[abeetha.m]

BE A PROUD INDIAN[/i]

by the President of India Dr A
P J Abdul Kalam

at Hyderabad on
05/05/05

Three
Visions

"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, and 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 nurtureand build on.If we are not free,
no one will respect us.

My second
visionfor
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 must
go hand-in-hand. My good fortune was to have worked with three great minds. Dr.
Vikram Sarabhai of the Department 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 ofthem closely and consider this the great
opportunity of my life.

Four
Milestones

I see four
milestones in my career: Twenty years I spent in ISRO. I was given the
opportunity to be the project director for India's first
Satellitelaunch vehicle, SLV3. The one that launched Rohini. 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's guided missile program. It was
my second bliss when Agni met its mission requirements in 1994. 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 nucleartests and proving tothe world that
India can make
it, that we are no longer a developing nationbut one of them. It made me feel
very proud as an Indian.

The fact that
wehave now developed for Agni a re-entry structure, for which we have
developed this new material. A very light material called carbon-carbon.

One day an
orthopedic 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 littlegirls and boys
with heavy metallic calipers 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 calipers and took them to the
orthopedic center. The children didn't believetheir eyes. From dragging around
a three kg. load on their legs, they couldnow move around. Their parents had
tears in their eyes.That was my fourthbliss!

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. TheHamas 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 orchidand a granary. It was this
inspiring picture that everyone woke up to. The gory details ofkillings,
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 TVs, we want foreign
shirts. We want foreign technology. Whythis obsession with everything imported.
Do we not realize that self-respectcomes 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 60) to drive through Orchard Road (equivalent of MahimCauseway
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 at10 pounds (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?)". Iam 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 cannotyou be the same herein
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 same people turn around to criticize
and blame the authorities for inefficiency and dirty pavements. What do they
expect the officers to do? Godown with a broom every time their dog feels
thepressure in his bowels? In America every dog owner has to clean
up after hispet has done the job. Same in Japan.
Will the Indian citizen do that here?" He's 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 thegovernment to clean
up but we are not going to stop chucking garbage allover the place nor are we
going to stop to pick a up a stray piece of paperand 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 arenot going to stop pilfering
at the least opportunity. This applies even to the staff who is known not to
pass on the service tothe public.When it comes to burning social issues like
those related towomen, dowry, girl child! and others, we make loud drawing
roomprotestations and continue to do the reverse at home.

Our excuse?
"It's thewhole system which has to change, how will it matter if I alone
forego mysons' rights to a dowry." So who's going to change the system? What
does asystem 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 asafe 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.

WhenNew York becomes insecure we run to England.
When England experiences unemployment, we
take the next flight out to the Gulf. When the Gulf is warstruck, 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 thesystem. 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"

Lets do what
India needs from us.

Thank you,

Dr Abdul Kalam[/b]

(PRESIDENT OF INDIA)[/b]

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[sowmya571]

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