high speed transcontinental air transportation systems will become commercially viable.

Several designs of aerospace transportation systems have been carried out in many countries, like NASP in the USA and Hotol in the UK. These designs reported payload fractions of 5% and called for large, heavy launch vehicles weighing hundreds of tonnes, which could not be fully ground tested, and hence were abandoned as too risky to develop. Studies in India have shown that the smallest size reusable space launch vehicle, weighing about 25-30 tonnes can be developed with high payload fractions when designed with no oxidizer at launch, but gathers air, liquefies air and then separates out the liquid oxygen for onboard storage while the spacecraft ascends directly from earth to orbit.

These studies in India suggest that an aerobic space transportation vehicle can have a 15% payload fraction for a launch weight of 270 tonnes.

This type of trans-atmospheric space transportation system has the potential to increase the payload fraction to 30% for higher take off weight. For such heavy lift space planes, with 10 times the payload fraction and 100 times reuse, the cost of payload in orbit can be reduced dramatically from $20,000 per kg to about $200 per kg.

India is already working to evolve innovative design concepts for both small as well as large payloads into space.

Both single and two-stage to orbit RLV concepts are being examined. The goal here is to reduce the cost of access to

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Space by one or two orders of magnitude. Even a small scientific breakthrough, for example, in air breathing propulsion systems may lead to a revolution in Space Transportation. The Space community have a huge stake in such breakthrough research in advanced inter-disciplinary and inter-institutional collaboration.

The real value of future societal space missions, like energy from space and seawater desalination using space solar power can take place only, when mankind builds fully reusable space transportation systems with very high payload efficiencies. Several technologies are critical and need to be developed.

The technology of oxygen liquefaction in high-speed flight in earthâ€&#x;s atmosphere is a very critical technological building block and needs to be mastered. This technology will also be useful for collection of atmospheric constituents of other planets at a later stage in space exploration. This system consists of an air-liquefier made up of compact, lightweight cryogenic [hydrogen] cross-flow heat exchangers and liquid oxygen separators.

This system is to be built at small-scale level and comprehensively ground tested over the entire proposed flight regime, Mach 5.0 to Mach 8.0. Such hot air facilities already exist in India and other parts of the world, and they are important to qualify this critical technology as well as the scramjet engines.

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Ram/Scramjet Engines This is another technology that has recently been flight tested and validated up to Mach 10 in the US Flight Technology Demonstrator X-43. They have been designed and developed both in the US and Russia since 1960â€&#x;s. India has also designed and tested scramjet engines, both kerosene fuelled and hydrogen fuelled, on ground test facilities .

These sub-scale tests need to be extended to flight testing on demonstrators that can comprehensively validate all critical technologies for advanced space transportation systems.

The thrust-to-weight ratio of conventional gas turbine engines is about 6-8. However, air breathing ascent engines for space transportation will require very light-weight gas turbine engines, with a thrust-to-weight ratio of about 14-16, and capable of operating on hydrogen fuel. Such light weight gas turbine engines are currently designed for vertical lift aircraft [VTOL] but would need to be upgraded for hydrogen fuel.

A major challenge would be in the area of hot-structure airframe materials. The highest temperatures during the ascent flight to orbit are the nose cap and leading edges of the wing. New high temperature, lightweight high strength materials that were not available when the Space Shuttle was designed in 1960â€&#x;s, have emerged over the last two decades.

Carbon-composites, Silicon Carbide/Silicon Carbide Ceramic Matrix Composites are suggested for the highest temperature airframe components; and advances in nano-

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materials would soon result in a step-jump in the state-of-art in high temperature materials technology. The rest of the airframe would need to be durable, all metal construction, using advanced titanium and nickel-chromium alloys.

Keeping in mind these new technologies that need to be developed, and the wide range of commonality in technology that exists, between high speed air and space transportation, it is essential that all these technologies are flight tested comprehensively over the entire speed and height regimes that are common to the role of transatmospheric vehicles in air and space transportation.

The multi-role architecture flight test vehicle designed would have to comprehensively demonstrate in flight, all the special attributes of fully reusable space transportation for safe, affordable flight to space, as well as those attributes related to intercontinental passenger aviation.

Keeping the perspectives of world space vision in mind and the unique technologies and systems that can be realized by the combined power of the world aeronautical and space community. I urge the international experts to work on the following aerospace mission using the core competence of partnering nations.

To design and develop a single-stage-to-orbit fully reusable, safe, affordable aerobic space transportation system with a take off weight of 275 tonnes for a 25-35 tonnes payload optimized for launching multi-purpose mission including

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new orbiting space stations, space habitat and Space Solar Power Station. I am presenting a configuration which has been discussed by the aerospace community. It can bring down the cost of access to space to US $ 2,000 per kg. from the existing US $ 20,000 per kg. The specialists here may like to debate this configuration for taking it up as a global partnership development mission. This can be the global aerospace mission for the next two decades.

The delegates and participants present here represent countries that have brought about the incredible space revolution in the last 50 years. Here is an opportunity for the entire world aerospace community to bring about a revolution in air and space transportation by developing a single stage orbit reusable vehicle. This should call for innovative partnership among nations overcoming technological and other barriers which may appear impossible today. Such a challenge initiated will make this conference historic. I can assure you that India will be a partner in this effort.

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Physics and National Development You are all aware of the damage caused to our people their property and the disruption of normal life in the coastal area of Tamil Nadu, Andaman & Nicobar Islands, Andhra Pradesh, Pondicherry, Kerala and many other coastal states due to the impact of Tsunami on 26 December 2004.

Apart from the emergency measures taken by the government for providing immediate relief and succor to the victims, I am getting large number of calls from noble hearted persons volunteering to provide all possible support to the affected regions in this critical time. On 27 December 2004, I received a call from Dr. Swaraj Paul that he would like to take care of all the needs of hundred children who are orphaned due to the Tsunami devastation. Similarly, in India the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) has taken a lead and mounted a programme for providing water, food, clothing, shelter and medicare to the victims of this natureâ€&#x;s fury. Simultaneously, the Department of Defence Research and Development (DDR&D) has mobilized a team for providing integrated supply of clean water, instant food, tents for living and medical team of ten doctors and five paramedical staff for on the spot emergency relief to these victims. I am getting number of e-mails and calls from many people living in the country and abroad about the way they can provide help in restoring normalcy and also long term support for the people who have been affected by the 26 December incident. This shows the presence of human

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values among our people when a danger is posed for the existence of mankind. The members of the University have to ask yourself what you can do in such a situation for bringing relief to the people and also what science can do to prevent such devastating occurrences in future. They can definitely contribute in the areas of prediction of earthquake on land and seabed.

The Seismologists have put most of their efforts in studying seismic variations and patterns of foreshocks and aftershocks. In certain countries, earthquakes have been successfully predicted using a noticeable increase in background seismic activities. If foreshocks can be recognized early, giving a timely warning can save lives of many people. The stages of a rising seismic activity include, building up of elastic strain along a fault, development of cracks, increase in stress, decrease in electrical resistivity etc. This theoretical series of events could eventually lead to a way to predict the occurrence of major earthquakes. The events are still theoretical and need much more data to make them useful enough for practical applications.

In India, after independence, science and technology took a two-phase progress with the momentum created in 1930 the great five scientists of international repute gave the country the great confidence. They are Sir, CV Raman, Prof Chandrasekhar Subramaniam, SN Bose, JC Bose, Meghnad Saha, Srinivasa Ramanujam. This phase I consider the glorious phase of Indian science. The scientific foundation laid by them always triggered the later generations also.

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All of you know, in history, any country resolves itself initially into a few stout and earnest and knowledge giants.

Particularly I took interest to study lives of three scientists, as I was interested in their scientific technological leadership qualities that focused the relationship of S&T and development of the nation. In the history of India, there may be many but I was very close to these three great personalities for one way or other. They are founders of three great institutions. I worked in two of the institutions directly and one in partnership. Dr DS Kothari, a Professor in Delhi University was an outstanding Physicist and also an Astrophysicist. He is well known for ionization of matter by pressure in cold compact objects like planets. This theory is complementary to thermal ionization word done by Dr Meghnad Saha his guru. Dr DS Kothari set a scientific tradition in Indian defence tasks when he became Scientific Adviser to Defence Minister in 1948; He created a Board of Advisors to the Scientific Advisor consisting of Dr. H.J. Bhaba, Dr. K.S. Krishnan and Dr. S.S. Bhatnagar. Later the Board was renamed as Scientific Advisory Board with enlarged membership.

Prof Kothari realized that the main purpose of Defence Science Organisation was to serve the immediate and long term needs of the users. He repeatedly stressed the vital needs for the scientist - soldier partnership. He made efforts to establish rapport with the chiefs of the three services. In spite of the deferring ethos of the academic environment Prof Kothari was able to establish extremely cordial

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relations with his Senior Service Officers at all levels who belonged to the highly disciplined hierarchical structure of the armed forces. In the first phase Prof Kothari identified the following eight disciplines for development: Operational Research & Ballistics, Explosives & Armaments, Rockets & Missiles, Naval technology, Engineering, Food & Life Sciences and problems posed by special adverse environment in the operational men and material. I would like to mention here some of these disciplines are relevant and functioning even today. Now I would like to mention two instances of how Prof Kothari applied his expertise in astrophysics to solve problems specific to defence. The first relates to the physics of Hollow charge or shaped charge.

When such a hollow charge is initiated by a suitable detonator the advancing shock wave makes the liner material to collapse conically axially and a very high velocity jet of the order of 7000 to 8000 m/s is formed.

When this high velocity jet impinges on the armour it generates a pressure of the order of a million atmospheres.

Under the circumstances the penetration becomes hydrodynamic and results in penetration of a few charge diameters. This was approximately 3 diameters at the end of world war II. Today, with fuller understanding of the factors affecting penetration and with more powerful explosives like RDX and HMX, designs are available where a penetration of 10 charge diameters has been obtained.

