A must read 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 must go 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
he 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 guided 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
partnershipin 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 he 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 land 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 TVs, 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.
"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. Forward this mail to each Indian
for a change instead of sending Jokes or junk mails.
Thank you.
