Valedictory Address at the Bharatiya Vigyan Sammelan 2007, Bhopal

Bhopal, Nov 25 2007

Updated on Nov 25 2007

Published bywww.abdulkalam.com

Societal Transformation through Science and Technology

"When you wish upon a star,Makes no difference who you are,

Anything your heart desires,

Will come to you"

Dear Friends,

I am indeed delighted to participate in the valedictory function of Bharatiya Vigyan Sammelan 2007 at Bhopal organized by Ministry of Science and

Technology, Madhya Pradesh in partnership with Vigyan Bharati and Rajiv Gandhi Technology University, Bhopal. My greetings to all the Scientists,

Technologists, Educationists, Researchers, Engineers, Artisans, Farmers, Students and distinguished guests participating in this Vigyan Sammelan. I

am particularly happy that thousands of farmers and artisans are participating in this sammelan, which brings the user community face to face

with the researchers, so that the real life problems can be projected in the right perspective.

What Science can give you

I see large number of young scientists and also people who want to become scientists in the near future. I would like to share with you one question.

What is the uniqueness of being a scientist?

Friends, science gives you better eyes because science can remove the

mental blinkers and it gives your brain a challenge to solve many scientific problems that are yet to be solved. When people in general talk in

dimensions, just less than one millimeter or few hundred thousand kilometers requirement in flight, the scientists will easily move from the

behaviour of proton (10-15M) to the size of visible universe approximately 1028M 43 orders of magnitude. Most of our friends, who are not in the field

of science will slice the time perhaps maximum upto one hundredth of a second. You scientists will slice the time into femtoseconds (10-15 Sec)

which may decide a fast photo chemical reaction. When you think way back in time, it will be big bang, some 15,000 million years ago and the

beginning of the life on earth. about 3800 million years ago. Again you will be ahead of 17 to 18 orders of magnitude. Science indeed will connect you

into the brains of many smart people who were there before you. Hence, science makes you feel good to stand on the shoulders of the giants like

Issac Newton, the discoverer of the Laws of Gravitational force, Albert

Einstein the discoverer of general relativity theory, Stephen Hawkings the string theory originator, Sir CV Raman the discoverer of Raman effect,

Chandrasekhar Subramanyam, discoverer of Chandra limit and blackhole, and Srinivasa Ramanujam the number theory originator.

Science always provides challenging problems. Look at the sky, bright

clouds lit by light. That is our galaxy, we belong to the milky way. Millions and millions of stars are there. We belong to a small star, what is that star.

Sun. The Solar system has nine planets. Our planet earth has six billion people, and millions and millions of species. Can you imagine what science

has revealed to all of us? Our galaxy and our sun and its characteristics have been identified. Exact location with respect of sun and galaxy has

been discovered. Again you ask yourself what science has done. What scientific discoveries have led to? We know that earth rotates in its own axis

in 24 hours. We get day and night. How do you get the full moon night. Earth has its own satellite, Moon, which orbits around the planet earth in 29

days. And how the moon shines? anytime have you thought, the beautiful light how do we get? How do we get the new moon ? You all know it has

been discovered. It is the dynamic movement of earth, sun and the moon in the space, which decides, the moon lit night and the dark night.

Friends the earth system takes 365 days for orbiting around the sun once.

The sun itself orbits around our galaxy- the milky way. It is estimated that the sun takes 250 million years to orbit around the galaxy. All the

astronomical discoveries have come out of science.

You take our human body. What is the human body. Science has revealed that the human body is made up of millions and millions of atoms. An average adult weighing 70 kilograms would have approximately

7*1027atoms, that is, 7 followed by 27 zeros. For example, I am made up of 5.8x 1027 atoms. This is divided into 4.7*1027 would be hydrogen atoms,

another 1.8*1027 would be oxygen, and there are 7.0*1026 carbon atoms.

The difference between one human being and another is determined by the sequencing of the atoms.

The recent human genome programme reveals that human genome

contains 23 pairs of chromosomes, which lie in the nucleus of every cell in the body. Each chromosom consists of a DNA double helix, that is wrapped

around spool like proteins called histones. It is estimated that the human body has three hundred thousand to 2 million proteins. The characterization

of each protein is the most challenging task, which is being carried out by the Proteomics Project. The unraveling of the genomic mystery will

ultimately allow the bio-medical community to create a new evolutionary future for the human race.

