I am delighted to meet and interact with the students of Navodaya Vidyalayas, Kendriya Vidyalayas, Lady Irwin School, Sadhu Vaswani Mission School and Delhi Government Schools. I greet the Chairperson and Members of National Commission for Women for organizing this function.

My best wishes to the Principals, Teachers, Staff, Students and distinguished guests assembled here. While talking to you, I recall a prayer written by Mahakavi Bharathiyar, which is presented here:

This means: Physicist claim atoms are always on a circuitous motion. Astronomers claim every planet and their stars are on an orbital motion. If perpetual motion be the nature of things all around, O! My Goddess of Learning! Kindly bless my mind also to work as vigorously as ever!

I think it is an important message for all of us, for continued acquisition of knowledge and continued prosperity.

Two Great Mothers

Womanhood is a beautiful creation of God. Always I am inspired and rejuvenated by two great women. One is my mother and the other is Bharat Ratna M. S. Subbulakshmi. Few minutes I would like to share my thoughts with you about these two great souls.

My Mother

During the II world war in 1941, In Rameshwaram, it was a difficult time for our family. I was a ten year old boy. War had almost reached our doors of Rameshwaram i. e. Sri Lanka. Almost everything was a rarity from food articles to anything. Ours was a large joint family. My father and his younger brother's families were all living together. The size of our family was five sons and five daughters and three of whom had families. I used to see in my house anytime three cradles. My grandmother and mother were almost managing this large contingent. The environment in the home alternated by happiness and cry. I used to getup at four in the morning, took bath and went to my teacher Swamiyar for learning mathematics. He will not accept student for teaching if the student had not taken bath. He was a unique mathematics teacher and he use to take only five students for free tuition in a year. My mother use to get up before me, and gave bath to me and prepared me to go for the tuition. I use to comeback at 5:30 when my father would be waiting for taking me to the Namaz and Koran Sharif learning in Arabic school. After that I used to go by walk to Rameshwaram Road Railway station three kilometer away. Madras Dhanushkodi mail will pass through the station but will not stop, since it was a war time arrangement. The newspaper bundle will be thrown from the running train.

I use to collect the paper and run around the Rameshwaram town and be the first one to distribute the newspapers in the town. My elder cousin brother was the agent who went away to Sri Lanka in search of better livelihood. After distribution I use to come home at 8 AM. My mother will give me a simple breakfast with a special quota compared to other children because I was studying and working simultaneously. After the school over in the evening, again I will go around Rameshwaran for collection of dues from customers. One day I still remember an incident. As a young boy since I was walking, running and studying all together when all my brother and sisters were sitting and eating, my mother went on giving me chapaties (even though we are rice eater only wheat was rationed). When I finished eating, my elder brother called me privately and scolded ?Kalam do you know what was happening? You went on eating Chappatis and mother went on giving you. She has given all her chappatis to you. It is a difficult time. Be a responsible son and do not make your mother starve?. First time I had a shivering sensation and I could not control myself. I rushed to my mother and hugged her. Even though I was studying in 5th class, I had a special place in my home because I was the last guy in the family. There used to be no electricity. Home was lit by the kerosene lamp that too between 7 to 9 PM. My mother specially gave me a small kerosene lamp so that I can study up to 11 PM. I still remember my mother in a full moon night which has been portrayed with the title "mother" in my book "Wings of Fire".

Mother

I still remember the day when I was ten,

Sleeping on your lap to the envy of my elder brothers and sisters.

It was full moon night, my world only you knew

Mother!, My Mother!

When at midnight, I woke with tears falling on my knee

You knew the pain of your child, My Mother.

Your caring hands, tenderly removing the pain

Your love, your care, your faith gave me strength,

To face the world without fear and with His strength.

We will meet again on the great Judgment Day. My Mother!

This is the story of my mother who lived ninety three years, a woman of love, a woman of kindness and above all a woman of divine nature. My mother performed Namaz five times everyday. During Namaz, my mother always looked angelic. Every time I saw her during Namaz I was inspired and moved.

Bharat Ratna M.S. Subbulakshmi

Dear Children I will now talk to you about another great mother, mother of Carnatic music M. S. Subbulakshmi. First time in the year 1950, I heard her when I was studying in the college at Trichy during Thiagaraja festival at Tiruvaiyar, which is conducted in January every year. I attended this festival with my close friend music lover Santhanam. After Pancharatna Kriti, MS Subbulakshmi sang the famous Thiagaraja keertana ?Endaro Mahaanubhavalu andhariggi vandanamulu? This song really entered into me and blossomed happiness in my body and soul. The meaning was so powerful; I was moved and became a lifetime fan of M S. I started liking her statement in the music academy, leading to music learning.