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Today we have several computer codes based on 2 and 3 dimensional analysis to predict the penetration capacity. But in the early 50s the theoretical understanding was inadequate. It was Prof Kothari who applied his theory of pressure ionization in condensed matter to the case of the Munroe jet, leading to a better understanding of the phenomenon of armour penetration.

The second relates to the fragmentation of bombs and shells on explosion. He showed that the same statistical theory can be applied, whether it be random fragmentation in star formation or the mass distribution of shrapnel from an exploding shell.

He established the Defence Science Centre to do research in electronic material, nuclear medicine and ballistic science.

He is considered as the architect of defence science in India.

His race continued and followed up with momentum working and contributing in the areas of strategic systems, electronic warfare systems, armaments and life sciences.

Now, let me discuss about Homi Jehangir Bhabha . He did research in theoretical physics in Cambridge University.

During 1930-1939, Homi Bhabha carried out research relating to cosmic radiation. In 1939, he joined Sir CV Raman in IISc Bangalore. Later, he was asked to start Tata Institute of Fundamental Research with focus on nuclear science, mathematical science and established Atomic Energy Commission in 1948. Multi centers were born with his vision in nuclear science to nuclear technology, nuclear

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power, nuclear devices and nuclear medicine. These science institutions established multi technological centers, but basic science is the vital component.

Prof Vikram Sarabhai the youngest of the three and worked with Sri CV Raman in experimental cosmic ray. Prof Sarabhai established Physical Research Laboratory in Ahmedabad with Space research as focus. In later years he become the Director of Space S&T Centre. The SSTC (1963) started with launching sounding rockets for space atmospheric research. Prof. Vikram Sarabhai unfurled the space mission for India in 1970 that we should build Satellite Launch Vehicle capability, to put our communication satellites in the geo-synchronous orbit and remote sensing satellites in the polar orbit. Also, he envisaged that launch vehicles built in India should be launched from Indian soil. This one visionary thought led to intensive research in multiple fields of science and space technology. Many of us had the fortune to be part of Prof.

Vikram Sarabhai's vision. Myself and my team participated in India's first satellite launch vehicle programme to put the satellite in the orbit. Today, India with her 20,000 scientific, technological and support staff in multiple space research centres, supported by about 300 industries and academic institutions, has the capability to build any type of satellite launch vehicle to place remote sensing, communication and meteorology satellites in different orbits and space application has become part of our daily life. Dear young friends, you have seen how visionaries of a nation bring

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about economic transformation and technological change. I would like you to emulate these visionaries, dream and work for transforming India into a developed nation.

These three Indian scientists, all of them physicists, started physics research institutions that blossomed into defence technology, nuclear technology and space technology. When I study deep into their knowledge and the vision, I believe they would have realized that science has to be pushed to political leaders. It is essential that technologies that give immediate benefits to the people directly or indirectly should be packaged and successfully put with our Indian political systems irrespective of which party they belonged.

The three great institutions emerged with 20000 scientists spread in institutions all over the country. Another important message conveyed by these three scientists is that basic science is very vital for growth of technology and growth of scientific technological leaders.

What you have seen in science and technology in the last 60 years, the predictions and happenings are going at different rates and phases. What was impossible has happened and what is thought possible has not yet happened and it will happen. Particularly in the field of aeronautics, space technology, electronics, materials, pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, computer science and software products, the world has progressed to new dimensions and India itself is a part of these challenges. Indian bio-technologists with business houses will have opportunity of analyzing the available genomic data and lead to production of drugs for

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healthcare and early treatment. The bio research transforming into technology will lead to higher production of agricultural products. In the coming decades, we may see, as discussed in recent International Physics Conference, the birth of unified field theory integrating gravitational forces, electro magnetic forces and general relativity theory, space and time as functions. Young people may also see in their time, as presented in the book Future Revolutions by David Mercer establishment of habitat or industry in one of our planets or moon by human race. The world will enter into launch of solar power satellites through reusable launch vehicle (hyperplane) system to meet the electricity needs of the mankind in fifty to hundred years.

Technology has two dimensions. One leads to economic prosperity and the other creates the capability for national security. For the past 40 years, one way or other I have witnessed these multi dimensions of technology. For example, the developments in chemical engineering brought fertilizers for higher yield of crops while the same science led to chemical weapons. Likewise, rocket technology developed for atmospheric research helped in launching satellites for remote sensing and communication applications which are vital for the economic development.

The same technology led to development of missiles with specific defence needs that provides security for the nation.

The aviation technology development has led to fighter and bomber aircraft, and the same technology will lead to passenger jet and also help operations requiring quick reach

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of support to people affected by disasters. When nuclear science was born in India, in 1950s, India, in two decades, got nuclear medicine, nuclear irradiation for preservation of agricultural products, nuclear power and much later weapons.

Now I would like to discuss the technology which is knocking at our door and may revolutionize the life style of the future generation.

Through out the last 120 centuries, unique cultures have come into existence due to advancement in technology. The first 118 centuries had a dominance of primarily stone, bronze & iron ages. The last two centuries have seen rapid development of chemical age. The advancements made in material science and technology gave the impetus for both nuclear and biological age to flourish. Succession of these technology periods has involved progression from simpler materials to more complex forms of science and engineering. We are today at the convergence of Nano, Bio and Information technologies. This age, I feel will create historical revolution and we must be at driverâ€&#x;s seat to contribute towards this societal change.

When I think of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, I am reminded of two personalities. First person is Richard Feynman, who described the concept of 'building machines" atom by atom in his talk at Caltech titled "There is plenty of room at the bottom". The second person is Eric Drexler, who

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wrote the book titled 'Nano Systems, Molecular machinery, manufacturing and computation".

Recently I met Prof. Vijay K Varadan of Pennsylvania State University, US. He shared his experience on the possible line of treatment for Parkinsonâ€&#x;s disease and Epilepsy. The primary symptoms in Parkinson Disease as you all aware are tremor or trembling in hands, arms, legs, jaw, and face, rigidity or stiffness of the limbs, slowness of movement and impaired balance. Prof Varadan has devised a wireless system for monitoring and control of Parkinsonâ€&#x;s disease.

The system consists of an implantable DNA insert in the head region for generating a pulse to the nerve system; controlled either by a modified pacemaker or smart hat. A Passive polymer based gyro sensors, which are implanted in the tremor location. The sensor gets the power from the Pacemaker and the Pacemaker then reads the tremor motion.

The Pacemaker then generates the pulse in the implanted device in the head to control the tremor. This appears to be a promising line of treatment for such diseases. Prof. Varadan also has reported that the few patients affected by Parkinson diseases had a full recovery. This is an important area for Indian researchers.

India is well poised for the generation of solar energy in view of the continuous availability of sun shine through out the year. Installation of centralized solar photovoltaic systems, which can be fed to a grid, will be a long-term economically viable solution with added benefits of pollution control. Present solar cells have the efficiency of

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13 to 15%. But the research effort shows that, with the advent of CNT/Polymer Composite Based Photovoltaic Cell, the efficiency of Photovoltaic cell will increase to 50%. This has been confirmed by Prof. Vijay K Varadan of Pennsylvania. This can pave the way for building mini 100 mega watt solar power stations in different regions of the country like Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat and Tamil Nadu.

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Statistics and its Multi Dimensions Statisticians remind me of the quality and reliability groups of ISRO and DRDO during the period of 70â€&#x;s to 2000. I used to ask the quality and reliability groups (mostly mathematicians) to closely work with the sub-systems and integration teams from design, development, static tests and flight tests, while the launch vehicles and missiles were being prepared for the missions. They used to be active partners in all the static tests, Waiver Board, Failure Analysis Board, Launch Readiness Board, Launch Authorization Board and Post Flight Analysis Board of all missions. Based on their experience and the mathematical modeling of the system under test, I used to ask them about the theoretical reliability which they had worked out for a particular mission. Many times they used to say that the theoretical reliability was around 0.5 or 0.6. Though this was not considered to be fully adequate for near 100% success in the mission, I used to consult them on how to improve the reliability factor. Always we will be looking for critical subsystems which need to be built with high reliability out of the many sub-systems. Based on the innovative improvements suggested, I used to give conditional clearance for the launch. The correlation between the prediction and the actual performance of the mission was excellent. The statisticians always exhibited an innate capability to improve the confidence from mission to mission based on the observations and knowledge gained from the designers and test results of the sub-systems.

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Whenever the experts in statistics participate in the task or programme in the mission mode, their understanding of the interaction between the subsystems increases. This enhanced understanding has helped the statisticians to evolve better models for predicting the reliability of the mission. The statisticians provide very useful performance data to the designers by providing silent support in all complex missions. Spacecraft reliability model became so useful that given the space craft characteristics including the weight of the fuel carried and the perigee and apogee position after the placement of the spacecraft in the orbit, the reliability team was able to preciously predict the life of the spacecraft in the earth orbit with certain bounds. This has been validated in several missions. Today ISRO and DRDO have got proven well-tested reliability models. Evolution of the reliability model is the unique contribution of the statisticians.

In a large country like India, making financial policies and taxation policies are very complex. This involves handling large volume of data of uncertain nature and modeling on the basis of observed data. Similar are the issues related to modeling of the Indian weather. A nationally proven and validated model for economic dynamics for the country is the vital need.

India has a tradition of having produced some of the brightest and highly acclaimed world class scientists particularly in the field of statistical theory. Names of Mahalanobis, CR Rao are the great examples of seminal contributions by India.

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Statistics plays a major role in every aspect of human life; individuals, corporate and the governments are all the end users of the advances that have been made in statistics.

Governmentâ€&#x;s planning owes a lot to the use of statistics which is probably the first avatar of mathematics applied to real world problems. Of late, besides the traditional applications of statistics in modeling in governance, prediction and analysis of election results and weather forecasting and modeling of epidemics, statistics has found applications in many new and emerging areas. With the advances made in the human genome project and in the design of drugs, bio-informatics has become a hot field for pursuit by the scientists. Bio-informatics is also an area that encompasses not just the health and medicine area but also ecology and agriculture which are vital for a developing nation like India. Bio-informatics deals with besides deterministic calculations, a large quantity of data with varying levels of uncertainty. The bio-informatics models are often probabilistic and require the large power of statistical theory to comprehend the data into knowledge and possibly products that will enhance the quality of life of humans and plants.

