Date: Mon, 29 Jul 2002 23:44:36 -0400
From: assam [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Finally, a leader India can count on
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Dr. APJ Abdul Kalaam's speech in Hyderabad.
Compulsory Reading for every Indian.
Quote:
I have three visions for India. In 3000 years of our history people
from all over the world have come and
invaded
us, captured our lands, conquered our minds. From Alexander 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 other nation. We have not conquered
anyone.
We have not grabbed their land, their culture, their history and
tried
to enforce our way of life on them.
Why? Because we respect the freedom of others.
That is why my first vision is that of FREEDOM. I believe that India
got its first vision of this in 1857, when
we started the war of independence. It is this freedom that we must
protect and nurture and build on. If we
are not free, no one will respect us.
My second vision for India is DEVELOPMENT. For fifty years we have
been a developing nation. It is
time we see ourselves as a developed nation. We are among top 5
nations of the world in terms of GDP.
We have 10
percent growth rate in most areas. Our poverty levels are
falling. Our
achievements are being globally
recognized today. Yet we lack 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 India stands up to
the
world, no one will respect us. Only strength respects strength. We
must be strong not only as a military
power but also as an economic power. Both hand-in-hand. My good
fortune was to have worked with
three great minds. Dr. Vikram Sarabhai of the Dept. of space,
Professor Satish Dhawan, who succeeded
him and Dr. Brahm Prakash, father of nuclear material. I was
lucky to
have worked with all three of them
closely and consider this the great opportunity of my life. I see
four
milestones in my career:
ONE: Twenty years I spent in ISRO. I was given the opportunity to be
the project director for India's first
satellite launch vehicle, SLV3. The one that launched Rohini. These
years played a very important role in
my life of Scientist.
TWO: After my ISRO years, I joined DRDO and got a chance to be the
part of India's missile program.
It was my second bliss when Agni met its mission requirements in
1994.
THREE: The Dept. of Atomic Energy and DRDO had this tremendous
partnership in the recent nuclear
tests, on May 11 and 13. This was the third bliss. The joy of
participating with my team in these nuclear
tests and proving to the world that India can make it, that we
are no
longer a developing nation but one of
them. It made me feel very proud as an Indian. The fact that we have
now developed for Agni a re-entry
structure, for which we have developed this new material. A Very
light
material called carbon-carbon.
FOUR: One day an orthopaedic surgeon from Nizam Institute of Medical
Sciences visited my laboratory.
He lifted the material and found it so light that he took me to his
hospital and showed me his patients. There
were these little girls and boys with heavy metallic callipers
weighing over three Kg. each, dragging their feet
around. He said to me: Please remove the pain of my patients. In
three
weeks, we made these Floor
reaction Orthosis 300 gram callipers and took them to the
orthopaedic
centre. The children didn't believe
their eyes. From dragging around a three kg. load on their legs,
they could now move around! Their
parents had tears in their eyes. That was my fourth bliss!
Why is the media here so negative? Why are we in India so
embarrassed
to recognize our own strengths,
our achievements? We are such a great nation. 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 a
self-sustaining, self-driving unit. There are
millions of such achievements but our media is only obsessed in the
bad news and failures and disasters.
I
