'Smile On Billion Faces'

Introduction

Dear Citizens, on this important day on the eve of 55th Republic Day of India, I am indeedhappy to greet all the billion citizens of our country including those living abroad. I also greet the membersof the armed forces and paramilitary forces who guard our frontiers on the land, the sea and the air and alsointernal security forces. I would like to share some of my thoughts for evolution of a beautiful India,combining economic prosperity and value system drawn from our civilizational heritage.

Indian economic scenario

Indian economy shows a very robust and consistent growth, indicated by the recent 8.4% GDPgrowth in the second quarter of 2003-2004. Our foreign exchange reserves have crossed the $100 billion markand are continuously rising. The rupee is steady and the middle class resurgence and the domestic buying powerare on the rise. This has made our economy one of the fastest growing in the world. The time has come forthese economic benefits to reach speedily the rural population through development programmes such as PURA –Providing Urban amenities in Rural Areas and Interlinking of Rivers. Economists all around the world predictthat by the year 2020, the world economic scenario will be completely different from what it is today, andthat India will occupy the pride of position.

Indian industries in certain sectors have matured to be very responsive to the national and internationalneeds and have shown steady growth inspite of earlier adverse predictions. Interest rates from the banks needto be more proactive to stimulate the growth of the right type of small, medium scale industry and agro foodprocessing industries. The combination of entrepreneurship education in the schools and colleges, the hasslefree flow of venture capital and evolution of good market will give additional momentum for national growth.

Transforming India into a competitive beautiful nation

Dear citizens, for the next five years, with certain progress behind us, the challenge wehave, is to launch a major thrust for attaining national prosperity. We should convert the present opportunityand work towards giving our future generations, a competitive nation which has the following characteristics.

Profile of Competitive India

a. A Nation that is prosperous, healthy, secure, peaceful and happy.

b. A Nation where the rural and urban divide has reduced to a thin line.

c. A Nation where there is an equitable distribution of energy and quality water.

d. A Nation where agriculture, industry and service sector work together in symphony, absorbing technologythereby resulting in sustained wealth generation leading to higher employment potential.

e. A Nation where education is not denied to any meritorious candidates because of societal or economicdiscrimination.

f. A Nation which is the best destination for the most talented scholars and scientists all over the world.

g. A Nation where the best of health care is available to all the billion population and the diseases likeAIDS/TB, water borne diseases, Cardiac diseases and Cancer are extinct.

h. A Nation where the governance uses the best of the technologies to be responsive, transparent, easilyaccessible and simple in rules, thereby corruption free.

 i. A Nation where poverty has been totally alleviated, illiteracy and crime againstwomen are eradicated and the society is unalienated.

j. A Nation that is one of the best places to live in, on the earth and brings smiles on a billion faces.

These are the ten dimensional transformations needed for a competitive India and we have to work for.

Peace in the offing

For continuing our mission of national development and economic growth in our sub-continent,peace is a paramount ingredient. Most nations have realized that low intensity proxy wars, deterrence basedbuildups and real wars are too expensive detractors from the perceived visions of development. The developmentof the society also weans away its people from destructive activities of alienation, leading to celebration ofpeace-makers.

When guns are silent,
Flowers blossom on the earth;
Fragrance engulfs good souls,
Who created beautiful silence.
India will always be grateful to the successful peacemakers.

Towards Unity of minds

Dear citizens, when I assumed office on 25th July 2002, I addressed the need for unity ofminds becoming one of the focused missions for our nation. Recently fifteen Gurus, Acharyas, Swamijis,Maulavis, Reverent Fathers, Spiritual leaders, devotees and the representatives of many religions met at SURATin the presence of His Holiness Acharya Mahaprajna and deliberated for two days and took vital decisionsleading to the religions graduating as spiritual force. Also, they have declared that the nation is biggerthan any leader or individual or an organization. They had collectively evolved five inter-religious projectsfor implementation. Nation’s best wishes to our spiritual leaders and their mission of transformingreligions into a spiritual force.

Challenges Before Us

Also certain challenges before the nation are to be addressed collectively in the immediatefuture to facilitate faster pace of national development.

