I have three precious things which I hold fast and prize. The first is gentleness; the second is frugality; the third is humility, which keeps me from putting myself before others. Be gentle and you can be bold; be frugal and you can be liberal; avoid putting yourself before others and you can become a leader among men.
- Lao Tzu
Dr APJ Abdul Kalam is one of those rare presidents that have the honor and respect from every citizen of India. A respect well earned over his years of dedicated service to the country. He is the only president too have been honoured with the three highest civilian honors before he took to the post of the president. This includes The Padma Bhushan, The Padma Vibhushan and the Bharat Ratna.
As he bids farewell to the Presidentship, here's some points that make him stand out from the rest:
- He cut down a lot of beaurocracy.
- He believed in Simple and austere living
- He opened up the Janpath to common man and the childrens
- He put the country before himself
- He is a apolitical person to hold this post since the 70's
- He was a apolitical leader, who had earned the respect thr' his years in ISRO
- A great technocrat, who was very open with his views
- He put simple and practical plans
- He represents the common middle class man who has achieved success thr' hard work and not thr' political affluation.
You wouldn't find a single soul who would ever criticize this man.
Here are some interesting speeches (and excerpts) from him over the last few years.
Here's his vision for 2020
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, devoid of terrorism, 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 through creative and effective leadership in Parliament, State Assemblies and other institutions of the State.
Another interesting speech he gave in Hyderabad that applies to each one of us.
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 was in Tel Aviv once and I was reading the Israeli newspaper. It was the day after a lot of attacks and bombardments and deaths had taken place. The Hamas had struck.
But the front page of the newspaper had the picture of a Jewish gentleman who in five years had transformed his desert into an orchid and a granary.
It was this inspiring picture that everyone woke up to. The gory details of killings, bombardments, deaths, were inside in the newspaper, buried among other news.
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 foreign things? We want foreign T. Vs, we want foreign shirts. We want foreign technology.
Why this obsession with everything imported. Do we not realize that self-respect comes with self-reliance?
I was in Hyderabad giving this lecture, when a 14 year old girl asked me for my autograph. I asked her what her goal in life is. She replied: I want to live in a developed India .
For her, you and I will have to build this developed India . You must proclaim. India is not an under-developed
nation; it is a highly developed nation.
Do you have 10 minutes? Allow me to come back with a vengeance.
Got 10 minutes for your country? If yes, then read; otherwise, choice is yours.
YOU say that our government is inefficient.
YOU say that our laws are too old.
YOU say that the municipality does not pick up the garbage.
YOU say that the phones don't work, the railways are a joke, The airline is the worst in the world, mails never reach their destination.
YOU say that our country has been fed to the dogs and is the absolute pits.
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 at your International best.
In Singapore you don't throw cigarette butts on the roads or eat in the stores.
YOU are as proud of their Underground links as they are.
You pay $5 (approx. Rs. 135.00) to drive through Orchard Road (equivalent of Mahim Causeway or Pedder Road ) between 5 PM and 8 PM.
YOU come back to the parking lot to punch your parking ticket if you have over stayed in a restaurant or a shopping mall irrespective of your status identity...
In Singapore you don't say anything, 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 in Jeddah.
YOU would not dare to buy an employee of the telephone exchange in London at 10pounds ( Rs.650) a month to, 'see to it that my STD and ISD calls are billed to someone else.'
YOU would not dare to speed beyond 55 mph (88 km/h) in Washington and then tell the traffic cop, 'Jaanta hai main kaun hoon (Do you know who I am?).
I am so and so's son. Take your two bucks and get lost.'
YOU wouldn't chuck an empty coconut shell anywhere other than the garbage pail on the beaches in Australia and New Zealand .?
Why don't YOU spit Paan on the streets of Tokyo ?
Why don't YOU use examination jockeys or buy fake certificates in Boston ???
We are still talking of the same YOU.
YOU who can respect and conform to a foreign system in other countries but cannot in your own.
You who will throw papers and cigarettes on the road the moment you touch Indian ground.