"Bhakti is nothing but the devotion we show to the divinity that resides within us. Once we regard the divinity within us with devotional fervour, we are bound to develop the same affection towards everything outside. The reason is that the same divine truth runs through all things. When the devotee has attained this state, service to the world becomes his creed."

I used to meet her in music concerts. It was a great joy for me when M. S. was honoured with Bharat Ratna in 1998 at Ashoka Hall in Rashtrapati Bhavan. I was sitting by her side. She touched my head and blessed. That was my greatest moment in my life. She gave one statement which I would like to recall ?Any raga has the purpose of directing the minds of the listeners towards God and His manifestations? Further I have met this great soul many times when she was not well. When she passed away on 12 December 2004, I was there in her house, where I saw a spiritual peace. My tribute to her read as follows:

"You excelled in Sriragam,

And achieved great heights in Bhakti Sangeet

You Excelled in the Kirtanas of Annamacharya,

Purandaradasa and Trinity of Carnatic music.

Even though, you may have merged with time,

Your music with beautiful deeds will live for a long time to come.

You were born in music, lived with music,

And now forever you are merged with divine music."

Birth of Ahimsa Dharma

Now I would like to discuss my experience at Rudahi a village in Uttar Pradesh on January 14, 2005. During the interaction, a girl, her name is Komal Singh. She is studying in Class VIII. She asked me: "Mr. President, you are a missile man. Whether it is possible to make a missile that would promote world peace?"

My reply to this question was India has always been espousing the cause of the greatest missile "Ahimsa Dharma". The principle of non-violence. To prevent war we have to be strong first. Strength respects strength. In that light, our other missiles are also required. But our principle is ?no first use?. Now my thoughts go back to 2500 years in history. I see in front of me the Emperor Asoka conquering all parts of India and walking with great pride. When he came to Kalinga region, the great Kalinga war took place, which is now in the present state of Orissa. With the mighty army of Emperor Asoka fought and fought and the Kalinga kings were defeated. Emperor Asoka happily proclaimed and annexed the Kalinga country. In that great full moon night, with the success behind him, Emperor Asoka walked in the war ravaged battlefield. He stopped suddenly and saw the blood flowing over hundred thousand people who were killed, and many souls crying and moaning. That crying was engulfed with gloom. Suddenly Emperor Asoka stopped and asked himself, "O! Almighty, what have I done?" This spark of thought entered into the mind and soul of Emperor Asoka and the great principle of Ahimsa Dharma was born.

Sweat, Give Knowledge and Dignity

At this point of time, I would like to recall my traveling on 16 September 2004 in a train powered by steam engine in a first class compartment of 1900?s vintage organized by Durban state of South Africa. When the train was moving from one station to another, Mahatma Gandhi's struggle against apartheid system in South Africa was going through my mind. The train halted at Pietermartizburg, the station where Gandhiji was evicted on a cold winter night from a first class compartment and became a victim of apartheid. When I alighted at the Pietermartizburg railway station, I saw a plaque in the railway station, which reads like this:

In the Vicinity of this plaque

M.K. GANDHI was evicted

from a first class

compartment on the night of

7 June 1893.

This incident changed

the course of his life.

He took up the fight

against racial oppression.

His active non-violence

started from that date.

Later, I visited the Msunduzi Municipality where the Indian team was given a beautiful civic reception by the Indians and South Africans. But my thoughts were hovering on two scenes which I experienced in South Africa. One scene was, in Robben Island where Dr. Nelson Mandela had been imprisoned for 26 years, in a very small cell, and the other scene was at the house of Dr. Nelson Mandela. What a moving reception, the man at the age of 86 gave with all smiles. He had experienced a life in prison for 26 long years and also a beautiful life as a President of independent South Africa. When I was leaving from his house he came to the portico to give me a send off and while walking he discarded his walking stick and I became his support. While walking I asked him, ?Dr. Mandela can you please tell me about the pioneers of anti apartheid movement in South Africa?? He responded spontaneously, "of course one of the great pioneers of South Africa's freedom movement was MK Gandhi. India gave us MK Gandhi, we gave you back Mahatma Gandhi after two decades. Mahatma Gandhi was an apostle of Non-Violence". That is indeed the tradition of India - to enrich whichever nation we go, our foremost responsibility is to enrich that nation. Enriching the nation is not only in financial terms, but enrich with knowledge, enrich with sweat above all enrich with honour and self dignity.

