Given out a week ago at the science congress in Hyderabad.
From the mail box of President of India :-

President's Office : The President of India DR A P J Abdul Kalaam's
Speech in Hyderabad

"I have three visions for India. In 3000 Years of our history, people
from all over the world have come and invaded us, captured our lands,
conquered our minds."

From Alexander onwards, the Greeks, the Turks, the Moguls, 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
nation. We have not conquered anyone. We have not grabbed their land,
their culture,
and their history and 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 build 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 incorrect?

I have a third vision. 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 worked 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: 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.

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. 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.

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 Kg.
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 fourth 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 first in milk production. We are
number
one in Remote sensing satellites. We are the second largest producer
of wheat. We are the second largest producer of rice. 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 in 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 into
an orchid and a granary. It was this inspiring picture that everyone
woke up to. The gory details of 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 old girl 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 and I will have to build this developed India You must
proclaim. India is not an under-developed nation; it is a highly
developed nation.

Do yo have 10 minutes? Allow me to come back with a vengeance. Got 10
minutes for your country? If yes, then r ead; otherwise, choice is
yours.
YOU say that our government is inefficient.
YOU say that our laws are too old.
YOU say that the municipality does not pick up the garbage.
YOU say that the phones don't work, the railways are a joke, The
airline is the worst in the world, mails never reach their
destination.
YOU say that our country has been fed to the dogs and is the absolute pits.
YOU say, say and say. What do YOU do about it?
Take a person on his way to Singapore. Give him a name-YOURS. Give him
a face - YOURS.

YOU walk out of the airport and you are at your International best. In
Singapore you don't throw cigarette butts on the roads or eat in the
stores. YOU are as proud of their Underground links as they are. You
pay $5 (approx Rs 60) to drive through Orchard Road (equivalent of
Mahim Causeway or
Pedder Road) between 5 PM and 8 PM. YOU come back to the parking lot
to punch your parking ticket if you have over stayed i n a restaurant
or a
shopping mall irrespective of your status identity. In Singapore you
don't say anything, DO YOU? YOU wouldn't dare to eat in public during
Ramadan, in
Dubai. YOU would not dare to go out without your head covered in Jeddah.
YOU would not dare to buy an employee of the telephone exchange in
London at 10 pounds (Rs 650) a month to, "see to it that my STD and
ISD calls are billed to someone else." YOU would not dare to speed
beyond 55 mph (88 km/h) in Washington and then tell the traffic cop,
"Jaanta hai main kaun hoon (Do you know who I am?). I am so and so's
son.
Take your two bucks and get lost." YOU wouldn't chuck an empty coconut
shell anywhere other than the garbage pail on the beaches in Australia
and New Zealand. Why don't YOU spit Paan on the streets of Tokyo?
Why don't YOU use examination jockeys or buy fake certificates in Boston???
We are still talking of the same YOU.
YOU who can respect and conform to a foreign system in other countries
but cannot in your own. You who will throw papers and cigarettes on
the
road the moment you touch Indian ground. If you can be an involved and
appreciative citizen in an alien country, why cannot you be the same
here
in India?

Once in an interview, the famous Ex-municipal commissioner of Bombay,
Mr Tinaikar, had a point to make. "Rich people's dogs are walked on
the
streets to leave their affluent droppings all over the place," he
said. "And then the same people turn around to criticize and blame the
authorities for
inefficiency and dirty pavements. What do they expect the officers to
do? Go down with a broom every time their dog feels the pressure in
his bowels? In America every dog owner has to clean up after his pet
has done the job. Same in Japan. Will the Indian citizen do that
here?" He's right.

We go to the polls to choose a government and after that forfeit all
responsi bility. We sit back wanting to be pampered and expect the
government to do everything for us whilst our contribution is totally
negative. We expect the government to clean up but we are not going to
stop chucking garbage all over the place nor are we going to stop to
pick a up a stray piece of paper and throw it in the bin. We expect
the railways to provide clean bathrooms but we are not going to learn
the proper use of bathrooms. We want Indian Airlines and Air India to
provide the best of food and toiletries but we are not going to stop
pilfering at the least opportunity.
This applies even to the staff who is known not to pass on the service
to the public. When it comes to burning social issues like those
related to women, dowry, girl child! and others, we make loud drawing
room protestations and continue to do the reverse at home. Our excuse?
"It's the whole system which has to change, how will it matter if I
alone forego my sons' rights to a dowry." So who's going to change the
system?

What does a system consist of? Very conveniently for us it consists of
our neighbours, other households, other cities, other communities and
the
government.
But definitely not me and YOU. When it comes to us actually making a
positive contribution to the system we lock ourselves along with our
families into a safe cocoon and look into the distance at countries
far away and wait for a Mr Clean to come along & work miracles for us
with
a majestic sweep of his hand or we leave the country and run away.
Like lazy cowards hounded by our fears we run to America to bask in
their glory
and praise their system. When New York becomes insecure we run to England.
When England experiences unemployment, we take the next flight out to the Gulf.
When the Gulf is war struck, we demand to be rescued and brought home
by the Indian government. Everybody is out to abuse and rape the
country.
Nobody thinks of feeding the system. Our conscience is mortgaged to
money Dear Indians, The article is highly thought inductive, calls for
a great
deal of introspection and pricks one's conscience too.... I am echoing
J F Kennedy's words to his fellow Americans to relate to Indians????

"ASK WHAT WE CAN DO FOR INDIA AND DO WHAT HAS TO BE DONE TO MAKE INDIA
WHAT AMERICA AND OTHER WESTERN
COUNTRIES ARE TODAY"