Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam valedictory address at the bharatiya vigyan sammelan 2007 Bhopal www.onlinetps.com

1. 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?

2. 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.

3. 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.

4. 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.

5. 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:

6. (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,

7. 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

8. 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.

9. 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

10. 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,

11. 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

12. 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

13. 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

14. 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
By, Dr. APJ Abdulkalam
www.abdulkalam.com
www.onlineTPS.com
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