Internals are here and holidays are soon to come!!! Lets all make this good!!!!!
DR. APJ Abdul Kalaam's speech in Hyderabad.
Monday, August 28, 2006
In 3000 years of our history, people from all over the world have comeand invaded us, captured our lands, conquered our minds. FromAlexander onwards. The Greeks, the Turks, the Moguls, the Portuguese,the British,the French, the Dutch, all of them came and looted us,took over what was ours. Yet we have not done this to any othernation. We have not conquered anyone. We have not grabbed their land, theirculture, their history and tried to enforce our way of life on them.Why? Because we respect the freedom of others. That is why my firstvision is that of FREEDOM. I believe that India got its first visionof this in 1857, when we started the war of independence. It is thisfreedom that we must protect and nurture and build on. If we are notfree, no one will respect us. My second vision for India is DEVELOPMENT. For fifty years we havebeen a developing nation. It is time we see ourselves as a developednation. We are among top 5 nations of the world in terms of GDP Wehave 10 percent growth rate in most areas. Our poverty levels arefalling. Our achievements are being globally recognized today. Yet welack the self-confidence to see ourselves as a developed nation, self-reliant and self-assured. Isn't this incorrect? I have a THIRD vision. India must stand up to the world. Because I believe that, unless Indiastands up to the world, no one will respect us. Only strength respectsstrength. We must be strong not only as a military power but also asan economic power. Both must go hand-in-hand. My good fortune was tohave worked with three great minds. Dr. Vikram Sarabhai of the Dept.of space,Professor Satish Dhawan, who succeeded him and Dr.BrahmPrakash, father of nuclear material. I was lucky to have worked withall three of them closely and consider this the great opportunity ofmy life. I see four milestones in my career: Twenty years I spent in ISRO. I was given the opportunity to be theproject director for India's first satellite launch vehicle, SLV3. Theone that launched Rohini. These years played a very important role in my lifeof Scientist. After my ISRO years, I joined DRDO and got a chance tobe the part of India's guided missile program. It was my second blisswhen Agni met its mission requirements in 1994. The Dept. of Atomic Energy and DRDO had this tremendous partnership inthe recent nuclear tests, on May 11 and 13. This was the third bliss.The joy of participating with my team in these nuclear tests andproving to the world that India can make it, that we are no longer adeveloping nation but one of them. It made me feel very proud as anIndian. The fact that we have now developed for Agni a re-entrystructure, for which we have developed this new material. A Very lightmaterial called carbon-carbon.One day an orthopedic surgeon from NizamInstitute of Medical Sciences visited my laboratory. He lifted thematerial and found it so light that he took me to his hospital andshowed me his patients. There were these little girls and boys withheavy metallic calipers weighing over three Kg. each,dragging theirfeet around. He said to me: Please remove the pain of my patients. Inthree weeks, we made these Floor reaction Orthosis 300-gram calipersand took them to the orthopedic center. The children didn't believetheir eyes. From dragging around a three kg. load on their legs, theycould now move around! Their parents had tears in their eyes. That wasmy fourth bliss! Why is the media here so negative? Why are we inIndia so embarrassed to recognize our own strengths, our achievements? We are such a greatnation. We have so many amazing success stories but we refuse to acknowledge them.Why?We are the first in milk production.We are number one in Remote sensing satellites.We are the second largest producer of wheat.We are the second largest producer of rice.Look at Dr. Sudarshan, he has transferred the tribal village into aself-sustaining, self driving unit. There are millions of suchachievements but our media is only obsessed in the bad news andfailures and disastersI was in Tel Aviv once and I was reading the Israeli newspaper. It wasthe day after a lot of attacks and bombardments and deaths had takenplace. The Hamas had struck. But the front page of the newspaper hadthe picture of a Jewish gentleman who in five years had transformedhis desert land into an orchid and a granary. It was this inspiringpicture that everyone woke up to. The gory details of killings,bombardments, deaths, were inside in the newspaper, buried among othernews. In India we only read about death, sickness, terrorism, crime.Why are we so NEGATIVE? Another question : Why are we, as a nation so obsessed with foreignthings? We want foreign TVs, we want foreign shirts. We want foreigntechnology.Why this obsession with everything imported. Do we notrealize that self-respect comes with self-reliance? I was in Hyderabadgiving this lecture, when a 14 year old girl asked me for myautograph. I asked her what her goal in life is. She replied: I wantto live in a developed India. For her, you and I will have to buildthis developed India. You must proclaim. India is not anunder-developed nation; it is a highly developed nation. Do you have 10 minutes? Allow me to come back with a vengeance. Got 10minutes for your country? If yes, then read; otherwise, choice is yours. YOU say that our government is inefficient.YOU say that ourlaws are too old.YOU say that the municipality does not pick up thegarbage.YOU say that the phones don' t work, the railways are a joke,the airline is the worst in the world, mails never reach theirdestination. YOU say that our country has been fed to the dogs and is the absolutepits.YOU say, say and say. What do YOU do about it? Take a person on his way to Singapore..... Give him a name - YOURS.Give him a face - YOURS. YOU walk out of the airport and you are atyour International best. In Singapore you don't throw cigarette buttson the roads or eat in the stores. YOU are as proud of theirUnderground links as they are. You pay $5 (approx. Rs.60) to drivethrough Orchard Road (equivalent of Mahim Causeway or Pedder Road)between 5 PM and 8 PM. YOU comeback to the parking lot to punch your parkingticket if you have over stayed in a restaurant or a shopping