Service to Society: Our scientists should become civic scientists and contribute towards societaltransformation. Civic means concerning or affecting the community or the people. In the new capacity,scientists step beyond their campuses, laboratories, ministries and institutes and move into the center oftheir communities to engage in active dialogue and action with their fellow citizens. They should askthemselves a question, how their knowledge can make an impact on the common man’s life. Our civil servantsand others in the service sector should become fearlessly people-friendly, have a positive attitude, andprovide responsive, proactive, transparent and unbiased administration and service to the billion people.Primary education: Assent has been accorded for the 86th Constitution Amendment Act – Right to EducationBill for children between the age group of 5 and 14 years. Urgent action is needed for providing suitableschool infrastructure and appointment of good teachers for running the schools for providing quality educationto the children blended with the modern technologies of e-learning and tele-education. While doing so a reviewof the syllabus is also required to prevent overloading of the children for ensuring blossoming of theircreativity.

Protecting the Brand image of higher education: The nation’s vision of developed India requires greaterthrust to scientific and technological advancements. All our IITs, IIMs have graduated as world class brandinstitutions in addition to the century old premier institution – Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore.These characteristics must be preserved and nurtured. We should also encourage universities to become cradlesof higher learning and research, contributing generation of high skilled global human resource force.

Examination reforms: Often, we have witnessed that many important national examinations have been the targetof attack by a select group of corrupt individuals who undermine the very fabric of secrecy and transparencyof the conduct of these examinations. While we should deal with such individuals with sternness to protect theimage of our national selection system and the quality, we should also find technological solution that canensure tamperproof examination system.

Agriculture and Agro food processing

With farmers in focus, farming technology as their friend, and food processing and marketingas partners is indeed the second green revolution. From now on to 2020, India would have to gradually increasethe production to around 400 million tones per annum. The increase in the production will have to be doneunder the reduced availability of land from 170 million hectares to 100 million hectares with reduced wateravailability using technological inputs.

Pharmaceuticals

Institutions of Pharmaceutical sciences and Pharma industries need to evolve an integrated andcomprehensive National Pharma Vision to meet the challenges of design to drug development, production andmarketing. The major challenge before the Pharma community is to prevent the entry of spurious drugs anderadicate it’s presence in the market.

Space

With our self-reliance in our Space programme it is time we should enter into the globalmarket aggressively. The exploration of the moon through 'Chandrayaan' and keeping our sight on the Mars willelectrify the entire country, particularly young scientists and children.

Defence

Modernization of our armed forces with force multipliers is indeed progressing to meet thenational security needs. Defence technology has led to the development of long range missile systems andsupersonic cruise missile, Light Combat Aircraft, Electronic warfare systems, radars, under-water sensors,combat vehicles and armaments. The Indo-Russian joint venture programme - BRAHMOS is one of the leadingexamples of development, production and marketing of state-of-the-art missile system.

Energy

Our power generation capacity of hundred thousand megawatt has to be tripled by the year 2020.In addition to the power generation from the conventional sources we need to enhance the power generationcapacity through non-conventional energy sources to attain power security. Also the present nuclear capacityof 2700 Megawatts should be enhanced to more than 20,000 Megawatts by 2020. Desalination plants can beco-located with the future nuclear power plants for converting sea-water to drinking water. We need toestablish large solar farms of 800 to 1000 Megawatts capacity in many areas to augment the energyrequirements.

S&T Growth

Every academic institution and R&D Organisation is a reservoir of knowledge. Technologywill also spin off to societal products which are cost effective, high-quality and available to the people intime. Thrust is required in Nano science and biotechnology to achieve leadership in these areas in the comingdecade. The scientists and technologists must undertake a health mission "Let my brain remove the pain".The scientific community must realize that the competitiveness can come only by integrated mission drivenprogrammes partnered by academy, R&D organisation and industry.

Civic Awareness

The status of environmental cleanliness is one of the indicators of development of a nation.As a nation, we have to keep our environment clean and tidy. This is essential for better health conditions ofall the citizens and also for presenting a wholesome and aesthetic atmosphere for us and also the touristsvisiting our country. It is essential that we keep all our places of worship and rivers clean and tidy topreserve their innate divinity. Each one of the States may promulgate appropriate local laws for promotingharmonious environment in their regions.

