Address at the Valedictory Session and Conferment of the Pravasi Bharatiya Saman Awards at Fifth Pravasi Bharatiya Divas, New Delhi

World Knowledge Platform - A Mission

"Together we can achieve

even the impossible"

I am delighted to participate in the conferment of Pravasi Bharatiya Samman Awards 2007. I congratulate the award winners for their contribution in promoting international understanding for healthy bilateral relationship between the countries and enable us to project the right image of India abroad. I am happy to meet you all in this gathering. I extend my greetings to the organizers - Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs, Government of Delhi and the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).

What I can give?

When we grow up in life, every one of us feels that we should give and give. What I can give? to the parents who made me what I am today; What I can give to the learning institutions which made me what I am today?. Particularly when we are away from our home across the oceans our urge to give to our dear ones multiplies. The spirit of ?What I can give?? becomes the song of our lives. That?s how today, 25 million Indians who are away from India are bubbling with an urge, what I can give it to my country. What India, which has nurtured all of you needs? The nation wishes you for your great name, your prosperity and the prosperity of your families, for all generations to come. That is how 2000 years back, Thiruvalluvar has said:

It means, greatest happiness for the mother is, when her children are acclaimed as great. This is the pride of the nation. Dear friends this is how India sees the twenty-five million people of Indian origin living abroad. When you are great and you are happy, mother India is happy. My respect to all of you.

This is the fifth year of Pravasi Bharatiya Diwas which is integrating the 25 million overseas Indians who are constantly maintaining the umbilical connectivity with India your motherland wherever you are. Many of you are having partnership in education, societal developments and tourism which provides a continuous linkage between the people of India and the Indian community living abroad.

Our Responsibility

Friends, when I am interacting with you, who have come from different parts of the planet, I would like to share one more important aspect with you. During my last 4 years, I have visited about 14 countries in Europe, Asia and Africa. Wherever I went, apart from completing the task for which I have visited the country, I had an opportunity to meet the Indians, who are domiciled there, Indians working there, Indians who are studying there. One thing I have observed that there are large number of people of Indian origin living there without proper education and without proper training.

They have gone to other countries for earning purpose and their way of life is only sweat, sweat and sweat. They don?t have time, to empower themselves to higher education and higher earning potential. There is no method of meeting them or their representatives here. Hence, we have a duty in this forum for taking a decision in the form of a mission. While annually we are meeting in India, we should select 10 places in different parts of the planet and hold a meeting once in two years, where we should invite those who cannot afford to participate on their own with their families. Meanwhile, empowering them with education and training must commence immediately.

I was thinking what thoughts I can share with you that will bring a bridge between your vast experience and India?s ascent phase of economic growth. What I am going to discuss comes out of the experience the nation had, by bringing together the core competence of two nations resulting in a state-of-the-art world class system having a global market and an India?s connectivity mission with 53 nations. The topic I have chosen for today?s discussion is "World Knowledge Platform - A Mission"

An International Joint Venture - BRAHMOS:

In order to achieve global competitiveness, the product must be world class with high quality, cost effective and must be available in time within the shelf life of the product. I would like to share a unique experience of design, development, production and marketing of a missile system - BRAHMOS, an Indo-Russian joint venture. What we have achieved through this venture is the development and realization of a world-class product using the synergy of technological competence and consortium of industries of partner countries. The BRAHMOS missile is the fastest operational cruise missile existing in the world today and can be launched from any type of platform - land, sea, and air and precisely reach the targets either on land or at sea with high lethal effect. The missile has undergone twelve successive successful flight trials and has been inducted by the Indian Navy. In addition, the product being internationally competitive, it is able to service a large market with availability in time and state of the art performance at reduced cost per unit. With minimum incremental investment the product has been developed and led to production and induction, at a relatively short time frame, well ahead of prescribed schedule. This has enabled early entry of the product into the world market well before any competitor could emerge. This proves that if the core competencies of nations are combined, best of knowledge products can emanate well ahead of time.

Pan-African Network

During my visit to the Africa, I addressed the inaugural session of the Pan African Parliament on 16th September 2004. During my address to the Pan-African Parliament, I made an offer to set up a Pan-African e-network which will provide e- connectivity to all the 53 countries of Africa and also connect all the Heads of States of the Pan African countries. The idea was to use the core competence of our country to assist these countries in the field of IT for providing at least one hub in each of the African countries through which various e-services like tele-education, tele-medicine and e-governance could be provided. I am happy to inform you that this offer has been received very well all over the African Continent and 16 countries will be connected in the first quarter of 2007 and the rest will be operationalized by early 2008 at a cost of $100 million.

From these international partnership experiences, we have evolved what is called a World Knowledge Platform, which will be the launch pad for many innovations that are waiting to be unearthed only by the combined power of all the participants, particularly from multiple nations.

World Knowledge Platform

During my visit to Singapore, Philippines and Republic of Korea, I have put forward the concept of ?World Knowledge Platform?, which will integrate the core competencies of the partner countries to develop knowledge products. This platform will enable joint design, development, cost effective production and marketing of the knowledge products in various domains based on the core competence of partner nations to international market.