The challenge next to the Human Genome project will be the greater challenge that is Proteomics. I suggest the Indian biomedical community to take the initiative to become a working partner in the proteomics project of gene characterization. Proteomics is the study of all the proteins expressed by the genome of a cell. It is the logical extension

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of genomics. Proteomics helps to understand basic biological processes critical to normal cellular functions as well as to the development of diseases. It identifies the essential components of these processes and exploits these components as targets in the development of new methods to prevent or treat diseases. The national programme on proteomics has to be accelerated with partnership from industries, Statisticians and R & D laboratories. I would suggest that this should be pursued as a mission mode project.

India has to be internationally competitive in the development of software products in the manufacturing sector such as automobiles and in the Pharma industry.

When you are competing in the world market, quality and innovation become the main thrust and are the only attributes that will make brand India an accepted one across the globe. The qualities of the product and the industrial productivity have to be increased through the six-sigma modeling and through very solid design of the processes involved. When one is looking at one failure in a million kind of reliability, without increasing unduly the cost of production, it will call for modeling of the process so that at every point of the production cycle the quality can be controlled and the end product reliability can be accurately estimated. This is where statistics can contribute a very pivotal role in the industry today.

When the area of data base management started, the world was constrained by the available disk storage facilities. This

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was the world which witnessed the Y2K problem which mainly arose from the desire of the designers to save on the expensive disk storage. Today, while the computer power doubles every eighteen months, the disk storage is doubling every nine months. This has brought in a completely different paradigm in computing which offers unlimited storage capability at affordable cost. In this world of abundant storage, one is not constrained to look at the computer as a mere data base engine but more importantly an engine which can mine knowledge out of the data which is stored in the computer as well as by the pattern of how the data grows and accessed through the power of statistics.

This is particularly important for India since data mining is an area, wherein the computer power is used to move up the information chain and hence the value chain which converts mere data to knowledge, and leads to innovation.

One could say that if Europe is the mother of the differential calculus based deterministic analysis; India could well be called the mother of statistics. When I think of the names in Statistics, I am immediately reminded of P C Mahalanobis who founded the Indian statistical Institute in December 1931 and persuaded many young physicists and mathematicians to join the institute.

Mahalanobis believed that statistics should be integral part of national planning. He was aware of the national problems and national resources. He took a keen interest and played a key role in formulating Indiaâ€&#x;s Second Five Year Plan based on the four-sector model developed by him. He made

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sectoral allocations for employment, capital investment and increment in national income and then split them into detailed targets. The need for planning in the initial stages of national development is still acknowledged and Mahalanobisâ€&#x;s contribution to Indian national planning continues to be held in high esteem by economists. This Mahalanobis model must be revisited in the modern day digital economy, where the economy is dependent on the knowledge capital and small start-ups make up the large part of the economy.

Now I would like to discuss some of the areas where statistics can be applied to determine a solution to longstanding issues. Recently, I was attending a conference of Cardiovascular Thoracic Surgeons at Delhi. In that conference it was observed that the occurrence of coronary artery diseases in India is taking place between the age group of 35 and 55, whereas in the western world, it generally occurs after 55 or 60. It is also found that the occurrence of cardiovascular cases is 4% in rural area as against the 10% found in big cities in India. Whereas the world statistics says that the incidence is only 3 to 4%. It is also reported that Indians are genetically three times more vulnerable to heart diseases wherever they are, than Americans and Europeans. My Doctor friends say, Rheumatic heart disease, which leads to heart valve destruction, among Indian community needs special attention. These are fertile areas where statistical experts can work with clinical data of the medical community and

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provide vital direction for seeking a corrective measure for this situation. I was told that the statisticians worldwide are concentrating on identifying genes and estimating their interactions with environmental parameters that underlie cardiovascular diseases. I would like the statistician team to interact with renowned surgeons and cardiologists to generate reliable data for carrying out cardio-vascular disease pattern in India.

Another area of national importance where the statisticians can help is in the Networking of river project. The plan of action including the ecological enhancement plan for executing the project is under progress. This action will eliminate the periodical problem of drought and flood experienced in a number of river basins. This is an important mission from both water and power security. The study team is in the process of preparing the total plan for the nation.

Statisticians can provide useful inputs on the macroeconomic impact of the Networking of river projects. Also they can validate the ecological enhancement plan through the study of existing terrain through the analysis of satellite pictures. This will be a very useful input for implementing this mega mission. Statistical model for the networking of rivers connecting the rainfall and snow measurements and the ground porosity for the water run off model is a great mission for the statisticians.

Statistics is an area where there are many challenging problems waiting to be solved. Particularly, for a country

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like India, where the dynamics of demography is of paramount importance.

In the planet earth, India is the only democratic nation having a population of billion people. The population growth rate is very high in India it is more than 3 per 1000, whereas the well-balanced society needs to have 1.1 per 1000. In such a situation, the demography has a very important role and it needs continuous monitoring and the possible solution that has to come from a mathematical statistical simulated model, validated in real-time periodically. The mathematical challenge is indeed really complex since diverse demographic variants are unique to our population.

Solving such problems through statistical modeling requires a large number of young brilliant minds to take up research in statistics and make it as a profession and way of living.

For this to happen, the renowned statisticians have an important role to play, they not only must encourage the identified talents in the students, but also be able to spot the brilliant Ramanujanâ€&#x;s in the nascent stage itself, much before any one else in the world spots them. And these could be from unknown corners of the country and at times a diamond waiting to be cut and made into a jewel.

I would like to narrate a story. A young man, Loveligen, from a remote area of Kerala, who could not complete PUC, wrote to me saying that he has discovered a new mathematical theory and he would like to talk to me. I saw

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in the letter that the boy was very sincere. Since he has written to me, I thought our specialist team could study his work and direct him to the right type of researchers. I called this boy to Delhi for a few days. What surprised us was that he had arrived at part of the equations of the Ramanujanâ€&#x;s number theory, which this boy was not at all aware of. He had discovered something and added some new points to it and the result is new. To a great extent the achievements in the field of mathematics generally seem to come out of a desire to look into the beautiful aspects of nature, including natural phenomena such as the star studded skies, which have always interested the astronomers from time immemorial. An additional contributory factor seems to be an inherent drive towards recognition of patterns even if it were in the sense of mathematical sequences or series.

It is interesting to note that Loveligen has currently delved into the equally exciting topic of power sequences and series. What I felt was that he needed a good mathematical education or a patronage of a good mathematics teacher. It is like having Prof Hardy for Ramanujan, the mathematics genius to come. I asked this boy, why he didnâ€&#x;t meet a mathematics teacher. He said, meeting a mathematics teacher is an expedition. He says, it is below their dignity to meet somebody who is not even a graduate. How do we promote this kind of young and enthusiastic minds? Can our teachers and philanthropists or the social activists spot these buds to blossom? Those who spot such talents and make them blossom will themselves be a different kind of a flower

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as described in the Bhagwad Gita: See the flower, how generously it distributes its perfume and its honey. It gives to all, gives freely of its love. When its work is done, it falls away quietly. Try to be like the flower unassuming despite all its qualities. What a beautiful message for all generations of this Nation.

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Molecule to Drug: Challenges The interfacing between medical science and various other technologies such as biotechnology, has given rise to numerous techniques both curative and investigative and has provided the research worker with numerous tools to pry into the working of various physiological functions right upto the molecular levels. Developments in bio-technology and molecular biology have now made it possible not only to design the drugs for specific properties but also to deliver them to the specific sites where they are most required. The onset of nano technology has further enhanced the capability of drug delivery system to reach the disease spot with precision.

Newer imaging techniques have now made it possible to obtain real time images of the various organs at a physiological and biological level and hence the right treatment is administered. Medical research will lead to identify not only the genes that cause disease but also correct the defects through gene therapy. Recent breakthroughs in stem cell research are likely to lead to the regeneration of diseased organs. The role of genes in heart diseases and stroke is now universally accepted. The apo-B gene is responsible for the cholesterol management in the body. My friend, Dr. B. Soma Raju informs me that as a clinician he is looking for two major approaches for gene therapy for heart diseases: treating the heart muscle itself and treating veins and arteries. Molecular biology will also

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have a clear impact on the science and practice of psychiatry in near future.

It is time that we develop a molecule to drug in the country.

Scientific manpower is available in the country, but what we need is, to organize ourselves to attain global standards which are essential if we are to develop a product that is internationally approved. This can be done by obtaining approvals, creating fast decision making health councils in partnership with pharmaceutical industries in India and abroad to develop the process of converting of a molecule to drug. As this involves different technologists to work together for pre-clinicals, Phase 1 and Phase 2 clinical trials, namely pharmacologists, Bio-informatic scientists etc we need to develop skills of working together so that all the necessary questions in this regard are answered. Economics, time frame for development and risk of failures are high. A molecule can fail at the fag end of the process. This may be the major reason why our industry is not venturing in this conversion. However, in the present scene of globalization, and the west looking towards cutting the costs of production without compromising on quality, India with all its thrust in Biotechnology, streamlining of procedural methodologies in obtaining permissions can help in developing the products rapidly, rather than getting lost due to regulatory formalities.

Although, the governmental agencies are working in this direction, industries are yet not convinced of such an action, especially in Biotechnology. Our Pharma industry should have a specific aim to produce value added drugs from the

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molecule

and

become

internationally

competitive.

Last two years, I was studying the development patterns and the dynamics of connectivity between nations, especially in trade and business. As you all know the world has few developed countries and many developing countries. What is the dynamics between them and what connects them?

Developed country has to market their products in a competitive way to different countries to remain as developed country. The developing country to get transformed into developed country; they too have to market their products to other countries in a competitive way.