New Paradigm for Science

Friends you will not only will discover the space, you will have an industrial complex on the moon and new material from under sea world. Many

challenges are going to be thrown on the sea, under the sea and above the sea. You will also have challenges in bringing back a clean environment by

replacing fossil fuel based fuels to renewable energy from sun, wind, nuclear systems. Hence, the scientific community of today has the following great

challenges:

(a)Evolution of unified field theory which may be the ultimate of physics

revealing how the universe is born and how we are born. (b)The scientific community of today and tomorrow has to evolve an

alternate habitat for the mankind, (c)Evolution of earth, moon, mars complex to bring back to the earth new

material needed and the solar power needed and particularly energy material like helium-3

(d)Evolution of clean atmosphere replacing the fossil fuel by the cost effective renewable energy system.

(e)Life science scientists will have great challenge of exploring human body, particularly gene characterization through the proteomics project for

developing gene based drugs (f)We are producing nearly 200m tons of foodgrains using 170 million

hectars. This will gradually reduce to 100m hectars in few decades. Water availability from the present trend will be reduced. People who are in

farming that is 60% of the population that will reduce to less than 30%. So

we have a situation by 2020, reduced land, reduced water, reduced farming community, but we need double the food production. It is a big challenge

for the agricultural scientists to double the production and through science and technological discovery.

(g)In the area of communication a big revolution is setting in. High-bandwidth mobile wireless is in the offing. This will result in the mobile

phone and handheld devices becoming a convergent system for the multi-media applications for meeting the needs of communication in the office,

home and also in the school, colleges and universities and while on the

move. This will demand many technological innovations .for our scientific community.

(h)Sustainable Rural Development through PURA (Science and Technology as the Focus).

Rural Development a new focus

When I see the scientists, technologists, political leaders, artisans, and small scale industrialists and business leaders, I must talk to you about the dynamics of our rural development. In India we have 600,000 thousand

villages where 700 million people live. There is continuous pressure in the

urban area for employment, energy, water and education by the migration of rural population to the cities not only from within the state, but even from

other states. To contain this situation we have developed a programme called PURA (Providing Urban Amenities in Rural Areas).

Providing Urban Amenities in Rural Areas (PURA): PURA envisages integrated connectivities to bring prosperity to rural India. These are -

physical connectivity of the village clusters through quality roads and transport; electronic connectivity through tele-communication with high

bandwidth fiber optic cables reaching the rural areas from urban cities and through Internet kiosks; and knowledge connectivity through education,

vocational training for farmers, artisans and craftsmen and entrepreneurship programmes. These three connectivities will lead to

economic connectivity through starting of enterprises with the help of

banks, micro credits and marketing of the products.

The PURA is required to be run by enlightened citizens and people capable of giving moral as well as business leadership. There is profit for partners but there is also a human face. Both are built in the business plan itself. This is

where the concept of spiritual connectivity is seen as the foundation, which bonds all the other four connectivities.

Each PURA cluster will connect about 20 villages depending upon the region

and population and will cost about Rs.100 crores. After initial short-term employment during construction etc., we have to plan for initiating actions

for providing regular employment and self employment opportunities in nationally competitive small enterprises in agro processing, manufacturing

and services sectors for about 3000 people. If the industrial/business parks are marketed well, they can generate employment opportunities in support

sector for about 10,000 people in that cluster. This will provide sustainable economy for the rural sector. In this national mission, bankers can promote

entrepreneurship in the rural areas. This will lead to the removal of urban-rural divide. This experience can become a model for other countries to

follow. I have presented this model in a number of countries during my

address to their Parliament. There is a tremendous interest building up in various parts of the world.

PURA as an Enterprise: A large number of banks have entrepreneurial

development programmes. Banks have also been funding Small Scale Industries of different types in various regions. The small-scale industrialist

is a promising candidate for becoming the chief executive for managing the PURA complexes in an integrated way. PURA enterprises can also undertake

management of schools, health care units, vocational training centres, chilling plants, silos and building a market, banking system and the regional

business or industrial units. A new mission mode management style has to emerge for PURA enterprises. It should not be looking for protective

legislations to support them. Rather they should be efficient to compete with others. This new PURA enterprise needs partnership from the bank,

from the Government and also from the private entrepreneurs. Banks can train the entrepreneur for managing the PURA in their training centres and

also provide them loans for creating and running PURAs as a business proposition. Think of public-private-civil society partnerships in these

efforts. The country needs 7000 PURAs of types, Hill PURA, coastal PURA,

desert PURA and plain PURA.

While I am with you, I would like to share some of the missions that need Science and Technology inputs for the prosperity of Madhya Pradesh, which I presented to the Madhya Pradesh Legislative Assembly on 17 July 2006.