Missions of World Knowledge Platform:

The convergence of Bio, Nano and ICT is expected to touch every area of concern to the humanity. The ?World Knowledge Platform? will take up the missions, in some of the areas given below, which are of utmost urgency to all of us to make our world a safe, sustainable, peaceful and prosperous place to live:

1. Energy: exploration, storage, production and conversion

2. Water: treatment and desalination

3. Healthcare: Diagnosis, drug delivery system

4. Food: preservation, storage and distribution

5. Knowledge products : Hardware, Software and Networking Products

6. Automobile: Hardware and embedded software integration

7. Capacity Building: Quality human resource development for all the above areas including the development of personnel with world class skills.

The common element for all the missions which I have discussed is the availability of quality human resource. The 25 million people of Indian origin with experience and specialization in diverse areas can definitely be an important partner in the development of quality human resource which will be a prime input for the World Knowledge Platform.

Global Human Resources Cadre

Presently our university education system is contributing 3 million graduates and post graduates every year and the students seeking employment after completion of 10th class and 10+2 class are around 7 million per year. Thus nearly 10 million youth are injected into the employment market every year. In the 21st century, India needs large number of talented youth with higher education for the task of knowledge acquisition, knowledge imparting, knowledge creation and knowledge sharing. At present India has five hundred and forty million youth under the age of 25 which will continuously be growing till the year 2050. Keeping this resource in mind, the Universities and educational systems should create two cadres of personnel: (1) a global cadre of skilled youth with specific knowledge of special skills (2) another global cadre of youth with higher education. These two cadres will be required not only for powering the manufacturing and services sector of India but also will be needed for fulfilling the human resource requirements of various countries. Thus, the universities and secondary school education system will have to work towards increasing the through put of the higher education system from the existing 11% to 20% by the year 2015, 30% by the year 2020 and 50% by the year 2040. The other Indians who are not covered by the higher education system should all have world class skill sets in areas such as construction, carpentry, electrical systems, repair of mechanical systems, fashion design, para-legal, para-medical, accountancy, sales and marketing, software and hardware maintenance and service, software quality assurance personnel?s to name a few. No Indian youth should be without either a world class higher education or without world class skills sets. Persons of Indian Origin can definitely contribute in providing quality higher education and developing world class skills among the remaining Indian youth along with a certification system which will have recognition by the global community. This will be an important contribution in human resource development of Indian youth who can compete and find placement in different parts of the world. In addition, PIOs can facilitate birth of enterprises by providing ideas, funding and nurturing the enterprises towards successful operation. This will enable the Indian youth to become employment generators instead of being employment seekers.

I have given working international partnership programmes. On the basis of your experience in your countries of stay, I am sure that many international programmes will be possible through the launching of World Knowledge Platform. I would request you to give some thought to this aspect and come forward with suggestions on how India can work with other countries in the areas of its core competence.

Conclusion

In this scenario, let me visualize the scene prevalent in the country in the year 2020. We expect the people below poverty line to come to near zero and our literacy nearly 100%. Human Development Index of India will be around 50. Every Indian will have either a university degree or quality training with employable vocational skill. E-governance would be in position for all Government to Government (G2G) and Government to Citizen (G2C) transactions making the governance system transparent with citizen identity card in position. Tele-density will reach over 75%. All our villages will be electrified. The interlinking of the rivers and water bodies will result in equitable distribution of water in irrigation, drinking and navigation and there will be no shortage of water. India would have realized energy security and will be working towards energy independence. Sanitary facility will reach every home. We will be using more of renewable energy such as solar energy, wind power and thorium based nuclear energy and adding less to the pollution. Through venture capital system and entrepreneurial training both in schools and colleges, we will have more enterprises leading to large number of employment generators rather than employment seekers. A pro-active healthcare system in place will provide quality healthcare to all the people of the country including those living in remote areas at an affordable cost through innovative schemes. The country will become a destination for world citizens coming to India for quality affordable medical attention. All children will have an opportunity to take up the courses of their choice in higher education. Many education institutions will provide education to global citizens through internet. I am sure; you will all see prosperity in the country which will replace scarcity and control.

Imagine the efforts needed to achieve this mission. Based on my visits to all the states and union territories and my discussions with many people from different walks of life, I am convinced that it is possible for the country to be developed by 2020. We constitute one sixth of the global population and the transformation that we do to one sixth of the world will benefit the other population also. A great opportunity awaits you in providing your contribution to this great transformation. I request all of you to participate in this mission of Developed India 2020 and to make it reality by your attitude of give, give and give of the knowledge and experience you have gained over the years. Of course, World Knowledge Platform and the Global Human Resource Cadre are the instruments of partnership and development. This will be the singular contribution which our motherland will be proud of you. Wish you all the best in all your missions.

May God bless you.

Composed by Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam for the participants of Fifth Pravasi Bharatiya Divas Samman Awards function held on 9th January 2007.

MY SONG

PIOs tribute to Mother India

O Mother, mother India, You have nursed us and grown us,

And gave us a parting mission

And an eternal message.

O my sons and daughters,

Wherever you go,

Whatever mission you do,

Remember my children,

My three advices golden!

Always be truthful even in danger,

Sweat and sweat to acquire,

Knowledge and name,

Wherever you live enrich that land.

O, mother we crossed the oceans and seas

With many generation of yours with your blessings,

We made new lands prosperous,

We made knowledge as the way of life

Sweat as the way of life and

We give and give to honour you

What we do is for honoring you,

We will always be children yours,

Wherever we are,

Whatever we do,

We will always be children yours!.

Composed by Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam for the participants of Fifth Pravasi Bharatiya Divas Samman Awards function held on 9th January 2007.(HINDI VERSION)