Competitiveness has three dimensions: quality of the product, cost effectiveness and supply in time. Indeed this dynamics of competitiveness in marketing of products by developing and developed countries is called the law of development. India is today a developing country and we have a vision to transform India into a developed nation by 2020 using technology as a tool. With the growing economy and strong internal market, India is destined to make competitive products using technological innovations.

Particularly Pharma industries with intensified R&D efforts, will definitely be able to produce competitive new drugs . Of course the Pharma Vision 2020 aims at 75 bn dollar business volume against the present Pharma business of 6 bn dollars.

It looks as though it is long way to go but already we have in front of us tremendous growth demonstrated by the ICT area.

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On January 1st, 2005, the Indian pharmaceutical industry will face a challenge of demanding indigenous design of drugs, which will have a profound impact on global competitiveness and business viability. As India comes into compliance with the TRIPS protocol mandated by the WTO, a new IPR regime will be enacted that will extend patent protection to new product inventions. The new product patent regime will affect a sea change in the way Indian pharmaceutical companies think and do business. I hope that, SPARC will enable Sun Pharma Industries to meet this challenge.

India missed the great opportunity in partnering the human genome project and thereby lost the utility of tremendous data. I suggest the Indian biomedical community to take the initiative to become a working partner in the proteomics project of gene characterization. Proteomics is the study of all the proteins expressed by the genome of a cell. It is the logical extension of genomics. Proteomics helps to understand the basic biological processes critical to normal cellular functions as well as the development of diseases. It identifies the essential components of these processes and exploits these components as targets in the development of new methods to prevent or treat diseases. The national programme on proteomics has to be accelerated with partnership from industries and R & D laboratories. I would suggest that this should be pursued as a mission mode project. The proteomics resulting into a gene chip can

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become the future diagnosis and treatment regime for many diseases. This will be of interest SPARC scientists.

Information Technology has become very relevant to areas like pharmaceutical research because of the enormous amount of data which has to be mined and analyzed to arrive at definite conclusions. The results of proteomics programme will unravel the genomic mystery leading to the bio-medical community to create a new evolutionary future for the human race. The amount of data processing required is so huge and specialized, that the new branch of 'bioinformatics' has emerged. As the volume of data generated grows, so does the demand for faster data processing technologies. Thus, to arrive at some destination in the area of 'bio-informatics', it is very necessary to deploy powerful information and communication technologies so as to be able to get a hold on gene sequences, expressions, protein structure delineation and population genetics etc. We have Biotechnology and Information Technology. When they converge, we get Bio-informatics and the important science of proteomics emerged has revolutionized the drug design.

Now with the emergence of Nano-technology, we have an excellent opportunity to be a global leader in the development of drug delivery systems and medical diagnostics.

During my recent visit to Hyderabad, I launched the BioSuite which is a state-of-the-art software package that caters to all aspects of computational biology from genomics to

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structure-based drug design. It incorporates the latest publicly known algorithms, as chosen by a panel of academic partners, and has been coded entirely by the TCS team, using the best software engineering practices. It can be used by academic and R&D institutions, small/medium and large biotechnology companies. I would suggest the researchers of this Center to examine the possibility of using this bio-suite developed by TCS in collaboration with CSIR and academic institutions, for cost effective drug development.

Now we believe that Nanotechnology is the new technology that is knocking at our doors which has wider applications. It will be the central focus for many technologies to converge and open a large number of applications. Further, this technology will have a large domestic market potential leading to a robust economy. Nano-bio medical sensors will play a major role in glucose detection and endoscopic implants. Nano-technology application to drug delivery system will revolutionize the health-care to a large extent which can be studied by the scientists of this new research Centre.

The world market in 2004 for nano materials, nano tools, nano devices and nano biotechnology put together is expected to be over hundred billion dollars. It has been noticed that the fastest growing area among these is nanobiotechnology. Next ten years will see nano technology playing the most dominant role in the global business

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environment and is expected to go beyond the billion dollar estimates and cross the figure of 1 trillion.

Recently I met Prof. Vijay K Varadan of Pennsylvania State University, US. He shared his experience on the possible line of treatment for Parkinsons disease and Epilepsy. The primary symptoms in Parkinsonâ€&#x;s Disease, as you all are aware, are tremor or trembling in hands, arms, legs, jaw and face, rigidity or stiffness of the limbs, slowness of movement and impaired balance. Prof Varadan has devised a wireless system for monitoring and control of Parkinson disease. The system consists of an implantable nano-bio chip in the head region for generating a pulse to the nerve system; controlled either by a modified pacemaker or smart hat.

Passive polymer based gyro sensor, is implanted in the tremor location. The sensor gets power from the Pacemaker and the Pacemaker then reads the tremor motion. The Pacemaker then generates pulse in the implanted device in the head to control the tremor. This appears to be a promising line of treatment for such diseases. Prof. Varadan also has reported that a few patients affected by Parkinson disease had a full recovery. This is the promising area of research in which some of the researchers of this Centre can concentrate.

We are now fast moving into the world of Intellectual Property Rights. Patents under the new international regimes are unfolding before us. To make sure that we do not lose out to any of the IPR issues, it will be necessary to document

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properly all our research work and to put in our claims for patents at the right time. Sun Pharma Research Centre in collaboration with NIPER, certain CSIR Labs and other national laboratories, should become the repository of IPR related activities not only to ensure that we protect our Intellectual Property of the modern times, but also to ensure that our repository of traditional medicinal knowledge is properly documented and can be put to strategic use to prevent IPR piracy. I believe that it is important for Indian business to capture the IPRs generated in India in order to realize the full benefit in the competitive global commerce.

India is the only country that has got the treasure of clinical data because of its billion population and plurality. This is a great advantage for Indiaâ€&#x;s development for drug and drug delivery system. As you will be knowing, CII study has revealed that the drug development cost is one tenth compared to international market.

I would like to share my experiences while I was in Anna University, Chennai. One of them resulted in getting a patent for a new molecule discovered from a herb as an anti cancer drug. This came out of the fusion of two great minds, one was a bio technologist and the other was a traditional siddha medical practitioner. The traditional system of medicine like Ayurveda, Siddha etc., have advocated and practiced preventive and curative medicinal recipes specific to individuals. The body, mind, food and environment were looked at holistically to suggest a preventive or curative

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approach to health. Medicinal plants offer enormous scope for development of drugs. We need to create database of traditional medicinal plants for specific bioactivity and lead for development of new drugs. India has got tremendous opportunities for herbal farming and research. Sun Pharma Research Centre can collaborate with CCMB, Hyderabad and Centre for Liver Research and Diagnosis, Hyderabad for realizing the special cost effective drug particularly in gastroenterology.

As you all know that Johns Hopkins University in USA is doing a pioneering research work in medical field. I met Dr. Charles Cummings of the Johns Hopkins Board and his team, few days ago. I asked one question that was in my mind, to Dr Charles, What made Johns Hopkins a world class medical research centre in addition to its cherishing societal missions?? His answer was, it is a great tradition, it started with a number of visionaries with value system and missions. This tradition continues.

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Profile of a competitive India I was thinking and thinking, what is the challenge before the nation today. I have visited all parts of our country and talked to the children, the youth and the experienced. I have also visited five countries in three continents. Particularly, I happened to address the Pan-African Parliament represented by 53 African countries. Here again I happened to meet the heads of state of these countries and the citizens. These meetings triggered many random thoughts in me. I would like to share with you, how the Father of our Nation Mahatma Gandhi working at Durban in South Africa experienced the insult and humiliation under the apartheid regime and fought back. This later on led to the birth of noncooperation movement through non-violence. Then I recalled the connectivity with the Kalinga war scene around 2000 years back where Emperor Ashoka, while celebrating the victory in the Kalinga war, at the cost of the death of more than one hundred thousand people and equal number injured. In his victory, the emperor saw the blood bath in the moon lit night. Here we see the birth of Ahimsa Dharma, out of this tragic scene created by the Emperor himself and grow into a laudable philosophy that spread across the world.

Also, I would like to share with you, the scene in the Robben island of Atlantic Ocean. In this scene, I see an indomitable spirit of Dr. Nelson Mandela, who was jailed for 26 years in a single prison cell. When he was freed, he gave two great gifts to his nation. One is the magnanimity in victory by providing equal constitutional right to the 10% of

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the white population, who were the main propagators of apartheid. And also he gave his famous work which he wrote stealthily in the prison, the book entitled “A long walk to freedom”. With all my experience in India and abroad, one thing is very clear, that in the planet of 6 billion people, what is needed is the fight against injustice. Mahatma Gandhi in Africa fought against apartheid, Dr. Nelson Mandela gave the final leadership to remove the apartheid regime from South Africa. In India, Gandhiji with his experience in fighting against injustice in South Africa fought against the British for India‟s freedom. From these experiences, what we learn historically is that we have to have a major mission against injustice and we have to fight till injustice vanishes.

What is that injustice for India today? The injustice that we have to fight today according to me is the societal and economic impoverishment and inequality in various aspects of life for a large number of people. India‟s movement in removing this impoverished state will become a trend setter for the whole planet as in the past. When India got the freedom in 1947, many nations in Asia and Africa were inspired to fight for freedom and realize freedom for their nations. Hence the overwhelming question which I would like to reflect today is that - when will India become a developed nation? And show the way to the other developing nations. Will history repeat itself?

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Our nation is going through a major challenge of uplifting of 260 million people who are below the poverty line and also to give better life for many millions who are on the border line of poverty or just above the poverty line. They need decent habitat, they need work with reasonable income, they need food, they need health care, and they need education and finally resulting into a good life. Our GDP is growing at more than 6% per annum on an average. Whereas, the economists suggest that to uplift the people from below the poverty line, our economy has to grow at the rate of 10% per annum consistently, for over a decade.

To meet the need of one billion people, we have the mission of transforming India into a developed nation. We have identified five areas where India has a core competence for integrated action: (1) Agriculture and food processing (2) Reliable and Quality Electric power, Surface transport and Infrastructure for all parts of the country.

(3) Education and Healthcare (4) Information and Communication Technology (5) Strategic sectors.

