Ignited Minds (8 page)

I and my team are invited by a number of scientific, industrial, academic and management institutions to share our experiences in the pursuit of some of the
national tasks I have mentioned. One question that came up during my interaction with students in Mumbai rings in my mind even now.

‘Dr Kalam, we are very happy to see that India can build and produce its own SLVs and satellites, its own strategic missiles as also nuclear weapons and power stations. Can you tell me when India will design and produce its own passenger car with an Indian engine?’

When I was going through the design, manufacture of component, sub-assembly, integration and testing plants at Telco and was told that the company is producing about 60,000 cars annually, I was reminded of this question. I was not only witnessing the answer to it but also the technological strength of our nation.

I had another opportunity to see a concept take shape when Wipro invited me to participate in a function to mark the commissioning of a mobile heart care clinic at Bangalore in October 2000. This was a collaborative effort of Wipro-GE, Care
Foundation and Klenzaids. My friend Arun Tiwari and I provided the system concept for the project. It was a great experience for me. After the inauguration I visited the Wipro-GE Centre that builds specialized medical equipment using advanced technologies. As soon as I entered a young man approached me and pinned a national flag on my shirt. I shook his hand and asked him, ‘Young man, will you stay and work for this country?’

He replied, ‘Dr Kalam, I am in the profession of working on medical gadgets that are used for diagnosis. I am committed to a profession in which one tries to remove pain. I am needed here.’ I was delighted by his answer. The centre itself struck me as a positive collaboration between two nations in the field of healthcare.

After the programme, Azim Premji, who heads Wipro, accompanied me to the DRDO guest house. On the way, he explained how he was trying to assist elementary schools in Karnataka so that more children could be brought into the classroom. As we were
having tea at the guest house, I asked him, ‘How has Wipro reached its high stature in the business world?’

Premji gave a remarkable answer. ‘Dr Kalam, I can say there are three aspects that come to my mind. One: Sweat for generations and the hard work of teams. Two: In Wipro we work for the customer’s delight. Three: A bit of luck. The third point will not be of any consequence if the first two aspects are not achieved. In Wipro, what we have tried to do is wealth generation with social concern.’

A common thread runs through the experience of these institutions. It is that we can deliver high-technology systems in spite of control and denial regimes. The presence of a competitive environment, networking capabilities, wealth generation with social concern and above all ignited minds of the young: these are all very important ingredients for building a knowledge society.

Maharishi Patanjali said in the Yogasutra, ‘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.’

That is something addressed to all of us. It is the people of a nation who make it great. By their effort, the people in turn become important citizens of their great country. Ignited minds are the most powerful resource on earth, and the one billion minds of our nation are indeed a great power waiting to be tapped.

Ancient India was a knowledge society that contributed a great deal to civilization. We need to recover that status and become a knowledge power. We must learn from our mistakes to achieve a better standard of life. A developed India will supplant a spirit of defeat with the spirit of victory.

Determine that things can and shall be done, and then we shall find the way.

—Abraham Lincoln

As our experience reveals, progress is rapid wherever there is an efficient administrative set-up, a high level of education and minimum political interference in development activity. To me, development is a security-centric phenomenon–from poverty to food security, social security and thereafter national security. In
India 2020,
we have identified five areas where India has a core competence for integrated action.

First among these five is agriculture and food processing, where we have to set a target of 360 million tonnes of food and agricultural production. Agriculture and agro food processing, particularly by way of value addition, would bring prosperity to the rural people and speed up economic growth.

The second area is power. A reliable supply of electricity in all parts of the country is a must.

The third area is education and healthcare. Here we have found that education and healthcare are interrelated. For example, Kerala with high literacy and better healthcare could bring down the rate of population growth and improvement in the quality of life in the state. Similarly, in Tamil Nadu too we have seen a fall in the birth rate that is linked to these factors. Studies in Andhra Pradesh indicate a similar trend. These trends need to be replicated in states like Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, where levels of population growth remain high.

The fourth area is information technology. This is one of our core competencies and holds the potential to rapidly transform backward areas, besides promoting education and generating wealth.

The fifth area is the strategic sector. This area, fortunately, has witnessed growth in areas like nuclear, space and defence technology.

Action in these five areas, properly integrated, would lead to food, economic, social and national security. A strong partnership between the research and development institutions, universities, industry and the community as a whole with the government departments and agencies will be essential to accomplish the vision. The key to success lies in connectivity.

The development of education and healthcare will yield the benefits of smaller families and a more efficient workforce. It is the key to employability and social development. Improvements in the agricultural sector, including that of food processing, would lead to food security,
employment opportunities and rapid economic growth. Growth in the information technology sector would assist rapid economic growth as well as play an important part in speeding up development. Electric power provides energy security so crucial for all sectors. The strategic sector has a direct impact on industry, sustaining growth and technological strength. For balanced development, all the five areas are of importance. The combined effect of these five areas would result in GDP growth rising from present 6 per cent to 10 per cent and the lives of 300 to 400 million people who are presently living below the poverty line would be significantly improved.