Development Goals

My presentation was based on the following principles :- (a) Method of increasing the per-capita income of the State to Rs. 50,000

from Rs. 14,000 by 2010. (b) Improving the Human Development ranking of Madhya Pradesh from the

present 12 to less than 5. (c) Realizing the goal of total literacy before 2012 by the giving highest

priority to women's education, particularly the tribal population. (d) Empower all tribal citizens with quality education, healthcare and

employment potential. (e) Progressively reducing the number of people living below the poverty line

from the existing 40 percent to near zero by 2016.

I suggested certain missions for transforming Madhya Pradesh into a developed state before 2015. Combined effect of all the missions put

together has the potential of making Madhya Pradesh an economically prosperous state. Scientists, Technologists and Educationists assembled

here can make significant contribution in realizing the goals of Madhya Pradesh prosperity.

Horticulture Mission

Aim of this mission is to generate employment for over six million youth and an annual revenue of Rs. 40,000 crore by 2016. I would like to share my

experience of one of the Units of DRDO laboratory with you located in Jhakri,

Puh and Sumdo in Himachal Pradesh. DRDO had taken up a project on the

development of horticulture involving off-season vegetable cultivation, green house vegetable cultivation, establishment of apple and almond orchards.

The agricultural scientists of the laboratories imparted training to the local villagers and army Jawans (for resettlement purposes) on the cultivation of

all these crops. The technological inputs provided to the farmers included improved seeds having tolerance to biotic and abiotic stress, true potato

seeds, enriching the soil with organic manure, harvesting, and preservation and processing technologies. Sumdo region (cold desert) has been found

suitable for cultivation of variety of vegetable crops having high productivity during off season. With improved hybrid seeds, vegetable yield can be

increased by four times with traditional seeds and conventional technology.

Another important wealth generator for Madhya Pradesh is the multiplication of seeds of temperate vegetables (cabbage, cauliflower, knolkhol, radish,

turnip, beetroot, brussel?s sprouts, carrot etc.). Large quantity of these seeds is being imported in the country. Emphasis is to be given on hybrid

seed production. Farmers who are producing the seeds are getting very remunerative prices in the national and international market. Hence, I

consider that there is substantial scope for production of these seeds by many more farmers in the state. Hybrid seed production of horticultural

crops can be taken on mission mode by the Madhya Pradesh farmers.

Agricultural Mission

Objective of agriculture mission is to increase output of cereals and pulses

from 15.5 million tonnes to 25 million tonnes in four years. Increase soyabean revenue from Rs.4500 crores to Rs.9000 crores resulting in

doubling of income for 5 million families. Increase percapita availability of milk from 233 grams to 500 grams in five years.

Doubling the food production ? an Experience: I would like to narrate

another successful experience which has taken place in Bihar. An experiment has been carried out by the TIFAC team in Bihar, in the RP Channel 5 and

Majholi distributory and later extended to Paliganj and other 5 distributaries on the request of farmers. Today they are working systems. The productivity

of paddy has increased in these villages from 2 tons per hectare to 4 ? 5.8 tons per hectare and in respect of wheat productivity; it has increased from

around 2 tonnes per hectare to around 4-5 tonnes per hectare. Presently, paddy and wheat crops are spread in an area greater than 2500 hectares

involving 3000 farmers. This project has been carried out by the TIFAC, in collaboration with a farmer?s co-operative society, Indian Agricultural

Research Institute (IARI) and the agricultural university in Pusa, Bihar.

Using scientific method of farming involving soil characterization, matching the right seed to soil, seeding in time, fertilizer and pesticide selection,

water management, pre and post harvesting methodology productivity has been more than doubled. I am explaining this model to bring out the

feasibility of transferring the knowledge from the laboratory to the farm through a cooperative venture between a dedicated team of scientists and

the farmers. Moving up the value chain in agriculture through food processing is essential in the country to increase the contribution of the

agriculture work force to GDP. I would recommend agricultural scientists assembled here to work with the farmers of Madhya Pradesh for doubling

the earning capacity of the farm workers in Madhya Pradesh and also realizing the goals of increased production in agriculture. What is needed is

the percolation of high technology to the grass-root level. This can be achieve by scientists becoming partners to farmers and ICT is applied for

enhancing productivity, value addition and better marketing.