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

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Emphasis should be on full utilization of natural and human resources of the nation to meet the demands of the modern society. We should also remember that about 50% of our population is young people with aspirations for better living.

Value addition to Agriculture, Manufacturing and Service sectors, building the national core competence and technologies will lead to additional high income employment potential. The engines for growth will be accelerated by launching of the five national missions viz. water, energy, education and skills, infrastructure and employment generation that will enable achievement of 10% GDP growth rate per annum. It is possible to do so with ecological and economic sustainability.

With these aspects, we have already laid down the road map.

The priority for the government is to convert the road map into various missions. While converting the vision into different missions we seem to have many thoughts and variety of routes to reach the goal. This is where there is a need to have a coherent thinking among all the members of the society. All of them need to think that the nation is greater than an individual or an organization. There is a mindset among many that ,we cannot do it. However in my experience with many departments in the country and the observations of the results of some of them in the mission mode projects, I can assure you whenever we have decided to achieve certain goals with clear targets, we have always achieved it. I have seen this even in private and public sector

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industries - if they decide to take up tasks as a mission, they succeed. I would like to give some examples.

During 1960â€&#x;s, I remember that India was in a state of ship to mouth existence in food. If the American ships did not bring wheat, there will be a famine in India. But there were two visionaries who worked together with the farming community and brought the first green revolution. They are the political thinker Shri. C. Subramaniam and the Agriculture scientist Dr. M.S. Swaminathan. Around the same time, Dr Varghese Kurien masterminded the white revolution. Today we produce two hundred million tonnes of food grains, which is not only sufficient for us but we can also export. Similarly, the white revolution resulted in placing India at the top of the world map of milk producers.

In India much innovation and creative thinking took place at various phases of our development. Dr. Vikram Sarabhai in 1960â€&#x;s said that India should design and develop large satellite launch vehicle and put communication satellite and remote sensing satellite in geo-synchronous orbit and polar orbit respectively. This vision statement ignited hundreds of scientist, technologists and thousands of technicians. Today India is capable of building any type of satellite launch vehicles and satellites. Similarly the Vision of nuclear programme led to establishing series of nuclear power plants adding 3000 megawatt power to our electrical grid of 100,000 megawatt. There is a proposal to increase the nuclear power to 20,000 megawatt by 2020.

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In the 80â€&#x;s, India had a very low base in Information Technology. Some young entrepreneurs with their innovative and creative thoughts and within the difficult boundary conditions of Indiaâ€&#x;s rules and regulations, demonstrated how IT enabled services can fetch export revenue. Subsequently, even Government had to bring out innovative and liberalized IT policies. Now, our young IT entrepreneurs are making export revenue of 15 billion dollars. This is expected to grow to more than 100 billion dollars by the year 2020. Similarly the Pharma industries are making a positive impact in the Indian economy. Our garment industry and our export of flowers and diamond are not far behind. Our auto-component and auto mobile industries have made remarkable breakthroughs. Our cement industry has great achievements in energy efficiency. Fly ash utilization which was just 3% in 1993 is now close to 25% after mission mode approach. It will further grow as fly ash has multiple applications.

These successful missions give us the confidence that as a country we have the resources and the capability to achieve challenging missions, if only we decide to achieve it.

My visualization of that competitive Developed India is the profile, which I would like to share with you today.

1. A Nation where the rural and urban divide has reduced to a thin line.

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2. A Nation where there is an equitable distribution of energy and quality water.

3. A Nation where agriculture, industry and service sector work together in symphony, absorbing technology thereby resulting in sustained wealth generation leading to higher employment potential.

4. A Nation where education is not denied to any meritorious candidates because of societal or economic discrimination.

5. A Nation which is the best destination for the most talented scholars and scientists all over the world.

6. A Nation where the best of health care is available to all the billion population and the communicable diseases like AIDS/TB, water and vector borne diseases, Cardiac diseases and Cancer are extinct.

7. A Nation where the governance uses the best of the technologies to be responsive, transparent, easily accessible and simple in rules, thereby corruption free.

8. A Nation where poverty has been totally alleviated, illiteracy and crime against women are eradicated and the society is unalienated.

9. A Nation that is prosperous, healthy, secure, peaceful and happy.

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10. A Nation that is one of the best places to live in, on the earth and brings smiles on a billion plus faces.

These are the ten dimensional transformations needed for competitive India and we have to work for.

Now I would like to discuss some of the major missions which are essential for transforming India into a developed nation they are: Providing Urban Amenities in Rural Areas (PURA) and Employment generation through entrepreneurship. Now these missions need not be driven only by a Government department as was done by Space and Atomic Energy. It can be done by a bright group of entrepreneurs, using modern business models.

There has been substantial growth in our higher educational system and we are generating over 3 million graduates every year, and also after 10th class and Ten Plus Two nearly 7 million seek employment. However our employment generation system is not in a position to absorb the graduates passing out from the universities leading to increase in educated unemployed, year after year. There is a large mismatch between the skills required for the modern economy and the education imparted to most of these students. In addition, economic growth and investments have not kept pace with the availability of human resources.

This situation will lead to instability in the social structure.

We need higher education focused on and oriented towards high value and productive employment opportunities. A three pronged strategy is needed to make education more

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attractive, make it skill imparting and simultaneously create employment potential- how do we do that?

Firstly, the educational system should highlight the importance of entrepreneurship and prepare the students right from the college education to get oriented towards setting up of the enterprises which will provide them creativity, freedom and ability to generate wealth. Diversity of skills and perseverance in work makes an entrepreneur. It should be taught to all the students. In addition, college syllabi even for arts, science, and commerce courses should include topics and practical where such entrepreneurship is possible. Secondly, the banking system should provide venture capital right from every village level to the prospective entrepreneurs for undertaking new enterprises.

Banks have to be proactive to support the innovative products for enabling wealth generation by young entrepreneurs by setting aside the „conventional tangible asset syndromeâ€&#x;. Definitely this involves certain amount of calculated risks, which can be eliminated by making an analysis of successful venture capital enterprises. Thirdly, there has to be an economic pull for human resources; for example generation of marketable products and enhancement of purchasing power among the people. This can come through the implementation of mega programmes such as PURA, Regional linking of Rivers, Infrastructural missions, Power missions and Tourism.

The educational institutions, Government and the private enterprises should become facilitators for creating this

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entrepreneurship scheme through the support of the banking system and the marketing system. This is one way of reducing the employment gap leading to upliftment of the 260 million people living below the poverty line and raising those who are just above the poverty line to raise much higher and have better standards of living.

What is needed is the evolution of enlightened and visionary leaders amongst us in all walks of life whether it be politics, administration, religion, business, education or science which has a bearing on the evolution of our nation and the society. And, enlightened leadership is all about empowerment. When a child is empowered by the parents, he gets transformed into a responsible citizen. When a teacher is empowered with knowledge, a guru emerges.

When women are empowered, a stable society gets established. When the political leaders of a nation empower the people through visionary policies, the prosperity of a nation is assured. When religions are empowered to become a spiritual force, peace and happiness blossoms in the society. It is thus, the need of the hour to develop enlightened leadership amongst various sections of our society who will have a vision and a commitment to peace, progress and development. When a leader of any institution empowers the people working with them, such leaders are created who can change the course of the nation itself.

Empowerment by enlightened leaders will lead to the creation of enlightened citizens who have a strong value system. In short, my road map for national development has

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three components. Firstly we should inculcate education with a value system in our children, secondly : ensure that religion graduates into a spiritual force and thirdly we should develop an enlightened leadership with visionary policies to lead the way towards national, global and economic prosperity.

I believe if the majority of the people become enlightened citizens, they will spread the righteousness in right earnest.

If they do, I am very confident we will find the answers to “When will India become a Developed Nation?� All the indications show that it will be before 2020.

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Museum- A window of Valour When I see the museum displaying the captured arms and war material, I was thinking how the mechanism of terrorism translates thinking into action.

How a person is initiated towards the tendencies of the terrorism? I discussed with a friend of mine who is a famous psychologist. He gave me a long lecture. I have taken a few points for our discussion. Constant deprivation among these personalities leads to frustration, frustration on provocation leads to alienation. Alienation can manifest itself in two forms -passivism and activism. Activism can manifest itself in constructive or destructive modes. Constructive mode leads to development; destructive mode leads to terrorism, violence and aggression. We need to collectively address these sources of disturbance for global peace.

There are four routes to terrorism.

(1) Within the country (2) Cross border terrorism (3) International terrorism (4) Combination of all the three.

Terrorism within the country arises out of political differences leading to taking vengeance by individuals, leaders and followers. It also results out of large societal

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gaps between groups and caste, religion and region based differentiation. The cross border terrorism generally arises out of defeats in conventional war and religious fanaticism.

International terrorism arises out of the large wealth and wealth generation capability gap between countries and poverty level coupled with religious fanaticism. Sometimes, due to parental vow this type of terrorism can lead to war. In addition, terrorism arises out of the combination of all these phenomena in some parts of the world.

In view of the developments in nuclear, biological and chemical warfare agents and possible access to these technologies to the terrorists a new threat scenario emerges at global level. The science and technology research and development endeavours need to strive to achieve an edge over these operations in terms of intelligence gathering, surveillance, protection and intervention. Some of these technologies may include satellite based surveillance, sensor technology for NBC threat assessment, personal protective ensembles, collective protection shelters, technologies for disaster management, signal and communication intelligence, technologies to counter information warfare, cryptography and security algorithms, cyber security, design and establishment of vital installations with survivable systems, and non-lethal weapons. We may need to develop sophisticated technologies for interrogation of terrorists and to access analyze and unearth the network and overall strategies behind the scene.

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One of the lasting solution for preventing terrorism in the planet is the economic development of the nations and vanishing societal discrimination.