If you can be an involved and appreciative citizen in an alien country, why cannot you be the same here in India ?
Once in an interview, the famous Ex-municipal commissioner of Bombay , Mr.Tinaikar, had a point to make. 'Rich people's dogs are walked on the streets to leave their affluent droppings all over the place,' he said. 'And then the same people turn around to criticize and 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 Feels the pressure in his bowels?
In America every dog owner has to clean up after his pet has done the job. Same in Japan . Will the Indian citizen do that here?' He'sb right.
We go to the polls to choose a government and after that forfeit all responsibility.
We sit back wanting to be pampered and expect the government to do everything for us whilst our contribution is totally negative.
We expect the government to clean up but we are not going to stop chucking garbage all over the place nor are we going to 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 going to learn the proper use of bathrooms. We want Indian Airlines and Air India to provide the best of food and toiletries but we are not going to stop pilfering at the least opportunity. This applies even to the staff who is known not to pass on the service to the public. When it comes to burning social issues like those related to women, dowry, girl child! and others, we make loud drawing room protestations and continue to do the reverse at home.
Our excuse?
'It's the whole system which 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 a system consist of ? Very conveniently for us it consists of our neighbours, other households, other cities, other communities and the government. But definitely not me and YOU.
When it comes to us actually making a positive contribution to the system we lock ourselves along with our families into a safe cocoon and look into the distance 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 leave the country and run away. Like lazy cowards hounded by our fears we run to America to bask in their glory and praise their system.
When New York becomes insecure we run to England .
When England experiences unemployment, we take the next flight out to the Gulf.
When the Gulf is war struck, we demand to be rescued and brought home by the Indian government.
Everybody is out to 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 a great deal of introspection and pricks one's conscience too.... I am echoing 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 INDIA WHAT AMERICA AND OTHER WESTERN
COUNTRIES ARE TODAY'
Here's another great speech that he gave on the Republic Day
Dear Citizens,
On the eve of the 56th Republic Day of India, my greetings to all of you, including those living abroad. I convey my special greetings, to the members of our armed forces and the paramilitary forces, who guard our frontiers on the land, the sea and the air and also the internal security forces. While we are saddened by the wrath of the Tsunami waves, we are not disheartened. The Central and State Governments, with utmost seriousness and sincerity have reached out to those who needed help and are in the process of providing relief that will at least partially wipe out the pains caused by the Tsunami. During this period of active relief operations, my heart was with you, but I did not make a visit because the members of the Govt. and Non-Government organisations were deployed in large numbers in the relief operations, which were in full swing. Reviews were taken by our Prime Minister, Governors, the Chief Ministers of the respective states and Lt. Governor of Andaman & Nicobar Islands. Now, I feel that the time has come, for me to join you, my fellow citizens, to study the process of the reconstruction of homes, and bringing back normalcy.
Smile of youth
I met, more than six hundred thousand children from all parts of our country, after becoming the President. During my interaction with them, they posed a series of questions, with affection. They asked:
?Mr. President, you saw us smile, when we were five years old. We smiled because we were blossoming innocently. When we came to our teens, smiles slowly faded away and the signs of concern appeared. You said that it is because of our anxiety about our future. This anxiety, almost took away our smiles. When we complete our education, the top most questions in our mind were, what would I do after my education? Will I get an employment? Our parents, who have spent all their savings on our education, also share the same concern. Mr. President, will I get a proper employment and be able to contribute to India, to make it a Developed Nation?? Their questions really made me to think and think.
The concerns about employment are not only for those who are fortunate enough to have school and college education. It is the same fading away of the smiles, the shattering of the dreams and the weaning away of the gleam in the eyes that we see in every cross section of the youth in the country. The only answer to retain the smile from the child to the youth is to generate employment. It represents the aspirations and anxiety of nearly 540 million youth of our nation. Hence I have selected the topic for the Republic Day address as ?Action plan for employment generation.?
