Friday, November 21, 2008

Mr. APJ Abdul Kalaam's speech in Hyderabad - A must read speech

Message: 1

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 recognised 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
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 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
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 recognise 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 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.

Message: 2

Subject: Do you have 10 minutes? Allow me to come back with
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
Mahim Causeway or Pedder Road) between 5 PM and 8 PM.
YOU comeback 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 10 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 kmph) in Washington and
then tell the traffic cop, "Jaanta hai sala 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 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 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"
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.

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