We have a population of over one billion people of which 260 million are still living below the poverty line. They need education, they need habitat, they need health care, and creation of employment potential. To meet their needs we have the second vision of transforming India into a developed nation by the year 2020. We have identified five areas where India has a core competence for integrated action: (1) Agriculture and food processing (2) Reliable and quality electric power and surface transport for all parts of the country. (3) Education and Healthcare (4) Information and Communication Technology (5) areas are closely interrelated and if well done would lead to food, economic and national 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 for a developed India. Indian GDP is growing at an average rate of 6% p.a. whereas the economists suggest that to remove the poverty of 260 million people we have to grow at the rate of 10% p.a. consistently for over a decade.

Even a compulsory short military training scheme could be introduced wherein all able bodied youth can lead a regimental life for the period of 3 years. The first year could be devoted to inculcate discipline and physical/ personality development. The second year could focus on vocational and entrepreneurship training. The third year the trained and

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ignited youth could be deployed for the national development programmes such as interlinking of rivers, PURA, Power mission, water mission, second green revolution, infrastructural development and critical technology areas. After this, organized training the youth may be provided with necessary financial support from the banks to put into practice the training which has been imparted by creating enterprises which can generate employment for many.

There are many challenges in our planet earth of six billion people. Many nations are experiencing the problems of injected terrorism. The young people of the planet are dreaming to live in the land of opportunities and happiness.

We have also seen that the economic prosperity of few nations alone has not brought lasting peace to the world. In such a situation, it is essential to evolve the principle of enlightened citizenship in all the regions. The enlightened citizenship has three components: education with value system, religion transforming into spiritual force and bringing economic prosperity through development. This mission can be put into action by all the nations coming together economically and spiritually. How it can be done?

All the children in the age group of 5- 17 years will be learning in the schools and home, the education with value system, with the teacher in the centre stage. Every religion has got two components: religious dogmas and spiritual preaching's. The spiritual focus influenced by compassion and love must be nurtured as an integrated mission. In many

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nations, in spite of their core competence, material wealth, biodiversity and human resource, still certain percentage of people is below poverty line. By using the core competence, with competitiveness as a base and the mission of transforming the developing nation into a developed country, nations can work together for a peaceful, prosperous and safe region. I am putting forth these thoughts of enlightened citizenship on this occasion to promote a sense of peace and prosperity in this region.

When I see the Museum I feel that time has come for India to establish a "War Museum" of armed forces ?which will tell the story of our battles that, is courage at the sea and under the sea; courage at air space and courage at land operations. War Museum is essential, since it will not only provide the record of struggle but also narrate the sacrifices behind the hard earned victories. What more can inspire the youth of our nation towards the path' of National Development?

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Missions for Media In the present development context of the nation I would like the media to take up the following missions for immediate implementation.

1. A Media movement: Developed India by 2020.

2. Media becoming a development partner in the programme of PURA (Providing Urban amenities in Rural Area) connectivity is the focus.

3. Celebrating every aspect of the success of the nation, from any part of the country.

4. Evolution of corruption free India before 2010.

Particularly, I have started a movement of administering an Oath among the youth which states, I will lead an honest life free from all corruption and will set an example for others to adopt a transparent way of life.

5. Promoting an enlightened society, which means education with value system, transforming religion into a spiritual force and building economic prosperity of every nation based on its core competence. For this mission, a unique world body is essential.

6. Media should bring honor to the womanhood.

7. Scanning and digitizing all old issues of the print media since its establishment and store in a digital library to

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preserve our national heritage and make it available for research.

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Missions For NCC Presently, at any time nearly 1.3 million NCC cadets are undergoing training either in school or college. This covers only 3.8 percent of the eligible student population of the country. Dynamics of nation with a billion populations is becoming complex day by day. Every year 10 million educated youth are injected into the society who is looking for employment opportunities. They need productive employment; otherwise instability in the society will set in.

The independence movement created the leadership quality and nurtured the concept that the nation is bigger than individual or any system of organisation. During the last few decades this national spirit has been at the low ebb. What we need is that the political parties have to compete with each other, and answer the question, “How the nation can be developed faster, in quality and work for providing higher standards of life for our citizens?â€? For this trend to set in, the youth, particularly the disciplined youth should make an important contribution. Enhancing the scope of NCC and making it mission oriented, will be the best answer today for the mission of National Development. This disciplined society will have an impact on the political ethos of the nation. In the present scenario, one thing we have seen, our Armed Forces consistently have played a disciplined role for preserving the integrity of the nation in tune with the political vision. The new role of NCC in assisting Indiaâ€&#x;s new vision will also be able to demonstrate that the

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government can utilize the power of the youth together for the national development cutting across the political and geographical barriers.

NCC cadets in schools and colleges get their basic armed forces training for nearly two years with inculcation of discipline and integrity as the prime pillars. I understand NCC has so far trained over 20 million NCC cadets since its birth, almost since independence. About 30 percent of trained NCC cadets take up Armed Forces as their career. A special research should be taken up by Ministry of Defence in collaboration with Indian Institutes of Management, to study and analyze how the balance 70% of trained NCC Cadets who have not taken up Armed Forces as their career, have made impact on society through their chosen area of work, and their work ethics and ethos, performance and career path.

I am confident, if 10 million trained NCC cadets are injected into our society with a mission every year, it will have a positive impact on three important areas of life in the society. a) Promotion of righteous life in the work place and the family and elimination of corruption and improvement of efficiency. b) Augmentation of clean environment, clean home, clean office and clean neighbourhood including planting of lakhs of trees.

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c) Disciplined and committed action in whatever works the NCC cadet takes up for enthusiastic partnership in the developed India movement.

Recently I was in Bangalore where I interacted with the students of the Indian Institute of Science. During my lecture, I said that if a country is to be corruption free and become a nation of beautiful minds, there are three key societal members who can make a difference. They are father, mother and the teacher. I would like to share with you the response I received from one of the staff members of IISc for these remarks. He had written, “The words that only three people Father, Mother and Elementary School Teacher can remove corruption, are extremely true”. He further stated that he had taught his daughter that she should always speak the truth and that if she speaks the truth she will have no fear in life. Today she is 10 years old but when she was in her 2nd standard she had not gone for school for one day because he had taken her to a function at his friend‟s place.

In her leave letter he had mentioned that due to unavoidable circumstances she couldn‟t attend school. She immediately remarked that, Why I should say unavoidable circumstances and not those we had to attend a function. You have told me not to tell lies why should I tell lies. Then he realized his mistake and changed the leave letter with correct information. This is the power of teaching children at a young age to be honest, which also enables us to be corrected by the child if we deviate from our righteous path.

Honesty comes out of righteousness. Once taught the

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children become conscious keepers. Once you start giving the right direction in the minds of the children, character building emanates from the family. “I will make my home a righteous home� should be the motto of each and every NCC cadet.

The status of environmental cleanliness is one of the indicators of development of a nation. As a nation, we have to keep our environment clean and tidy and it has to start from the home. This is essential for better health conditions of all the citizens and also for presenting a wholesome and aesthetic atmosphere for us. It is essential that we keep all our places of worship and rivers clean and tidy to preserve their innate divinity. Members of the NCC can promote a clean habitat movement in their home and surroundings and participate in imparting the awareness amongst the rural and urban population leading to a clean nation. This action itself will lead to healthy environment and environment for better performance and productivity in various types of tasks that people take up. I will make my street the cleanest street, should be the passion of each and every NCC cadet.

Our nation is going through a major challenge of uplifting of 260 million people who are below the poverty line. They need habitat, they need food, they need health care, and they need education and employment and finally resulting in a good life. National GDP is growing at the rate of about 6% per annum. Whereas, the economists suggest that to uplift the people below poverty line, our economy has to grow at the rate of 10% per annum consistently, for over a decade.

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Integrated action: To meet the need of our people, we have the mission of transforming India into a developed nation.

We have identified five areas where India has a core competence for integrated action: (1) Agriculture and food processing (2) Reliable and Quality Electric power, Surface transport and Infrastructure for all parts of the country.

(3) Education and Healthcare (4) Information and Communication Technology (5) Strategic sectors.

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

The integrated methods, which will bring prosperity to rural India are: the physical connectivity of the village clusters through quality roads and transport; electronic connectivity through tele-communication with high bandwidth fiber optic cables reaching the rural areas from urban cities and through internet kiosks; knowledge connectivity through education, vocational training for farmers, artisans and craftsmen and entrepreneurship programmes; these three connectives leading to economic connectivity through starting of enterprises with the help of banks, micro credits and marketing the products.

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I have suggested that the education with value system is an important contributor for building good human beings and developed India. The present NCC with the new mission can make the desired difference to our educational system and thereby giving the positive impact on the society. I am sure you will all agree that the influence of NCC on our society is something that we are all proud of and hence needs to be intensified and focused.

In my view, two years NCC training must be made compulsory for all eligible students, both for boys and girls at the school or college level. This may work out to cadre strength of 20 million students for the NCC. I realize, the NCC budget needed for this will increase substantially.

However, the output in terms of societal development and peace will adequately compensate through the availability of young disciplined human resource.

The NCC cadets are examples of enlightened citizens for the society to emulate. In this way they have a responsibility not only to themselves but also to the whole society. In fulfilling this mission, it is good for them to cohesively articulate their roles and responsibilities. For this, I would like to administer a five point oath for all the NCC Cadets for Societal transformation and national development.

1. Righteous home: I will be responsible for creating a righteous home. I realize, righteousness in oneâ€&#x;s mind brings beauty in the character. Beauty in the character blossoms harmony in the home. Harmony in the home leads to order

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in the nation. Order in the nation brings peace to our planet.

2. Clean home and habitat: I will spread the mission of beautiful home by setting an example and advocating to the entire neighborhood, starting from my home, the importance of environment. I will work towards sustainable development with no adverse impact on the environment and in fact would contribute to bettering the environment by planting trees, keeping the streets clean, and reducing the pollution.

3. Purity of thought: I will spread the message of purity of thoughts among the youth and ensure that the women are respected by the society.

4. My life is a message: I will ensure that all thinking and action in my life becomes a message to the youth to emulate.

I will lead an honest life free from all corruption and will set an example for others to adopt a transparent way of life.