Indomitable spirit and virtue of forgiveness

I would like to share with you some of my experiences which I had during my recent visit to South Africa. I met a great personality who was responsible for the freedom of South Africa. Particularly for the young people, you can learn two lessons. They are: indomitable spirit and virtue of forgiveness. He is none other than Dr. Nelson Mandela.

Cape Town is famous for its Table Mountain; it has got three peaks called Table Peak, Devil Peak, and Fake Peak. Between the peaks it was a beautiful sight throughout the day, sometimes dark clouds and sometimes white clouds embracing the peaks. Table Mountain is very close to the sea coast of the Atlantic Ocean. We traveled by helicopter to Robben Island from Cape Town in 10 minutes flight. By fast powered boat it will take 30 minutes to reach the Robben Island. When we reached the Island, except sea roaring, the whole island, was a silent island symbolizing the thought: this is the place the freedom of individual was chained. We were received at the Island by Mr. Ahmed Kathrada a South African, who was a co-prisoner. What surprised me was this: can you imagine a tiny room, where sleeping and all human needs have to be fulfilled. It has to be remembered that Dr. Nelson Mandela, who was 6 feet tall was imprisoned in that room for 26 years - fighting against the apartheid. The major part of his life was spent in this silent Island. He used to be taken for quarrying in the nearby mountain for a few hours in bright sun. This is the time his sight got damaged. In spite of his body being tortured, he revealed to the world the indomitable spirit in him. This is the time he evolved a manuscript of freedom in tiny letters every day, when the jail wardens went to sleep. This small tiny lettered manuscript finally became the famous book of Mandela "A long walk to freedom".

It was a great event for me to meet him in his house in Johannesburg. Dear friends, I would like to share with you, when I entered Dr. Nelson Mandela?s house, I saw his three dimensional form with cheerfulness: the mighty man who got the freedom for South Africa from the tyranny of apartheid. And also a person when he became the President of South Africa he gave the people freedom to move, freedom to live in South Africa to those people who specialized in apartheid and ill-treated and put him in jail for 26 years. Nelson Mandela accepted them as equals citizens who ill treated them practicing apartheid. Dear friends, a big lesson that we learnt from this personality Dr. Nelson Mandela which is explained in one of the Thirukkurals, written 2200 years before.

which means, for those who do ill to you, the best punishment is returning good to them.

Our National mission - challenges

Our nation is going through a major challenge of uplifting of 260 million people who are below the poverty line and also to give better life for many millions who are on the border line of poverty or just above the poverty line. They need decent habitat, they need work with reasonable income, they need food, they need health care, and they need education and finally resulting into a good life. Our GDP is growing at more than 6% per annum on an average. Whereas, the economists suggest that to uplift the people from below the poverty line, our economy has to grow at the rate of 10% per annum consistently, for over a decade.

Integrated action: To meet the need of one billion people, we have the mission of transforming India into a developed nation. We have identified five areas where India has a core competence for integrated action:

(1) Agriculture and food processing

(2) Reliable and Quality Electric power, Surface transport and Infrastructure for all parts of the country.

(3) Education and Healthcare

(4) Information and Communication Technology

(5) Strategic sectors.

These five areas are closely inter-related and if well done would lead to national, food, economic and security.

Engines for Growth: Emphasis should be on full utilization of natural and human resources of the nation to meet the demands of the modern society. We should also remember that about 50% of our population is young people with aspirations for better living. Value addition to Agriculture, Manufacturing and Service sectors, building the national core competence and technologies will lead to additional high income employment potential. The engines for growth will be accelerated by launching of the five national missions viz. water, energy, education and skills, infrastructure and employment generation that will enable achievement of 10% GDP growth rate per annum. It is possible to do so with ecological and economic sustainability.

With these aspects, we have already laid down the road map. The priority for the government is to convert the road map into various missions. While converting the vision into different missions we seem to have many thoughts and variety of routes to reach the goal. This is where there is a need to have a coherent thinking among all the members of the society. All of them need to think that the nation is greater than an individual or an organization. There is a mindset among many that "we cannot do it". However in my experience with many institutions in the country and the observations of the results of some of them in the mission mode projects, I can assure you whenever we have decided to achieve certain goals with clear targets, we have always achieved it. I have seen this even in private and public sector industries - if they decide to take up tasks as a mission, they succeed. Let me discuss the evolution of knowledge society with you.

