1. Dr. Gaurav Bissa
Transform India into a developed nation: APJ Kalam
The President, Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam has called upon the countrymen to pay a
focussed attention towards realizing the vision of transforming India into a
Developed Nation.
In his speech on assumption of office as President of India at the Central Hall of
the Parliament in New Delhi today, Dr. Kalam said, "Now we need a movement in
the country. This is the time to ignite the minds of the people for this movement.
We will work for it. We cannot emerge as a developed nation if we do not learn to
transact with speed."
Following is the full text of the speech of the President Dr. Kalam on the occasion:
"Respected Narayananji, Vice President, Prime Minister, Deputy Prime Minister,
Chief Justice of India, Speaker of Lok Sabha, Members of the Union Council of
Ministers, Governors, Chief Ministers, Deputy Chairperson of Rajya Sabha,
Deputy Speaker of Lok Sabha, Members of Parliament, Excellencies, friends and
children – my greetings to all of you. When I see in front of me, the distinguished
dignitaries including a number of senior diplomats representing their countries and
other eminent personalities, a beautiful Thiagarajaswamigal’s Keerthana in Sri
Raga echoes from my heart – "Endaro Mahaanubhavalu andhariggi vandanamulu"
which means, "I salute all the great noble hearted human beings".
I thank the Members of Parliament and State Legislatures for having elected me.
The endorsement I have received from the nation, giving me the responsibility to
realize our shared dream of India with prosperity, harmony and strength is really
overwhelming. Ten illustrious personages have adorned this office of the President
and contributed to the nation building with their outstanding personal qualities. I
salute them all. While I assume the office of the President of Republic of India
with humility and gratefully recognizing the immense trust, the people of the
country and the political system have reposed in me, I promise to endeavor to
fulfill the aspirations of our people.

2. Dr. Gaurav Bissa
Indian civilizational heritage is built on universal spirit. India always stood for
friendship and extends warm hands to the whole world.
We have made significant achievements in the last fifty years in food production,
health sector, higher education, media and mass communication, industrial
infrastructure, information technology, science and technology and defense. Our
nation is endowed with natural resources, vibrant people and traditional value
system. In spite of these resources, a number of our people are below the poverty
line, undernourished and lack primary education itself. Our aim is to empower
them to be poverty free, healthy and literate. A country needs to have the
characteristics as defined in Thirukkural, composed over 2000 years ago:
‘Pini inmai Selvam Vilaivinbam Emam
Aniyenba Nattirkiv vainthu’
That is, "the important elements that constitute a nation are: being disease free;
wealth; high productivity; harmonious living and strong defense". All our efforts
should be focused towards building these five elements at various levels in a
coherent and in an integrated manner. I am convinced that our nation with a
strong, vibrant and billion plus population can contribute to realize these elements.
Today our country is facing challenges such as cross border terrorism, certain
internal conflicts and un-employment. To face these challenges, there must be a
vision to ensure focused action of one billion citizens of this great country with
varied capabilities. What can be that vision? It can be none other than
transforming India into a ‘Developed Nation’. Can government alone achieve this
Vision? Now we need a movement in the country. This is the time to ignite the
minds of the people for this movement. We will work for it. We cannot emerge as
a developed nation if we do not learn to transact with speed. I recall the saintly
poet Kabir’s wisdom to us:
‘Kaal Kare So Aaj Kar
Aaj Kare So Ab’

3. Dr. Gaurav Bissa
That means, "What you want to do tomorrow do it today, and what you want to do
today do it now".
This vision of developed nation needs to be achieved with Parliamentary
democracy, which is the core of our governance system. The basic structure of our
Constitution has stood the test of time. I am confident that it will continue to be
responsive to the demands of changing situations. The first and foremost task is to
respect and uphold the constitutional processes, in the best interest of our people
and our nation, without fear or favor and with fairness and firmness. India is a
Union of States based on the framework of cooperative federalism. Within the
cooperative frame-work, there is also a requirement to develop competitive
strengths for the States so that they can excel at the national level and the global
level. Competitiveness helps in ensuring economic and managerial efficiency and
to be creative to meet new challenges. These are essential to survive and prosper
in a fast changing world of today. In addition, in order to strengthen democratic
processes and institution, we should all truly strive for substantive
decentralization.
I wish to emphasize my unflinching commitment to the principle of secularism,
which is the corner stone of our nationhood and which is the key feature of our
civilisational strength. During the last one year I met a number of spiritual leaders
of all religions. They all echoed one message, that is, unity of minds and hearts of
our people will happen and we will see the golden age of our country, very soon. I
would like to endeavor to work for bringing about unity of minds among the
divergent traditions of our country.
Along with speedy development aimed at elimination of poverty and un-
employment, national security has to be recognized by every Indian as a national
priority. Indeed, making India strong and self reliant – economically, socially and
militarily – is our foremost duty to our motherland and to ourselves and to our
future generations.