I worked with TIFAC teams in three areas–agriculture, advanced education and rural connectivity. In doing so, I drew on my earlier experiences in the mission areas of sugar, fly ash and composites. With Prof. S.K. Sinha, a renowned agricultural scientist, TIFAC took up a project to enhance agricultural productivity in central Bihar and eastern India. Six villages in one and nine
villages in the other region were selected during the kharif season of 1998. The system approach consisted of soil analysis, seed choice, cultivation season, fertilizer selection and training to the farmers. This intensive collaboration of scientists and farmers resulted in substantial increase in wheat yields, which rose from 2.5 tonnes per hectare to nearly 5 tonnes per hectare. When I and Y.S. Rajan visited a few villages where this system approach is used, we found the farmers showing an interest in new issues like equipment for faster harvesting, storage facilities and marketing and banking systems. It was clear that a small team, cutting across various departments, could work wonders even in a difficult region, achieving results in a cost- and time-effective way.

Another experiment under way is REACH (Relevance and Excellence in ACHieving new heights in education institutions). The purpose of this mission is to establish 80 to 100 centres that follow common academic programmes and share the commitment to achieve excellence. In
this endeavour, they work together by interchange of faculty and joint research as need be. As part of this, Centres of Relevance and Excellence (CORE) have been established in Patiala, Dibrugarh, Mumbai, Thanjavur and Surat in the areas of agro and industrial biotechnology, advanced computing and information processing, petroleum reservoir engineering, industrial safety, environmental engineering and herbal drugs. Our experience in the REACH programme is that industries are willing to participate in specialized areas of their interest and they are also willing to invest about 40 per cent of the total expenditure in establishing CORE. In return, they will benefit in terms of skilled manpower and access to the results of research. The willingness of industry to be partners in technology development and education has helped our confidence a great deal. It was also satisfying to see Dr M.S. Vijayaraghavan, Adviser in the office of the Principal Scientific Adviser, blossom into a leader in the integrated learning system. His innovation
was to bring the commitment of industry to the learning programme.

Another example relates to the programme for rural connectivity evolved under the leadership of Prof. P.V. Indiresan, who was formerly Director of IIT Madras. As mentioned earlier, the fact that there is net migration from villages to cities indicates that they offer more opportunities, and the only way to equalize the flow is to develop the rural areas and bring life there on par with that in the cities. Once employment opportunities increase there, as do the amenities available, as per the model created by Prof. Indiresan, rural development may be expected to prevent, if not actually reverse, rural—urban migration. Presently, several technologies exist to make this possible, provided we use the connectivity approach in various areas.

For the rural development programme called PURA, we have introduced the concept of dynamic connectivity of four types called PEEK: Physics, Electronics, Economics and Knowledge connectivities. One more
important need is IT-driven telemedicine.

In May last year, I visited the CARE Hospital in Hyderabad. The whole place had been geared up for a telemedicine trial and the hall was full of doctors, communication engineers, computer scientists and software experts. Patients were to be tested and advised through telemedicine. The patients would undergo electrocardiography and tests for liver functioning. The novel thing was that the patients were in a distant place, but the diagnosis would be done in Hyderabad.

The doctors and the patients interacted via satellite. The ECG data was exchanged with high-resolution image transfer and clinical information provided in real time. I could see the ultrasound images of liver and heart functioning of the patients coming from a faraway hospital as specialists gave their opinion. It looked like a very promising way to offer healthcare services in places that did not have the medical facilities of a large city. Telemedicine could take advanced medical technology to the rural villages and
help link up primary health centres, area hospitals, district hospitals and speciality hospitals in the state capitals. To me it was fascinating to see how it brought together engineering and medical science to treat a patient irrespective of distance, using advances in satellite communication and transmission of data.

It was in 1990, on a recommendation of a friend of mine, that I visited Aravind Eye Hospital at Madurai for an eye check-up and treatment. Upon entering I saw an orderly queue of patients awaiting their turn and joined it. The queue was a long one but it was moving fast and within half an hour I was being examined by Dr G. Natchiar and recommended treatment. That done, I went to deposit the money for admission to the hospital. However, I had trouble paying at the counter as the girl there refused to accept a cheque, and I had no cash. I went to Dr Natchiar again and told her my predicament. She considered briefly and agreed to admit me. I was treated and discharged after a few days. A few days later,
I received a letter from Dr Natchiar apologizing for not having recognized me. She came to know only when my security personnel enquired about me at the hospital after my discharge.