Knowledge Society

Knowledge has always been the prime mover for prosperity. A knowledge society is one of the basic foundations for the development of any nation. Knowledge has many forms and it is available at many places. The acquisition of knowledge has therefore been the thrust area throughout the world and sharing the experience of knowledge is a unique culture of our country. During the last few centuries the world has undergone a change and in the 21st century, a new society is emerging where knowledge is the primary production resource instead of capital and labour. Efficient utilisation of existing knowledge can create comprehensive wealth for the nation in the form of better health, education, infrastructure etc. for improving the quality of life. Whether a nation has emerged as a knowledge society or not is judged by the way the country effectively deals with knowledge creation and knowledge deployment.

Evolution of enriched societies

Friends, the developing countries always have a mindset to follow step-by-step the footsteps of the developed countries, in the developmental process. This I call it a beaten track. The reason is, there are multiple societies in every nation starting from agricultural society, industrial society, and information society leading to the knowledge society in the 21st century. These societies underwent a transformation from the agricultural society, where manual labour was the critical factor to the industrial society, where the management of technology, capital, and labour provided the competitive advantage. The information era in the last decade, saw networking within the country and with the other nations and the software products drove the economies. Some of the nations including India used this opportunity well and could demonstrate its core competence in IT. The entry to knowledge society has given India a great opportunity to bring back the glory of our nation again.

Efficient utilization of existing knowledge can create a comprehensive wealth for the nation and also improve the quality of life, in the form of better health, education, infrastructure, and other societal needs. The ability to create and maintain a knowledge society infrastructure, develop the knowledge workers, and enhance their productivity through the creation, growth, and exploitation of new knowledge, will be the key factor in deciding the prosperity of this knowledge society. Whether or not a nation has developed into a knowledge society is judged by the way it creates and deploys knowledge in the sectors like ICT, Manufacturing, Agriculture, and Healthcare and so on in order to create wealth for the society, business and the people. Knowledge and wealth creation have to go hand in hand in a knowledge society.

Inspiring action

Recently, I read a news item where I find a 10 year old British school girl saved the lives of hundreds of people during the recent Tsunamis episode on 26th December 2004 in Thailand by warning them a wall of water was about to strike, after learning about Tsunamis in her geography class taught by her teacher Mr. A. Kearney. She has been named "the angel of the beach by the top-selling tabloid The Sun".

Tilly was spending her holidays with her family on the Thai island of Phuket when she suddenly grasped what was taking place and alerted her mother. While she was on the beach she noticed that the tide was suddenly rushing out. As the other tourists watched in amazement, the water began to bubble and the boats on the horizon started to violently bob up and down. Tilly, who had studied tsunamis in a geography class just two weeks earlier, quickly realised they were in terrible danger. She told her mother they had to get off the beach immediately and warned there could be a tsunami. She explained she had just completed a school project on the huge waves and said they were seeing the warning signs that a tsunami was minutes away.

Her parents alerted the other holidaymakers and staff at their hotel, which was quickly evacuated. The wave crashed a few minutes later, but no one on the beach was killed or seriously injured. Tilly, from Surrey in England, gave the credit to her geography teacher, Andrew Kearney, at Oxshott?s Danes Hill Prep School. She told that ?Last term Mr Kearney taught us about earthquakes and how they can cause tsunamis.

"I was on the beach and the water started to go funny. There were bubbles and the tide went out all of a sudden.

"I recognized what was happening and had a feeling there was going to be a tsunami. I told mummy." Tilly's mother said she was "very proud" of her daughter, while her headteacher Robin Parfitt said she had "wisdom beyond her years". Mr Kearney said he remembered teaching Tilly and her fellow students that after the sea was sucked backwards, the next five to 10 minutes were crucial for people to survive. He said her quick-witted actions were typical.

Conclusion

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.

While concluding I would suggest that the students assembled here choose and fix an aim in life. Let that become the mission of your life. Work hard for your goal with patience and perseverance. While you are working for your goal there are bound to face hurdles and problems. You do not allow problems to become your master. You become master of the situation and defeat the problem. This is the secret of success in all your missions. Now I would like to administer the ten point oath to all of you. Will you all repeat?

Ten point oath for enlightened citizenship

1. I will love whatever profession I take up and I will try to 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 ten saplings/trees and ensure their growth.

4. I will go to rural and urban areas to reform at least five persons from the habits of addiction and gambling.

5. I will take responsibility for removing the pain of ailing persons.

6. I will participate in the mission of realizing the economic strength of India by combining it with an education with value system and by transforming religion into a spiritual force.

7. I will not support any differentiation on account of community or language.

8. I will lead an honest life free from all corruption and will set an example for others to adopt a transparent way of life.

9. I will always be a friend of the mentally and physically challenged and I will work hard to make them feel normal.

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



My best wishes to all of you in all your endeavours. May God bless you all.

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