Election manifesto

The general elections for 14th Lok Sabha will take place in early 2004. I was thinking whatcould be the manifesto of the competing political parties for the election. India has more than 540 millionpeople upto the age of 25 years. India is a nation of youth. During my interactions with the youth of ourcountry, two aspects have come out very clearly. One is that the young have a passion, self respect and dreamto live in developed India. Second, they want to live in a corruption free India. I can see these two areglowing in their eyes. I am also convinced that we should build developed India in a time bound way to preventinstability in the society. Hence the manifesto of the political parties has to take into account theiraspirations and design them to meet the dream of the young and be resonant with their aspirations withidentified missions and action plan. Every political party must clearly state their vision, action plan, andapproaches for the developed India vision 2020 and how fast they can realize these missions in quality andquantity.

Voter’s responsibility

Every citizen has got a role to choose the right representative to the Parliament andLegislatures, whose vision is that of national development and who has the concern for his/her constituencyand the people. The right to vote is the greatest power given by the democracy to you, so that you canreinforce further democratic values. I would like to appeal to all eligible voters to exercise their franchisewithout fail, fear or favour. Large voter turn out will be the first step towards realization of developedIndia 2020, and the second step would be to become enlightened righteous citizens.

"Movement" by young citizens

Which is the starting point, for the character evolution in the nation? Dear citizens, let meshare with you an incident, which took place somewhere in Nagaland. I was talking to a group of 600 personsconsisting of young children, their parents and teachers. The topic I selected was the knowledge society,foundation for a developed India. One boy who was studying in 10th class, asked me, "Mr. President, tell meis it possible for a nation to get transformed into a developed country, when there is corruptioneverywhere?" This question greatly upset the many faces of the experienced generation. I said that, "thequestion was beautiful and I must answer". Fortunately, the boy’s parents and teachers were sitting by hisside. I asked both, "Do you have an answer?" They said, "Mr. President, he shouldn’t have asked such aquestion, which is beyond his age. Please ignore it, sir". How can I ignore such a valuable mind? I mustanswer. My answer was the following.

We can create any number of laws in the country. No law can remove corruption fully. However there are onlythree members of the society, who can remove corruption. I call it as a "Three dimensional action" plan.Who are these three members? They are father, mother and elementary school teacher. In this connection, Iwould like to recall a famous statement from Vedic Guru, who said "You give me a child for seven years –after that, no God or devil can change the child". That is the power of the teacher.

My dear young friends, when you hear my national broadcast, please ask yourself a question, what can be thegreatest contribution that the youth can give without disturbing their academic pursuit. You have to commencea silent revolution for removal of corruption by rightly reforming those who go against righteousness in yourfamilies. You all must endeavour to make the home you live, beautiful and righteous. You definitely have thepower on your parents to do so, with love and affection.

Dear Citizens, now I would like to administer an oath for the youth which I would like the youths to repeatwith me now, wherever you are. Are you ready?

Ten point oath for the youth of the nation

1. I will pursue my education or the work with dedication and I will excel in it.

2. From now onwards, I will teach at least 10 persons to read and write those who cannot read and write.

3. I will plant at least 10 saplings and shall ensure their growth through constant care.

4. I will visit rural and urban areas and permanently wean away at least 5 persons from addiction andgambling.

5. I will constantly endeavor to remove the pain of my suffering brethren.

6. I will not support any religious, caste or language differentiation.

7. I will be honest and endeavour to make a corruption free society.

8. I will work for becoming an enlightened citizen and make my family righteous.

9. I will always be a friend of the mentally and physically challenged and will work hard to make them feelnormal, like the rest of us.

10. I will proudly celebrate the success of my country and my people.

Conclusion

India is very fortunate to have 540 million youth out of a billion people. We are doing wellin agriculture, our industry is on the upswing and our performance in the services sector is also equallygood. Time has now come for us to make our country, righteous. Righteousness comes out of good character. Theevolution of good character leads to harmony in home. Harmony in home brings the people of the state to becomeenlightened citizens. Enlightened citizens lead the planet earth to be a peaceful world.

Let us rededicate ourselves on this occasion of the 55th Republic Day to work towards making India aprosperous, happy and secure nation, with smile on billion faces.

Almighty, the God is with us.

Jai Hind