Education and Entrepreneurship

Education and entrepreneurship mission has to realize 100 percent literacy by 2012 and provide full employment to all 1.5 million youth passing out from schools and colleges every year. This will need technology assisted

education to reach each one of the villages of Madhya Pradesh. That means, we have to ensure the connectivity particularly with high bandwidth is

available in every village. This can result in creation of tele-education systems in the rural areas and also availability of digital library books. Also

there is a need to create a movement which will enable provision of either

quality higher education or world class special skills to the youth of Madhya Pradesh.

Healthcare Mission

Health care mission envisages eradication of Malaria, TB and Leprosy in all districts by 2012. Also we have to reduce the Infant Mortality Rate to 10 per 1000 and the Maternal Mortality Rate to less than 5 per 1000. Reach quality

healthcare to all citizens including to tribal areas and enhancement of life expectancy. This will need innovative solution by the medical community of

Madhya Pradesh to provide cost effective treatment using the knowledge

available in all the systems of medicines such as Allopathy, Homeopathy, Ayurveda, Unani and Siddha. Also there is a need for public-private and civic

society partnership for activating all the public health centers for ensuring quality medical care to the needy citizens.

Water Management

Goal is to Harness additional 50,000 cubic meter of water for irrigation. Create additional storage capacity through water harvesting leading to a

drought free Madhya Pradesh by 2012. Scientists and engineers assembled here should study the excess water going out from Madhya Pradesh rivers

during the monsoon and suggest creation of innovative storage system which will enable the state to become a drought free state within the next

five years.

Infrastructure Development

There is need to increase road density to 30 kms per 100 sq. km. and

creation of 400 plain PURAs. The scientific community in partnership with the artisans and farmers assembled here, can work on developing low cost,

durable and robust technology for creating roads in the rural areas of Madhya Pradesh, converting municipal waste into electric power and the

development of 400 PURA complexes which I have already described.

Conclusion

Friends, I am very happy to participate and share certain thoughts, how

science and technology will lead to development of the states and thereby the nation. I have suggested in my talk what science can give you, a new

paradigm for science, Rural Development a new focus ? PURA, my presentation to the Madhya Pradesh legislative Assembly consisting of

eleven missions that need the contribution of scientists and technologists who have assembled here.

When I see the experienced scientists, young scientists and students, I

thought of sharing with you how value of science have to be recognized and put into action. Let me share the experience in the life of Sir CV Raman.

Raman was in the first batch of Bharat Ratna Award winners. The award ceremony was to take place in the last week of January, soon after the

Republic Day celebrations of 1954. The then President Dr. Rajendra Prasad wrote to Raman inviting him to be the personal guest in the Rashtrapati

Bhavan, when Raman came to Delhi for the award ceremony. Sir CV Raman wrote a polite letter, regretting his inability to go. Raman had a noble reason

for his inability to attend the investiture ceremony. He explained to the President that he was guiding a Ph.D. student and that thesis was positively

due by the last day of January. The student was valiantly trying to wrap it all up and Raman felt, he had to be by the side of the research student, see

that the thesis was finished, sign the thesis as the guide and then have it submitted. Here was a scientist who gave up the pomp of a glittering

ceremony associated with the highest honour, because he felt that his duty

required him to be by the side of the student. It is this unique trait of giving value to science that builds science.

I congratulate Ministry of Science and Technology, Madhya Pradesh for organizing a comprehensive Vigyan Sammelan which is directly relevant to

societal transformation. My best wishes to all the participants of the Bharatiya Vigyan Sammelan for success in their mission of providing science

and technology inputs for accelerated transformation of the State into a developed State before 2016.

May God bless you.

Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam 25.11.2007

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ceremony associated with the highest honour, because he felt that his duty

required him to be by the side of the student. It is this unique trait of giving that builds science.

I congratulate Ministry of Science and Technology, Madhya Pradesh for organizing a comprehensive Vigyan Sammelan which is directly relevant to

societal transformation. My best wishes to all the participants of the Vigyan Sammelan for success in their mission of providing science

and technology inputs for accelerated transformation of the State into a developed State before 2016.

By, Dr. APJ Abdulkalam

www.abdulkalam.com

Components at your doorstep

Arera Colony,Bhopal 462016(M.P.),India

9826050109

ceremony associated with the highest honour, because he felt that his duty

required him to be by the side of the student. It is this unique trait of giving

I congratulate Ministry of Science and Technology, Madhya Pradesh for organizing a comprehensive Vigyan Sammelan which is directly relevant to

societal transformation. My best wishes to all the participants of the Vigyan Sammelan for success in their mission of providing science

and technology inputs for accelerated transformation of the State into a

By, Dr. APJ Abdulkalam

www.abdulkalam.com