Saturday, August 06, 2005

Dream big, Kalam tells children

India should focus on five key areas for achieving Vision 2020

The President, A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, on Friday did what he is best at doing -- ignite the young minds with his searching questions and extracting exacting answers and promises, of course.

Addressing students, Dr. Kalam stressed the importance of vision for development of a nation and quizzed them with rapid fire round on the contribution of Newton, Sir C. V. Raman, Chandrasekhar Subramaniam, Mother Teresa, Einstein, Vikram Sarabhai and Homi Bhabha.
They all had vision. If Vikram Sarabhai did not have a vision, India would not have been able to develop its own satellite and the launch vehicles, he said while impressing upon children to develop a vision. He made them repeat, We children generate vision. We will become great and the nation will become great and asked them to their vision to his website www.presidentofindia.nic.in.

Dr. Kalam said if India is to achieve the goals set for 2020, it should aim at doubling the GDP growth rate. It should concentrate on five key areas -- agriculture and food processing, education, information and communication technology, networking of rivers and attaining self-reliance in critical technologies. He did not miss out his familiar Provision of Urban infrastructure in Rural Areas (PURA). One such project of PURA is under implementation in Bhimavaram in Andhra Pradesh.

He administered an oath to them saying they would not support any religious, caste or language differentiation; that they would be honest and strive for a corruption-free society.

Fielding questions from students, he said his science teacher, Sivasubramanya Iyer, was his role model. The roles of a scientist and the President were complementary and it was after his long tenure as scientist that he opted for the latter post. Now I am marketing my PURA vision to the Government and Parliament.

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