Societal transformation
In my earlier address to the Nation on the eve of the 58th Independence Day, I talked to you on “Education for Dignity of Human life”. The whole purpose of education in a country like India is to develop and enhance the potential of our human resource and progressively transform it into a knowledge society. The knowledge society will be a society producing products and services that are rich in both explicit and tacit knowledge, thus creating value added products. The real capital of this knowledge society will be its knowledge workers. The society will be highly networked to create knowledge intensive environment along with enabling process to efficiently create, share, use and protect knowledge. Our education system should re-align itself at the earliest to meet the needs of the present day challenges and be fully geared to participate in the societal transformation.
Changing Pattern of Society
When the world was moving from the industrial to information and knowledge era, we witnessed a changing pattern in the sectoral share of GDP and the number of people employed in each sector. The share of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) percentage has undergone a considerable change. Contribution of agriculture to India’s GDP has reduced from 39% to 22% during the period 1979 to 2004. During the same period contribution of manufacturing sector has moved from 24% to 27% and whereas the contribution from the services sector has increased from 37% to 51%. There has been considerable change in the employment pattern also. The percentage of people employed in agriculture has come down from 64% to 54%. Simultaneously, the percentage of people employed in manufacturing has gone up from 15% to 19% and in the service sector from 20% to 27%. This trend has to continue and by 2020 our employment pattern should aim at 44% in agriculture, 21% in manufacturing and 35% in service sectors. The displacement of 10% people from agriculture sector has to be facilitated through skill enabling for undertaking value added tasks in the rural enterprises so that migration to urban area is reduced. Instead of the person from the rural areas going to urban towns in search of jobs in manufacturing and services sectors, PURA (Providing Urban Amenities in Rural Areas) facilitates creation of employment in the rural areas itself. PURA achieves this by providing physical, electronic and knowledge connectivities to a cluster of villages thereby leading to their economic connectivity and prosperity.
National Employment status
National Rural Employment Guarantee Bill 2004 was tabled in the Parliament in its last session to create employment opportunities in the rural sector. What is needed is a coordinated planning and linking the spirit of this Bill to productive and sustainable employment generation scheme to the unemployed youth. Now I would like to discuss the national employment scenario. As per the estimate of the Planning Commission, the total number of people eligible for employment at present is approximately 400 million. Out of this, nine percent are unemployed which works out to around 36 million. In addition, there is a need to find value added employment for 10% of those employed in the agriculture sector in the rural areas. Our attempt hence should be to find gainful employment for around 76 million people. This will add to our productivity and will ensure a sustained 10% GDP growth for the decade, which is an essential need for India to become a developed country before 2020. Dear Citizens, a nation of billion people that is capable of exporting food grain, a nation that is recognized for its software products and services, a nation that can build its own aerospace systems and nuclear power plants, a nation that is leading in Pharma and automobile industry, I am sure, will be able to put all its think tanks together and come up with many innovative wealth generating schemes for the productive employment of 76 million people.
Employment generators
Let me share with you how to generate employment. The most important sectors for sustainable national development are Agriculture, Education, Healthcare, Water and Energy. The common thread that will run across these would be the three connectivities of PURA. One of the ways by which the rural agriculturists could increase their earnings is by value adding to the agricultural produce by processing and manufacturing. The farmers, either individually or through their co-operatives would market processed and value added items instead of marketing the raw materials. This increase in the value-addition taking place in the rural area itself is an indicator of the society moving towards prosperity and knowledge era. I would like to suggest a few schemes that can bring large-scale employment and prosperity to our people.