I have visited the hospital often after that first visit. Dr G. Venkataswamy, brother of Dr Natchiar, is a good friend, and I make it a point to meet him every time I visit Madurai. Let me tell you a little more about Dr Venkataswamy and his commitment to his work. The Aravind Eye Hospital handled more than 1.3 million outpatient visits in 2001. It conducted 190,000 surgeries and held about 1,500 eye screening camps. No wonder then that Dr Venkataswamy’s hard work has achieved recognition from WHO. The hospital provides training to students from leading universities abroad, including Harvard and Johns Hopkins.

Dr Venkataswamy has become a superb surgeon despite what to many in his position would be a crippling handicap: his fingers are twisted and frozen by arthritis that struck him while he was a student in medical school.

One day, as we were talking he narrated this incident to me. An industrialist from Delhi came to Dr Venkataswamy and said, ‘I need to build a hospital, and I am very much impressed with your hospital. Will you come and start a hospital in Delhi for me?’

Dr Venkataswamy asked him, ‘What is it that you want? You have the money; it is not difficult for you to put up a hospital in Delhi. Why don’t you just do it?’

The industrialist said, ‘No, I want a hospital with the Aravind culture, people are cordial here. They seem to respect people more than money. There is a certain empathy or compassion that seems to flow from them.’

My own experience at the hospital bore this out. In the Aravind experience I see the path that we need to take–a transformation of life into a powerful instrument of right action.

As with medicine, in the same way, we shall see technology allied to different fields, such as agriculture. But the overall purpose has to be to help the people and meet their needs.

The vision of a developed India can be realized only if we recognize that wealth generation and wealth protection are two sides of the same coin. A nation’s wealth represents the sweat and hard work of its people. The famous Tamil poet Andal, who was regarded as one of the thirteen Vaishnavite Alwars, in her famous work
Tiruppavai
invokes the blessings of God to provide in plenty Neengatha Selvam (stable wealth) to the land. This is possible only with an integrated approach towards development. Granted planners look individually at the activities of various ministries and approve their action plans. However, if these proposals were to be looked at not in isolation but in the context of multiple-use planning, the benefits would multiply. Thus a technology, product or a service resulting out of a particular programme of a department/ministry should be mandated to be available to other departments/ministries at the stage of plan approvals. This would provide the needed integration at the planning stage. A similar
approach needs to be put in place at other downstream activities. An integrated mission approach would permit interweaving of measures to generate wealth with similar steps for wealth protection. This is the hallmark of a developed country and hence the key to a developed India.

Another aspect of a developed country is global competitiveness of its industry. It is not only catering to the home market but also aiming for a large market outside it. Hence, its contribution to GDP is also very large. This is a prerequisite for India too in its development. Indian industry has to show the same competitiveness and innovation so that we can have our own multinationals.

Universal literacy and access to education for all is another fundamental requirement for a nation to be truly developed. Education would result in the creation of a large base of people who excel in various fields as well, an invaluable resource for any country.

At present, however, there is a high degree of asymmetry in the educational system. While there are many who aspire to
higher education, quality institutions to impart this are few. This creates a large mismatch of demand and supply in quality manpower and is starkly evident in emerging sunrise areas such as information technology, biotechnology, environmental engineering and manufacturing technology. The economic liberalization taking place will only intensify such demand in coming years. Moreover higher education has also to be made more relevant to industry and society, an aspect in which it is inadequate at present.

One solution lies in fostering institutions with expertise in selected subjects of relevance to industry and society. Some of the institutions which have excelled this far could provide templates for the new ones. Lastly, the solution should be implemented in a mission mode–only the mission objectives should be paramount and all else subservient to these objectives.

To develop to the desired level, industry also needs to recognize the importance of forward and backward linkages. While linkages with bridging institutions such as
think tanks, technical/consultancy services, other firms involved in similar activities as well as customers constitute the forward linkage, partnership with universities, R&D labs and technology-providing institutions would form the backward linkage. Investment in higher education is therefore crucial for forming this backward linkage which would serve as a springboard for Indian industry to make the jump to becoming a global player. We should not hesitate to take a fast decision for establishing twenty more IITs and medical institutions; whether they are promoted by Indian or foreign groups does not matter as long as the bottom line remains excellence.

On 15 October 2000 a website designed for me by friends in the Ponn Group was launched by the Infosys Chairman, N.R. Narayana Murthy, in the presence of Prof. N. Balakrishnan of the IISc. Some of my friends asked me to post a few questions on the website. My questions were three. First: ‘India has been a developing country for more than half a century. What would you as young boys and girls like to do to make it a
developed India?’ The second question was, ‘When can I sing a song of India?’ and the third, ‘Why do we love anything foreign in spite of our capabilities in many fields, whereas other countries celebrate their own successes?’ My only stipulation was that the answer should come from youth aged under twenty.