mallirrespective of your status identity. In Singapore you don't sayanything, DO YOU? YOU wouldn't dare to eat in public during Ramadan,in Dubai. YOU would not dare to go out without your head covered inJeddah. YOU would not dare to buy an employee of the telephoneexchange in London at 10 pounds ( Rs.650) a month to, "see to it thatmy STD and ISD calls are billed to someone else." YOU would not dareto speed beyond 55 mph (88 km/h) in Washington and then tell thetraffic cop, "Jaanta hai main kaun hoon (Do you know who I am?). I amso and so's son. Take your two bucks and get lost." YOU wouldn't chuckan empty coconut shell anywhere other than the garbage pail on thebeaches in Australia and New Zealand. Why don't YOU spit Paan on thestreets of Tokyo?Why don't YOU use examination jockeys or buy fakecertificates in Boston???We are still talking of the same YOU. YOU who can respect and conform to a foreign system in other countriesbut cannot in your own.You who will throw papers and cigarettes on theroad the moment you touch Indian ground. If you can be an involved andappreciative citizen in an alien country, why cannot you be the samehere in India? Once in an interview, the famous Ex-municipal commis sioner ofBombay,Mr.Tinaikar, had a point to make. "Rich people's dogs arewalked on the streets to leave their affluent droppings all over theplace," he said. "And then the same people turn around to criticizeand blame the authorities for inefficiency and dirty pavements. What do they expect the officers to do? Go down with a broom every time their dog feelsthe pressure in his bowels? In America every dog owner has to clean upafter his pet has done the job.Same in Japan. Will the Indian citizendo that here?" He's right. We go to the polls to choose a government and after thatforfeit all responsibility. We sit back wanting to be pampered andexpect the government to do everything for us whilst our contributionis totally negative. We expect the government to clean up but we arenot going to stop chucking garbage all over the place nor are we goingto stop to pick a up a stray piece of paper and throw it in the bin.We expect the railways to provide clean bathrooms but we are not goingto learn the proper use of bathrooms. We want Indian Airlines and AirIndia to provide the best of food and toiletries but we are not goingto stop pilfering at the least opportunity.This applies even to thestaff who is known not to pass on the service to the public. When itcomes to burning social issues like those related to women, dowry,girl child and others, we make loud drawing room protestations andcontinue to do the reverse at home. Our excuse? "It's the whole systemwhich has to change, how will it matter if I alone forego my sons'rights to a dowry." So who's going to change the system? What does asystem consist of? Very conveniently for us it consists of ourneighbors, other households, other cities, other communities and thegovernment. But definitely not me and YOU. When it comes to usactually making a positive contribution to the system we lockourselves along with our families into a safe cocoon and look into thedistance at countries far away and wait for a Mr. Clean to come along& work miracles for us with a majestic sweep of his hand or we leavethe country and run away. Like lazy cowards hounded by our fears we run to America to bask intheir glory and praise their system. When New York becomes insecure werun to England. When England experiences unemployment, we take thenext flight out to the Gulf. When the Gulf is war struck, we demand tobe rescued and brought home by the Indian government. Everybody is outto abuse and rape the country. Nobody thinks of feeding the system.Our conscience is mortgaged to money. Dear Indians, The article is highly thought inductive, calls for agreat deal of introspection and pricks one's conscience too....I amechoing J.F.Kennedy's words to his fellow Americans to relate to Indians....."ASK WHAT WE CAN DO FOR INDIA AND DO WHAT HAS TO BE DONE TO MAKE INDIAWHAT AMERICA AND OTHER WESTERN COUNTRIES ARE TODAY" Lets do what India needs from us. Thank you,Dr. Abdul Kalaam( PRESIDENT OF INDIA )
-contributed by- Gayathri Nayak Ist B.A. Journalism
Very true gayatri..itz time for all of us to contribute to our nation.we expect to get feeded evrytime..we blame our sytems..but we dont try to improve it..all of our time we spend on findin faults n loopholes..
All of all we have FREEDOM..we will STAND UP n DEVELOP but still we will be selfish..
We are happy to run pvt colleges n make money but we are not ready to contribute towards improving the stiuation of of our govt run institutions. I want to know how much all d big names of indian "B" industry have spent on GOVT institutions. they need more IIMs and IITs..dey r worried about reservations but is anybudy worried abt those ppl in villages n slums have nothing to eat " what abt schooling?" den..
Our media nowadays spending moretime on Crimes, Glamour,Fashion n love stories. and slowly regionalism is injected in to our blood.
anyways got manythings to write.but i think im wastin my time too..all our net savvy indians will be busy forwardin mails n e cards
Name: Scribblers Home: Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India About Me: We are a set of energetic, budding journalists. Make way as we conquer the world. See my complete profile
Very true gayatri..itz time for all of us to contribute to our nation.we expect to get feeded evrytime..we blame our sytems..but we dont try to improve it..all of our time we spend on findin faults n loopholes..
All of all we have FREEDOM..we will STAND UP n DEVELOP but still we will be selfish..
We are happy to run pvt colleges n make money but we are not ready to contribute towards improving the stiuation of of our govt run institutions. I want to know how much all d big names of indian "B" industry have spent on GOVT institutions. they need more IIMs and IITs..dey r worried about reservations but is anybudy worried abt those ppl in villages n slums have nothing to eat " what abt schooling?" den..
Our media nowadays spending moretime on Crimes, Glamour,Fashion n love stories.
and slowly regionalism is injected in to our blood.
anyways got manythings to write.but i think im wastin my time too..all our net savvy indians will be busy forwardin mails n e cards
thx gayatri..
keep it up