Bio-fuel generation
We have nearly 63 million hectares of wasteland available in the country, out of which 33 million hectares of wasteland have been allotted for tree plantation. Certain multi-purpose bio-fuel plants can grow well in wasteland with very minimum input. Once cultivated, the crop has fifty years of life. Fruiting can take place in these plants in two years. Bio-fuel plants grown in parts of the waste land, for example, 11 million hectares, can yield a revenue of approximately Rs. 20,000 crore a year and provide employment to over 12 million people both for plantation and running of the extraction plants. It will reduce the foreign exchange outflow paid for importing crude oil, the cost of which is continuously rising in the international market. The Bio-fuel is Carbon mono-oxide emission free. The oil can also be used for soap and in candle industries. De-oiled cake is a raw material for composting and the plantation is also good for honey production. We should absorb best of the technologies available worldwide and start commercial operation immediately. One time investment needed for bio-fuel plantation to production in 11 million hectares will be approximately Rs. 27000 Crores. The capital equipment and investment in plant and machinery can come from bank loans and private sector entrepreneurs. I have seen the progress in bio-fuel plant cultivation, preparation of seedlings, tissue culture and development of non-toxic hybrid varieties in Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore. They have also worked from processing of seeds to bio-fuel production by the indigenous design and development of bio-fuel plants. Anand Agriculture University at, Anand (Gujarat) has also made progress in the bio-fuel cultivation and processing in Gujarat. Bio-fuel plants can be grown in a number of states in the southern, western and central part of the country.
Waste Land Development – opportunities
ICRISAT with its international experience of working in arid regions, have developed short duration, disease and drought resistant varieties of important crops beneficial to our farmers. They have introduced various tillage practices and nutrition management techniques, to boost crop yields even under drought stress. This technology will enable us to reclaim 5 more million hectares of the 33 million hectare of wasteland allotted for productive farming. As per the experts, this will result in the deployment of 15 million people for the dry land cultivation.
Water Harvesting and Recycling
Water harvesting should become mandatory for all. To improve water table, we need to build check dams, develop water sheds, desilt ponds and rivers, clear the inlets and outlets to the ponds and water bodies and recharge the wells. If our rural areas are made to have the operational water bodies, recharging of the wells will take place. The task is totally labour intensive and nation wide implementation of this scheme will provide employment for six million persons for more than three or four years. The scheme will result in increase in storage capacity of water bodies and create additional irrigation potential of the land in the region and enhance agricultural productivity.
Bamboo Mission
This mission envisages an integrated programme of expansion of plantations of Bamboo species, the scientific management, and promotion of community level value addition and entrepreneurship. This will enable presenting the raw material for the industries and the industry to access and apply modern technology for producing globally competitive new generation bamboo products. This includes setting up of clusters of small value addition processing units, near the resource for employment generation and benefit to the local small entrepreneur. Processed raw material suitable for ultimate use in industry / handicraft sector will be required, for economizing handling cost of raw material to the location of industry proposed to be set up in different parts of the country. The programme envisages the cultivation of bamboo over two million hectares and promotion of technology and networking for enhancing the trade. The economic and social benefit from these activities, will lead to the creation of 8.6 million jobs and the market opportunities worth over Rs. 6,500 crore with an investment of Rs. 2600 crore. This will be useful for the additional development of the north-eastern region. We should use the management personnel, industrial experts and business houses to provide international market connectivity for our bamboo products leading to sustainable growth, wealth generation and positive contribution to the growth of GDP. The institutions like National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, Indian Institutes of Management, Industrial houses, State government and Ministry of Agriculture can work together to generate number of Bamboo enterprises in different rural clusters.
Converting the fly ash as Wealth Generator
As you are aware, the use of coal for power generation results in increased quantum of fly ash production, which has reached about 100 million tonnes per year. All out efforts are needed to utilize this fly ash not only from environmental considerations, but also to avoid land usage for fly ash dumping. Though there has been a steady progress in fly ash utilization from 1990, we have a long way to go to reach the target of 100% fly ash utilization. It is reported that the agricultural increase of grains is around 15%, green vegetables 35% and root vegetables 50%, when fly ash is mixed with the soil. Toxicity tests have proved that there is no toxic element due to fly ash. But it has higher nutrients due to increased availability of iron and calcium. The fly ash can become a wealth generator by making use of it for producing “green building” materials, road, agriculture etc. For full utilization of the generating stock, will provide employment potential for three hundred thousand people and result in a business volume of over Rs. 4000 crore.
