DAD TO SON.......
Hello guys. this is a mail i received from my dad this morning. this is one of the speeches made by honorable President at some occassion and is worth reading.
DEVELOPED INDIA
Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam.
The President of India
“I have three visions for India.In 3000 years of our history, people from all over the world have come andinvaded us, captured our lands, conquered our minds. From Alexander onwards.The Greeks, the Turks, the Moguls, the Portuguese, the British, the French, theDutch, all of them came and looted us, took over what was ours. Yet we have notdone this to any other nation. We have not conquered anyone. We have notgrabbed their land, their culture, their history and tried to enforce our way of lifeon them.Why? Because we respect the freedom of others. That is why my first vision isthat of FREEDOM. I believe that India got its first vision of this in 1857, when westarted the war of independence. It is this freedom that we must protect andnurture 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 adeveloping nation. It is time we see ourselves as a developed nation. We areamong top 5 nations of the world in terms of GDP. We have 10 percent growthrate in most areas. Our poverty levels are falling. Our achievements are beingglobally recognized today. Yet we lack the self-confidence to see ourselves as adeveloped 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 upto the world, no one will respect us. Only strength respects strength. We must bestrong not only as a military power but also as an economic power. Both must gohand-in-hand. My good fortune was to have worked with three great minds. Dr.Vikram Sarabhai of the Dept. of space, Professor Satish Dhawan, whosucceeded him and Dr.Brahm Prakash, father of nuclear material. I was lucky tohave worked with all three of them closelyand consider this the great opportunityof my life.I see four milestones in my career:Twenty years I spent in ISRO. I was given the opportunity to be the projectdirector for India’s first satellite launch vehicle, SLV3. The one that launchedRohini. These years played a very important role in my life of Scientist.After my ISRO years, I joined DRDO and got a chance to be the part of India’sguided missile program. It was my second bliss when Agni met its missionrequirements in 1994.The Dept. of Atomic Energy and DRDO had this tremendous partnership in therecent 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 theworld that India can make it, that we are no longer a developing nation but one ofthem. It made me feel very proud as an Indian. The fact that we have nowdeveloped for Agni a re-entry structure, for which we have developed this newmaterial. A Very light material called carbon-carbon. One day an orthopedicsurgeon from Nizam Institute of Medical Sciences visited my laboratory. He liftedthe material and found it so light that he took me to his hospital and showed mehis patients. There were these little girls and boys with heavy metallic calipersweighing over three Kg. each, dragging their feet around. He said to me: Pleaseremove the pain of my patients. In three weeks, we made these Floor reactionOrthosis 300-gram Calipers and took them to the orthopedic center. The childrendidn’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 myfourth bliss!Why is the media here so negative? Why are we in India so embarrassed torecognize 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 onlyobsessed in the bad news and failures and disasters.I was in Tel Aviv once and I was reading the Israeli newspaper. It was the dayafter a lot of attacks and bombardments and deaths had taken place. The Hamashad struck. But the front page of the newspaper had the picture Of a Jewishgentleman who in five years had transformed his desert land into an orchid and agranary. It was this inspiring picture that everyone woke up to. The gory details ofkillings, bombardments, deaths, were inside in the newspaper, buried amongother news.In India we only read about death, sickness, terrorism, crime. Why are we soNEGATIVE ? Another question: Why are we, as a nation so obsessed withforeign things? We want foreign TVs, we want foreign shirts. We want foreigntechnology. Why this obsession with everything imported. Do we not realize thatself-respect comes with self-reliance?I was in Hyderabad giving this lecture, when a 14 year old girl asked me for myautograph. 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 thisdeveloped India. You must proclaim. India is not an under-developed nation; it isa 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 our laws are too old.YOU say that the municipality does not pick up the garbage. YOU say that thephones 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 aface - OURS. 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.60) to drive through Orchard Road (equivalent of MahimCauseway or Pedder Road) between 5 PM and 8 PM. YOU comeback to theParking lot to punch your parking ticket if you have over stayed in a restaurant ora shopping mall irrespective of your status identity.In Singapore you don’t say anything, DO YOU? YOU wouldn’t dare to eat inpublic during Ramadan, in Dubai. YOU would not dare to go out without yourhead covered in Jeddah. YOU would not dare to buy an employee of thetelephone exchange 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 dare to speedbeyond 55 mph (88 km/h) in Washington and then tell the traffic cop, “Jaanta haisala main kaun hoon (Do you know who I am?). I am so and so’s son. Take yourtwo bucks and get lost.” YOU wouldn’t chuck an empty coconut shell anywhereother than the garbage pail on the beaches in Australia and New Zealand. Whydon’t YOU spit Paan on the streets of Tokyo?Why don’t YOU use examination jockeys or buy fake certificates in Boston? Weare still talking of the same YOU. YOU who can respect and conform to a foreignsystem in other countries but cannot in your own. You who will throw papers andcigarettes on the road the moment you touch Indian ground. If you can be aninvolved and appreciative citizen in an alien country, why cannot you be thesame 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 streetsto leave their affluent droppings all over the place,” he said. “And then the samepeople turn around to criticize and blame the authorities for inefficiency and dirtypavements. What do they expect the officers to do? Go down with a broom everytime 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’s right. We go to thepolls to choose a government and after that forfeit all responsibility. We sit backwanting to be pampered and expect the government to do everything for uswhilst our contribution is totally negative. We expect the government to clean upbut we are not going to stop chucking garbage all over the place nor are wegoing to stop to pick a up a stray piece of paper and throw it in the bin. Weexpect the railways to provide clean bathrooms but we are not going to learn theproper use of bathrooms.We want Indian Airlines and Air India to provide the best of food and toiletries butwe 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 thepublic. When it comes 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 system whichhas to change, how will it matter if I alone forego my sons’ rights to a dowry.” Sowho’s going to change the system?What does a system 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 us actuallymaking a positive contribution to the system we lock ourselves along with ourfamilies into a safe cocoon and look into the distance at countries far away andwait for a Mr. Clean to come along & work miracles for us with a majestic sweepof 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 gloryand praise their system. When New York becomes insecure we run to England.When England experiences unemployment, we take the next flight out to theGulf. When the Gulf is war struck, we demand to be rescued and brought homeby 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 ofintrospection and pricks one’s conscience too....I am echoing J.F.Kennedy’swords to his fellow Americans to relate to Indians.....“ASK WHAT WE CAN DO FOR INDIA AND DO WHAT HAS TO BE DONE TOMAKE INDIA WHAT AMERICA AND OTHER WESTERN COUNTRIES ARETODAY”
Thank youAbdul Kalam
ime for the main segment which brought a small smill on our faces as in my team coz we were awarded "THE BEST MEMORIAL" award. This shows hard work pays! 