4. Dr. Gaurav Bissa
When the child is empowered by the parents, at various phases of growth, the
child transforms into a responsible citizen. When the teacher is empowered with
knowledge and experience, good young human beings with value systems take
shape. When individual or a team is empowered with technology, transformation
to higher potential for achievement is assured. When the leader of any institution
empowers his or her people, leaders are born who can change the nation in
multiple areas. When the women are empowered, society with stability gets
assured. When the political leaders of the nation empower the people through
visionary policies, the prosperity of the nation is certain. The medium for
transformation to developed India is the empowerment at various levels with
power of knowledge. A roadmap for realizing this vision of developed India is in
front of us.
At this juncture, I recall a beautiful thought of Dr. G.G. Swell, an eminent leader
from North East: "We must have a mental infrastructure. Mental infrastructure
means sincerity of purpose, of vision, of purity of heart and mind".
When I travel across our nation, when I hear the sound of waves of the three seas
around the shores of my country, when I experience the breeze of wind from the
mighty Himalayas, when I see the bio-diversity of North-East and our islands and
when I feel the warmth from the western desert, I hear the voice of the youth
"When can I sing the song of India?" What can be the answer? I have so far
interacted with over 50,000 school children during the past one year. I would like
to share with you my answer to the urge of these children. If youth have to sing the
song of India, India should become a developed country which is free from
poverty, illiteracy and unemployment and is buoyant with economic prosperity,
national security and internal harmony. To create this transformation we all have
to resolve ourselves to work and sweat for the national development. I would like
to share the song of youth, which I normally recite with the school children, here
at this juncture. I am very happy to see the children present here representing the

5. Dr. Gaurav Bissa
future generation. Through them I would like to convey the song of youth to all
children of our country and the people.
As a young citizen of India,
armed with technology, knowledge and love for my nation,
I realize, small aim is a crime.
I will work and sweat for a great vision,
the vision of transforming India into a developed nation,
powered by economic strength with value system.
I am one of the citizens of the billion;
Only the vision will ignite the billion souls.
It has entered into me;
The ignited soul compared to any resource
is the most powerful resource
on the earth, above the earth and under the earth.
I will keep the lamp of knowledge burning to achieve the vision – Developed
India.
If we work and sweat for the great vision with ignited minds, the
transformation leading to the birth of vibrant developed India will happen.
This song, when sung in our own beautiful languages will unite our minds for
action.
I pray the Almighty: "May the divine peace with beauty enter into our
people; Happiness and good health blossom in our bodies, minds and souls".
Jai Hind".
I have three visions for India.
In 3000 years of our history, people from allover the world have come and
invaded us, captured our lands, conquered our minds. From Alexander onwards.
The Greeks, 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

6. Dr. Gaurav Bissa
nation. We have not conquered anyone. We have not grabbed their land, their
culture, their history 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 built 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 right?
I have a third vision. The 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 work 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.

7. Dr. Gaurav Bissa
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 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 little girls and boys
with heavy metallic calipers weighing over three Kgs.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 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 forth 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 second largest producer of wheat in the world. We are the second
largest producers in rice. We are the first in milk production. We are number one
in Remote sensing satellites. 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 with 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

8. Dr. Gaurav Bissa
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 oldgirl 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, I will have to built this developed India.
You must proclaim. As an aside from yours truly: India is not an under-developed
nation; it is a highly developed nation in an advanced state of decay!!!!!
-Dr. Abdul Kalam.