I am indeed delighted to participate in the Founders Day celebrations of Doon School, Dehradun and also to be with the teachers, staff and students here . The contribution of Doon School is well known. I have heard about Doon school and its performance through my friends in Delhi. When the Head Master of Doon School Mr. John Mason met me and gave a beautiful picture of the school with tremendous amount of details, one thing occurred to me. What a great blessing you students are privileged to have the best of education. It is not only what you are taught but what is important is the type of creativity, what you gain and the quality teachers whom you have.

I would like to share with you an important message which I experienced very recently, when I was visiting Arunachal Pradesh last Monday & Tuesday. I happened to spend a day in a Tawang Monastery, which has 400 year old history, located at an altitude of 3000 meters - a beautiful spiritual environment. There, I met a gathering of monks, students, teachers and political leaders. Just like you, I saw bright young faces with an urge to learn with creativity. A unique message was echoing in the Monastery. It looked to me that the message was part and parcel of students and teachers community. What is that message? I was asking myself. Who can enlighten and explain the message? I sought the help of the chief of the monks at the Tawang Monastery. I asked, 'Your Holiness, can you explain the message with your vast experience of in this Monastery, the most important part of learning - particularly in the present environment of our country". The respected Buddhist Monk told me, "India is a nation of peace. India lives as a spiritual and peaceful nation. The peace should engulf our nation. This monastery spreads: when you remove "I" and "ME" from your mind, you will eliminate ego; if you eliminate ego, hatred towards fellow human beings vanish; If the hatred go out of our mind, violence will not spring from human mind and then peace and peace and peace will blossom. I bless my nation". This divine message was born in Tawang Monastery. I was thinking where I can share such a beautiful message. It looks to me, friends, this message very loud to your education and learning process. The purpose of education is to impart learning process which transforms the children as good human being with knowledge and value system.

Core competence for knowledge society

A knowledge society can be one of the foundations for a vision for the nation: Developed India. Knowledge has always been the prime mover of prosperity and power. The acquisition of knowledge has therefore been the thrust area through out the world and sharing the experience of knowledge is a unique culture of our country. India is a nation endowed with natural and competitive advantages as also certain distinctive competencies. But these are scattered in isolated pockets and the awareness on these is inadequate. During the last century the world has undergone a change from agriculture society, where labour force was the critical factor, to industrial society where the management of technology, capital and labour provided the competitive advantage. In the 21st century, a new society is emerging where knowledge is the primary production resource instead of capital and labour. Efficient utilisation of this existing knowledge can create comprehensive wealth of the nation in the form of better health, education, infrastructure and other social indicators. Ability to create and maintain the knowledge infrastructure, develop knowledge workers and enhance their productivity through creation, growth and exploitation of new knowledge will be the key factors in deciding the prosperity of this Knowledge Society. Whether a nation has arrived a stage of knowledge society is judged by the way the country effectively deals with knowledge creation and knowledge deployment.

Knowledge Society Components

Knowledge Society has two very important components driven by societal transformation and wealth generation. The societal transformation is on education, healthcare, agriculture and governance. These will lead to employment generation, high productivity and rural prosperity. How do we do that?

The wealth generation is a very important task for the nation, which has to be woven around national competencies. The task team has identified core areas that will spearhead our march towards knowledge society. The areas are: Information Technology, bio-technology, space technology, weather forecasting, disaster management, tele-medicine and tele-education, technologies to produce native knowledge products, service sector and Infotainment which is the emerging area resulting from convergence of Information and entertainment. These core technologies, fortunately, can be interwoven by IT. IT took off only due to enterprising spirit of the young. Thus there are multiple technologies and management structure that have to work together to generate knowledge society. It has to be recognized that the difference between an IT-driven society and a knowledge-driven society is the role of multiple technology growth engines. With India carving a niche for itself in Information Technology, the country is hence uniquely placed to fully capitalize the opportunity to quickly transform into a knowledge society. The methodology of wealth generation in these core areas and to be able to meet an export target set at 50 billion dollars by the year 2008, especially using IT sector is subject of discussion, while simultaneously developing capability to generate Information Technology products worth 30 billion dollars domestically to pump in for societal transformation.

Evolution of policy and administrative procedures, changes in regulatory methods, identification of partners and most importantly creation of young and dynamic leaders are the components to be in place. In order to generate wealth, which is the second component for establishing a knowledge society, it is essential that simultaneously a citizen-centric approach to evolution of business policy, user-driven technology generation and intensified industry-lab-academy linkages have also to be established.

India Millennium Missions 2020

A developed country, in my opinion, is one which has the capability and the capacity to comprehensively look at wealth generation and wealth protection and thereafter evolve integrated strategies, technologies and missions to meet these objectives. It is also a fact that technology is the established currency of geo-political power and in the Indian context, technology has to be the driving force for economical development and national security. India Millennium Missions 2020 (IMM 2020), provides an excellent framework and road-map for making a strong and developed India by the year 2020.

Five Mega Projects to transform the nation to Developed Country

We have identified five areas where India has a core competence for an integrated action. (1) Agriculture and food processing - we have to put a target of doubling the present production of food and agricultural products. Other areas of agriculture and agro food processing would bring prosperity to rural people and speed up the economic growth. (2) Reliable and quality electric power for all parts of the country. (3) Education and Healthcare - we have seen, based on the experience, education and healthcare are inter related. (4) Information Technology - This is one of our core competence. We believe, this area can be used to promote education in remote areas and also to create national wealth. (5) Strategic sectors - This area, fortunately, witnessed the growth in nuclear technology, space technology and defence technology.

These five areas are closely inter-related and culminate in thirty IMM 2020 missions leading to national food and economic security. A strong partnership among the R&D, academy, Industry and the community as a whole with the Government departments will be essential to accomplish the vision.

Conclusion

Friends, when you look around the world, you may be at the low ebb to think that you belong to one of the hundreds of developing nations and not to the so-called developed G-8. Think of the billion ignited Indian minds. This is the most powerful resource compared to any resource on the earth, above the earth and below the earth. You are a mighty force for the nation. Your sweat will transform developing India into a developed nation. That is the vision, INDIA MILLENNIUM MISSION 2020 - A developed India. Let us start the movement for a developed India and work for the mission.

That makes me recall the saintly saying of Maha Rishi Patanjali in Yoga SUTHRAS: "When you are inspired by some great purpose, some extraordinary project, all your thoughts break their bounds: Your mind transcends limitations, your consciousness expands in every direction, and you find yourself in a new, great, and wonderful world. Dormant forces, faculties, and talents become alive, and you discover yourself to be a greater person by far than you ever dreamed yourself to be".

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