Textile industry
Textile industry is very important for the Indian economy. The basic raw material is cotton. India is the third largest producer of cotton in the world. However, compared to the world average of 700 kgs of seed cotton per acre we produce only 350 kgs of seed cotton per acre. It is indeed a technological concern for the nation. Some of the industries have adopted a village in Punjab, which has brought out a cooperative movement of the farmers, scientists, trainers and the industry and launched for cultivating cotton in over 1200 acres. A training programme was launched for farmers starting with soil characterization, matching the cottonseed to soil, water and fertilizer management. The project resulted in increasing the average seed cotton yield of the village from 450 KG per acre to 950 KG per acre. This led to the seven-fold increase in net return per acre, due to considerable reduction in input costs. It is worth noting that in this case the yield is above the world average. This model has already been replicated in ten villages and can be emulated by many cotton-growing regions of the country. India can definitely produce 25% of the total world production of quality cotton compared to the existing 12% leading to revenue of over Rs. 25000 crores a year for the nation. I would like to link cotton production to garment export business, which is a low investment and large volume employment generator. India is presently, exporting six billion dollars worth of garments, whereas with the WTO regime in place, we can increase the production and export of garments to 18 to 20 billion dollars within the next five years. This will enable, generation of employment in general and in rural areas in particular. By tripling the export of apparels, we can add more than 5 million direct jobs and 7 million indirect jobs in allied sector, primarily in the cultivation of cotton. Concerted effort is needed in Cotton research, technology generation, transfer of technology, modernization and upgrading of ginning and pressing factories and aggressive marketing strategy.
Healthcare
Another area, which is an employment generator, is the health care industry. We have only one doctor for one thousand eight hundred people, whereas in some of the developed countries the doctor to population ratio is 1: 600. For providing quality health care to all of our citizens, we would need at least doubling the strength of doctors and paramedical staff in the whole country. The investment for this, need not necessarily come from government alone. Hospitals can be setup by the private sector with certain tax concessions and subsidized infrastructural support. Setting up of 30,000 static tele-medicine stations distributed in 30,000 key locations, within the zone of 3 lakh villages and providing 20,000 mobile tele-medicine units will enable reaching of quality healthcare closer to every home, which are connected to the district, state government hospitals, corporate hospitals, super specialty hospitals in the country. This is possible as India has a network of satellite communication. How to reach healthcare for the large number of our population? An innovative method has come into action in certain states. This system provides free health cover to the citizens who are members and pay Rs. 10 per individual per month as an insurance premium. State and Central Government can sponsor this insurance scheme involving payment of a small premium of Rs. 10 per individual per month by the citizens in different states of the country. Such an insurance cover should be able to provide for all types of diseases including expensive open heart surgery. A consortium is required to be formed, in different states between the Government, insurance agencies, corporate hospitals and NGO’s for providing integrated cost effective health care. The scheme when fully operational, can provide direct employment for additional 600,000 doctors and 1.2 million paramedical staff. Apart from providing healthcare to citizens, these corporate hospitals can attract large number of medical tourists to the country in view of our competitiveness in treating complex diseases. I am very happy to know that the scientific community for health is working on anti HIV vaccine development, which is in an advanced stage of development. The success of this programme will be a breakthrough in containing the HIV virus.
Village Knowledge Centres
With the kind of awareness and opportunities available in ICT, it will soon become a reality wherein every one of our villages will have computers and connectivity available. These would be the window to the world of knowledge for our villages and also to reap the benefits of our e-governance, tele-education, tele-medicine, e-commerce and e-judiciary initiatives. In spite of the all pervasive nature of the computers they would still be far away from being a truly friendly access device for our villagers. We would need in such cases, a human intermediary who would act as the village information officer. He will be the extended eyes and ears of the villager to the world of knowledge. India has approximately 2.3 lakh Village Panchayats. I visualize establishment of village knowledge centers in these Panchayats to empower the villagers with the knowledge and to act as a nodal center for knowledge connectivity for the villagers. The knowledge center from which the villagers would access the information through the village information officer can also be used for collection, digital storage and dissemination of village specific information pertaining to any relevant information to the villagers. This will provide direct quality employment to over one million who will be instrumental in promoting higher level of wealth generation in our rural sector. The schemes discussed so far, have the potential to generate approximately a total of 56 million direct employments during the next 5 years. This does not include other employment avenues in the government and the private sectors. Together creating 76 million jobs in the next five years looks feasible if only we take up each of the above schemes in mission mode.