5. Celebration of my country: I will celebrate every success of my country and my fellow citizens.

Nation building needs large number of enlightened youth.

One of the essential components of enlightened youth, namely the discipline, can be provided by NCC training.

Now for NCC Cadets, I prescribe an important additional trait that you all should imbibe. In addition to discipline, the members of the NCC should possess the characteristics of indomitable spirit which has two components. The first

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component is that there must be a Vision leading to higher goals of achievement. The second component is the spirit of challenging the challenges. I would like to recall a couplet from Thirukkural by the Poet Saint Thiruvalluvar written 2500 years ago.

It means that whatever may be the depth of the river or lake or pond, whatever may be the condition of the water, the lily flower always comes out and blossoms. Similarly, if there is a definite determination to achieve a goal even if it is impossible to achieve, the man succeeds.

We would have experienced that success is not in sight and there are many hurdles. The same poet reminds us at this point of time through another couplet:

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We should never be defeated by any problems. We should become master of the situation and defeat the problems. I consider these two Thirukkurals characterize the indomitable spirit.

I am sure, the evolved enlightened citizens with character built at home and family, school imparting value based education, two year compulsory NCC training providing the discipline and unity, backed by indomitable spirit, will make you a proud contributor in making India a happy, prosperous and peaceful nation.

Capacity building vital for National Development I visualize the following distinctive profile for India by the year 2020 will have to emerge.

1. A Nation where the rural and urban divide has reduced to a thin line.

2. A Nation where there is an equitable distribution and adequate access to energy and quality water.

3. A Nation where agriculture, industry and service sector work together in symphony.

4. A Nation where education with value system is not denied to any meritorious candidates because of societal or economic discrimination.

5. A Nation which is the best destination for the most talented scholars, scientists, and investors.

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6. A Nation where the best of health care is available to all.

7. A Nation where the governance is responsive, transparent and corruption free.

8. A Nation where poverty has been totally eradicated, illiteracy removed and crimes against women and children are absent and none in the society feels alienated.

9. A Nation that is prosperous, healthy, secure, peaceful and happy and continues with a sustainable growth path.

10. A Nation that is one of the best places to live in and is proud of its leadership.

To achieve the distinctive profile of India, we have the mission of transforming India into a developed nation. We have identified five areas where India has a core competence for integrated action: (1) Agriculture and food processing (2) Reliable and Quality Electric power, Surface transport and Infrastructure for all parts of the country. (3) Education and Healthcare (4) Information and Communication Technology (5) Self reliance in critical technologies. These five areas are closely inter-related and if progressed in a coordinated way, will lead to food, economic and national security. The major mission is the development of infrastructure for bringing rural prosperity are through Provision of Urban Amenities in Rural Areas (PURA) through creation of three connectivities namely physical, electronic, knowledge leading to economic connectivity. The number of PURA for the whole country is

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estimated to be 7000. Educational institutions can participate in evolving road map for development of PURAs in their region. I have come across such example: in Periyar PURA at Vallam in Tamil Nadu, where students and teachers of Periyar Maniammai College of Engineering and Technology are working in the planning and development of a cluster of sixty five villages involving one lakh population.

The primary focus of the students should be to excel in their studies. This is their first contribution to the development of the nation. The education system should instill in the minds of students capacities of inquiry, creativity, technology, entrepreneurial and moral leadership. If we develop in all our students these five capacities, we will produce “Autonomous Learner” a self-directed, self controlled, lifelong learner, who will have the capacity to both respect authority and at the same time is capable of questioning authority, in an appropriate manner. These are the leaders who would work together as a “Self-organizing Network” and transform India into a developed nation in a time bound manner. I am glad to learn that this Air India award system has been designed to promote creative thinking and leadership among students and teachers in many areas of societal development. Now, I would like to give an example as to how students in different parts of the country can participate in the environmental and ecological up gradation.

Department of Science and Technology has taken up a programme called "Mapping the Neighbourhood". In Almora district in Uttaranchal children from 20 schools have

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been motivated to use mapping techniques to investigate and map basic socio-economic, environmental and ecological issues being faced by the neighbourhood community. Armed with the scientific and technological tools such as Global Positioning System (GPS), Geographic Information System (GIS), Space Imagery incorporated in the hand held computers, the students are creating maps with the neighbourhood details to improve their understanding of the immediate environment. These maps will enable further the technological community to find solutions for the regeneration of fast disappearing natural sources of water, improving road connectivity, finding better locations for electricity sub-stations with transformer and water distribution points, reducing traffic congestion, improved systems of garbage collection and overall improvement of environment. The students have extended their understanding to issues of agriculture and irrigation, health and nutrition.

The mapping carried out by the students enables prevention of indiscriminate dumping and better location of garbage collection points and recycling by the municipal authorities for facilitating a clean environment. Since the students are involved, even the elders abide by the laws of the land and contribute to the upliftment of the neighbourhood. I would suggest the Students to undertake the Mapping of the Neighbourhood in their locality for finding out water resources, renovation of old water tanks and water bodies with proper inlet and outlet by clearing unauthorized

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encroachment and transport management free from accidents and bottlenecks. By this mission, students can contribute in a big way for societal cause. Air India and Malayala Manorama can provide the infrastructure for carrying out such missions.

Recently, in Hyderabad, I met a group of citizens who are putting into practice the motto of transforming of our youth into enlightened citizen. The Lead India 2020 Foundation created by Dr. N.B. Sudershan at Hyderabad is training thousands of students in many districts of Andhra Pradesh in partnership with the District Administration. Particularly, I happened to know the transformation which has taken place among the students of Medak districts. As per the district authorities the impact of the training on the Students is visible in terms of self-discipline, love for their parents and teachers shedding of stage fear and recognition of their duties towards the nation. I happened to talk to Ms. Padma, a student leader from Andhra Pradesh Tribal Welfare School, Adilabad who related how she weaned her father away from smoking after imbibing the spirit of the 10 point oath from the Lead India Training Camp. This gives me an assurance that the youth of our country are on the right path and I am sure the participants of Rank and Bolt competition will promote such activities among their colleagues.

To enable development of youth first and foremost, the teacherâ€&#x;s love for teaching is essential, with teaching as the soul of the teacher. The teacher must realize that they are responsible for shaping not just students but ignited youth

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who are the most powerful resource under the earth, on the earth and above the earth. With their full commitment to the great mission of teaching, the teacher transforms himself or herself as a great teacher only when he or she is capable of elevating the average student to high performance. The teacher conducting himself or herself in a noble way itself is a lifetime message for students. They should encourage the students and children to ask questions and develop the spirit of enquiry, so that they blossom into creative enlightened citizens. They should treat all the students equally and should not support any differentiation on account of religion, community or language and continuously upgrade the capacities in teaching so that they can impart quality education to the students. They should realize by being a teacher, they are making an important contribution to the efforts of national development. The teachers must constantly endeavour to fill their mind, with great thoughts and spread the nobility in thinking and action among the students. Teacher should celebrate the success of the students. Now, I would like to administer a seven point oath for the students.

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Thank you note

Friends, I am delighted to address you all, in the country and those living abroad, after working with you and completing five beautiful and eventful years in Rashtrapati Bhavan.

Today, it is indeed a thanks giving occasion. I would like to narrate, how I enjoyed every minute of my tenure enriched by the wonderful association from each one of you, hailing from different walks of life, be it politics, science and technology, academics, arts, literature, business, judiciary, administration, local bodies, farming, home makers, special children, media and above all from the youth and student community who are the future wealth of our country. During my interaction at Rashtrapati Bhavan in Delhi and at every state and union territory as well as through my online interactions, I have many unique experiences to share with you, which signify the following important messages: 1. Accelerate development : Aspiration of the youth, 2. Empower villages, 3. Mobilize rural core competence for competitiveness, 4. Seed to Food: Backbone for agricultural growth 5. Defeat problems and succeed, 6. Overcome problems through partnership,

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7. Courage in combating calamities, 8. Connectivity for societal transformation, 9. Defending the nation: Our pride and 10. Youth movement for Developed India 2020.

Now let me share with you each of the messages.

While there were many significant events during my tenure, a question from a little girl Anukriti of Sri Sathya Sai Jagriti Vidya Mandir School, of Darwa village from Haryana, during children‟s visit to Rashtrapati Bhavan on May 22, 2006, rings in my mind ever after.

Anukriti asked me “why India cannot become a developed nation before the year 2020?” I appreciated the question and said it was indeed a thoughtful question and assured her that that her dream would be taken to the highest institution of the nation and we would work for it to achieve before 2020.

This question reflects how the desire to live in developed India has entered into the minds of the youth. The same feelings are echoed by over fifteen lakh youth, whom I have met so far and who represent the dream of the 540 million youth of the nation. The aspirations of the young to live in a prosperous, safe and proud India should be the guiding factor in whatever profession we contribute.

Friends, I recall my visit to Nagaland on 26th October 2002, soon after my assuming office as President. It was a unique

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experience for me at Khuzama village to meet tribal village council members and discuss with them the village progress and the dream of village citizens. I was very happy to see the empowered village council functioning with financial powers and taking decisions. I saw a prosperous village with fruits and vegetables production. However, there is a need for providing physical connectivity in Nagaland through quality roads for enabling faster movement of products from villages to the market. That meeting gave me a powerful message about the transformation which can take place to the 600,000 villages of India, if all the villages are empowered to deal with their development and are well connected among themselves and with the urban societies.

Now I would like to talk about the initiative of Periyar Maniammai College of Technology for Women, Vallam, Tanjore of Providing Urban Amenities in Rural Areas (PURA) complex involving 65 villages with a population of 3 lakhs. This includes provision of three connectivities physical, electronic and knowledge - leading to economic connectivity. Periyar PURA has health care centers, primary to post graduate level education and vocational training centers. This has resulted in large-scale employment generation and creation of number of entrepreneurs with the active support of 1000 self-help groups. Two hundred acres of waste land has been developed into a cultivable land. The villagers are busy in cultivation, planting Jatropha, herbal and medicinal plants, power generation using bio-mass, food processing and above all running marketing centers. It

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provides a sustainable economic development model for the whole region.