Integrated Action for people
Dear Citizens, I would like to give ten suggestions on the eve of this Republic Day, the role of different constituents of our society in implementing the various programmes leading to creation of employment opportunities and wealth generation:
1. Education system should proactively build entrepreneurial and vocational capacities in students. When they come out of educational institution, they should have the confidence to start small enterprises and also possess the skill to do it. Above all the education system has to impart the spirit that “we can do it”.
2. Rural development has to be a mission mode operation through PURA programme, which will enable provision of maximum benefit to the villagers in a cost effective way.
3. Banks have to provide, hassle free loans to rural enterprises and those who have creative ideas. The banks have to assist them with venture capital. The existing agriculture and agro processing credits have to be increased so that the agriculture communities are empowered for enhancing the productivity of the agricultural produce, food processing and marketing.
4. The Tsunami has caused severe damage to our coastal regions and islands. Our fishermen and others living in those areas have lost their dwellings and livelihood. While planning the reconstruction of homes it is important to take the task as an integrated PURA complex for promoting the prosperity of the coastal region. This can include infrastructure for fish storage and chilling plants, sea food processing and marketing centres; boat and fishing net maintenance centres, schools, hospitals, water sources and other small scale industrial units.
5. In our country we have experiences in certain government departments in the field of defence, space, nuclear, agriculture and Metro railway in executing mission mode projects. That has resulted in the empowerment of the programme and removal of normal administrative delays through empowered management structure. Major programmes of the country, should use this mission mode management for employment generation schemes.
6. Since the broadband fiber connectivity has reached beyond block level of districts and our satellite communication density has also increased, this is the time for all our IT R&D and ICT industrial establishments to reach out to the rural areas. The e-governance GRID should be established between state and central governments with the National ID as the primary database, linking all the parts of the country for providing Government to Government, Government to Citizen Access and extending the tele-education, tele-medicine services to the people in the rural areas.
7. Small scale Industries are widespread in our country with tremendous employment potential. For the dynamic and competitive performance, the technological upgradation of these units is essential in the national planning.
8. Media is indeed a dynamic and a creative system in our democracy and all the more it is important that the media constituents reach out to, six hundred thousand villages of the country and be active partners in the rural development. Artists have a great role to play, in the societal transformation.
9. Youth have to create a movement, of making their own home righteous, make their environment clean and excel in their studies and their tasks.
10. The national parliamentary system, should become the role model for the nation: in legislative performance, in clean and progressive administration and nobility and speedy judiciary.
Conclusion
A new situation is emerging in the national scene in the year 2005. In the Indian history, very rarely we have come across a situation, all at a time, an ascending economic trajectory, continuously rising foreign exchange reserve, global recognition of technological competence, emergence of our 540 million youth both men and women as a dynamic positive force for national development, umbilical connectivities of 20 million people of Indian origin in various parts of the planet, and the interest shown by many developed countries to invest in our engineers and scientists including setting up of new R&D centers. This is the time the nation should launch series of missions in the five areas that is Agriculture and food processing, education and healthcare, information and communication technology, infrastructure development and self reliance in critical technologies, leading to transforming India into a developed nation by 2020.
Dear citizens, let us rededicate ourselves on this occasion of the 56th Republic Day to build our nation as a nation which provides employment to all, leading to economic prosperity and a nation of civilizational heritage with value system.
May God bless you.
Jai Hind.
To conclude, we could've had this great man to serve a second term; only if Congress was prudent enough to place the country before thier own political agenda ( that my friend would be my next blog).