During the last eight months, people of Periyar PURA villages technologically supported by Periyar Maniammai College of Engineering for Women have worked with experts from Japan External Trade Organisation (JETRO) on various products, for which core competence and raw material are available in Thanjavur district. They developed internationally competitive prototypes for 55 life style products with support of JETRO specialists and feedback from exhibitions at Delhi and Tokyo. This co-operative venture has enhanced the innovative ability of the people of all the 65 villages enabling them to develop and produce internationally acceptable products. I have seen similar type of PURA being established in many states. The whole country needs 7000 PURA to bridging the rural - urban divide.

Let me now share with you, the enriching experience I had, while meeting more than 6000 farmers from different States and Union Territories visiting Rashtrapati Bhavan. They evinced keen interest in the Mughal Gardens, the Herbal Gardens, the Spiritual Garden, the Musical Garden, the Biodiesel garden and the Nutrition Garden and interact with the Horticultural specialists. Recently, during my address to the agricultural scientists while participating in a National Symposium on “Agriculture Cannot Wait�, I summarized the many practical suggestions given by farmers. We have to double the agricultural production with reduced land,

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reduced water resources and reduced manpower and improve the economic conditions of the nation through the principle of “Seed to Food” since agriculture is the backbone of the nation. We should empower the farmers to protect and nurture the fertile land for second green revolution. Meeting the Scientists and the Farmers has given me the confidence that the nation is poised to increase the agricultural GDP growth by atleast 4% per annum through the partnership of farmers and agricultural scientists and industries particularly for value addition.

On the evening of February 24, 2007, at Coimbatore, I had a very beautiful experience. As I got ready for meeting the first person out of twenty appointments, a wheel chair was in sight with a smiling person probably in his late fifties; unfortunately he has no hands and legs. His radiant face was revealing his happy state of mind. He introduced himself as Vidwan Coimbatore SR Krishna Murthy. I greeted him and asked him how this had happened. He smilingly said that it was from by birth. He thanked God, his parents, teachers and many others for giving him confidence, training and help. I asked him, what I could do for him? He said, “I don‟t need anything from you. I would like to sing in front of you”. I readily agreed. He sang melodiously the Saint Thyagraja‟s pancha ratna kriti entharo mahanubavulu in Sriragam giving me a glimpse of his talent. I was quite touched. What is the message? Despite being physically challenged, the latent talent of music could blossom in this person with his positive attitude and perseverance,

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encouraged by the parents, teachers, academics and rasikas.

Now he wants to give, give and give his art to inspire others.

Of course, by his merit of music, in July 2007, he performed in the Rashtrapati Bhavan art theatre.

I had the opportunity to experience the Indomitable Spirit of the people and children of Jammu & Kashmir even as they were just recovering from the devastating earthquake in 2005. I visited Urusa village on 26th November 2005 which has been adopted by the Western Air Command, Air Force for providing relief and medical aid to the residents of that area. When I went there, I found that the school building had been severely damaged. I met all the school children and the village citizen of Urusa. The villagers apprised me of their losses and had all praise for Army and Air Force role in rescue and relief operations along with state government. I appreciate the courage of the people of Urusa in defeating their problems. They have actually become the master of the problem rather than allowing problems to become their master. Despite the severe loss due to the earthquake, the children and the members of the village participated in the relief operation with the Armed Forces bravely and were smiling when I went to meet them. They interacted with me and said that the school was functional in the temporary tents. Here, I also witnessed the participation of acting Chief Justice of Jammu & Kashmir along with State Government authorities in on-the-spot settlement of relief grants to be provided to the victims whose houses had been damaged in the earth quake. I have experienced many such acts of

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courage from our citizens when faced with severe challenges.

In 2005, I met the Tribal Council Leaders, Students, Children of Chuckchucha village during my visit to Car Nicobar Islands. While various reconstruction and rehabilitation activities were in progress, during the discussions with the members of tribal council, I realized the unique trait among the Car-Nicobar islanders. Even though there were many human losses due to the Tsunami of 26 Dec 2004, the tribal islanders had taken possession of affected victims as their children and there is nothing like orphanage in Car-Nicobar Islands. Touched by their courage, I composed few verses called Sea Waves which reads as follows: We are the children of Sea waves, Sea waves are my friends.

When they become angry, Sea waves give the challenges.

God has given the courage, To challenge the sea waves.

And we will succeed, We will succeed

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With Almightyâ€&#x;s grace.

All the members who were gathered in the village sang the poem with me and exhibited lots of courage and enthusiasm even though they had gone through severe suffering during the Tsunami.

I addressed the Pan African Parliament on 16 September 2004, at Johannesburg, South Africa. This was attended by 53 member countries of the African Union, where I proposed the concept of Pan African e-Network for providing seamless and integrated satellite, fiber optics and wireless network connecting 53 African countries at an estimated cost of US $ 100 million.

As part of the project 12 universities (7 from India and 5 from Africa), 17 Super Specialty Hospitals (12 from India and 5 from Africa), 53 tele-medicine centers and 53 teleeducation centres in Africa will be connected. The pilot project on tele-education and tele-medicine in Ethiopia has already been commissioned. Indira Gandhi National Open University has taken up the MBA Course for 34 Ethiopian students of Addis Ababa and Harmaya Universities. As regards, tele-medicine, the specialists from CARE Hospital, Hyderabad are providing one-hour live tele-consultation to doctors in Black Lion Hospital, Addis Ababa in Cardiology and Radiology since November 2006. Using the Pan African network the Heads of the State in all the 53 countries will be connected for instant communication. I am extremely happy that Indian experience in bringing the benefits of technology

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to the people has enabled us to work with Africa to bring societal transformation in the African continent.

I visited KUMAR in Siachen Glacier located at 17,000 feet altitude held by the Indian Army, had a memorable underwater journey in INS Sindhurakshak and flew in a Sukhoi-30 fighter experiencing 2.5 g. In these three experiences, I personally felt proud of our ever vigilant Soldiers, Sailors and Air Warriors performing their tasks beyond the call of their duty even in the most adverse circumstances natural and man made. During the last five years, I had an opportunity to present colours to many regiments, participate in number of passing out parades, meet the troops who were going to undertake peace missions and interact with the family members of our Defence Forces.

Our Defence Forces are in a beautiful mission. When the nation sleeps during night, Members of our Defence teams are awake to guard us and remain vigilant to counter any threat. The Nation cherishes the valour, commitment and devotion to duty of our Defence Forces. Similarly, I had opportunities to interact with members of our para-military forces, central and state police personnel including internal security forces who are making immense contribution in augmenting the safety and security of our citizens under difficult conditions.

Recently, in Hyderabad, I met a group of citizens who are putting into practice the motto of transforming of our youth into enlightened citizen. The Lead India 2020 Foundation created by Dr. N.B. Sudershan at Hyderabad is training

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thousands of students in many districts of Andhra Pradesh in partnership with the District Administration. Particularly, I happened to know the transformation which has taken place among the students of Medak district. As per the district authorities the impact of the training on the students is visible in terms of self-discipline, love for their parents and teachers shedding of stage fear and recognition of their duties towards the nation. I talked to Ms. Padma, a student leader from Andhra Pradesh Tribal Welfare School, Nalgonda who related how she weaned her father away from smoking after imbibing the spirit of the 10 point oath from the Lead India Training Camp. This gives me an assurance that the youth of our country are on the right path through this mission oriented programme. With the ignited minds of the 540 million youth below the age of 25, which I consider is the most powerful resource on the earth, under the earth and above the earth, we have to empower the youth through value based education and leadership.

I was touched by the variety of Indian panorama, emotional content of the tune, cultural diversity and unity of minds in the vast land of ours. I have cited these examples just to give a glimpse of the richness of our tradition and effort being taken by different agencies to preserve it. There are also many new adventures by institutions and individuals. I have experienced many of them and learnt a lot about my country and our people. Even while pursuing our economic growth, we need to do a lot to preserve the rich and diverse treasures of our culture and civilization. It is our duty for our future

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generations. This has to be done in a much larger scale through countrywide participation of multiple institutions.

Our country is blessed with natural resources, has shown considerable progress in the last sixty years, and above all we have hard working people particularly the power of the 540 million youth of the country. Every sector of our country has given me the confidence that India can become a developed nation well before 2020. Whomsoever, I met they constantly ask what they can give to the nation. We should constantly strive to empower such members of the society. With this spirit, I am extremely happy that we are on the right path. Here I am reminded of a famous poem: "When you wish upon a star, Makes no difference who you are, Anything your heart desires, Will come to you?

This poem is true to all of us, and particularly for our youth and if they aim great, I am sure they will reach close to the target or the target.

My dear citizens, let us resolve to continue to work for realizing the missions of developed India 2020 with the following distinctive profile.

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1. A Nation where the rural and urban divide has reduced to a thin line.

2. A Nation where there is an equitable distribution and adequate access to energy and quality water.

3. A Nation where agriculture, industry and service sector work together in symphony.

4. A Nation where education with value system is not denied to any meritorious candidates because of societal or economic discrimination.

5. A Nation which is the best destination for the most talented scholars, scientists, and investors.

6. A Nation where the best of health care is available to all.

7. A Nation where the governance is responsive, transparent and corruption free.

8. A Nation where poverty has been totally eradicated, illiteracy removed and crimes against women and children are absent and none in the society feels alienated.

9. A Nation that is prosperous, healthy, secure, peaceful and happy and continues with a sustainable growth path.

10. A Nation that is one of the best places to live in and is proud of its leadership.

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Finally let me thank each one of you for showering your love and affection on me throughout the last five years by your cooperation and support.

Dear Citizens, I conclude my address by sharing with you my mission in life which is to bring connectivity between billion hearts and minds of the people of India in our multicultural society and to embed the self confidence that "we can do it". I will be always with you, dear citizens, in the great mission of making India a developed nation before 2020.

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(Source: abdulkalam.nic.in)

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