The Ex-President of India DR. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam 's Speech in Hyderabad . *

                                     

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 you have 10 minutes? Allow me to come back with a vengeance.

Got 10 minutes for your country? If yes, then read; 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 in 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 responsibility.

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'

Lets do what India needs from us.

Forward this mail to each Indian for a change instead of sending Jokes or junk mails.

Thank you,

Dr. Abdul Kalaam

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Sabeer Bhatia - A success story

                                               

Sabeer Bhatia an ordinary guy from Bangalore, India; came to Los Angeles in September 1988. He was 19 at that time and had only $250 in his pocket and knew nobody in America.

Sabeer intended to complete his degrees and go back to India to work with some Large Indian Company as an engineer. Sabeer did his MS in 1993. Sabeer thought that one should be superhuman to start a company and it was an impossible task for him.

But during his graduation in Stanford, he used to spend his lunch hours in the basement of Terman Auditorium. He listened to enterpreneurs like Scott Mc Nealy MBA's 80, Steve Wozniak and Marc Andreesen, they all had a common message - 'You can do it too'. Sabeer knew that famous people always says so to inspire others.

After completing his graduation Sabeer dropped the idea of going home. He took up a job with Apple Computers and so did Jack Smith, his friend and co-worker.

Sabeer and Jack had a dream to start a company and they were really working hard on it. They wanted to email notes to each other, but they were afraid of being accused by their bosses of spending their working hours on personal projects. They had personal American Online account, but they could not access it from office network. Jack was frustrated by all this problem. And this gave birth to an idea of free e-mail accounts that can be accessed anonymously over the web - HOTMAIL.

In mid-1995, Sabeer began his business plan for a netbased personal database called Javasoft. Javasoft became the front for Hotmail for Jack and Sabeer in December.

Sabeer knew Hotmail was an explosive concept. Sabeer convinced Imperial Bank to loan him $100,00. Then he convinced McLean Public Relations to represent Hotmail in exchange of stock.

In June the product was ready to launch, at that time they had 15 employees working for them. They launched it on July 4, 1996 - Independence Day - as Sabeer and Jack thought free email was a great Independent idea and populist tool. Every body who owned a computer had their own email accounts, but with webmail, they could log on from anywhere in the world. The first users found it all by themselves and then it spread like a forest fire. There were 100 in the first hour, 200 in the second hour and 250 in the third hour. The idea was so intuitively powerful that 80% of those who signed up for Hotmail; learned about it from a friend.

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Talking of two Stalwarts (Tata and Infosys)

The simplicity and humbleness of Tatas an be understood by the experience narrated ny Sudha Murthy, which she had with Tatas even before the foundation of Infosys was laid.

THERE are two photographs that hang on my office wall. Everyday when I enter my office I look at them before starting my day. They are pictures of two old people. One is of a gentleman in a blue suit and the other is a black and white image of a man with dreamy eyes and a white beard. People have often asked me if the people in the photographs are related to me.

Some have even asked me, "Is this black and white photo that of a Sufi saint or a religious Guru?"

I smile and reply "No, nor are they related to me. These people made an impact on my life. I am grateful to them."
"Who are they?"
"The man in the blue suit is Bharat Ratna JRD Tata and the black and white photo is of Jamsetji Tata."

"But why do you have them in your office?"" You can call it gratitude." Then, invariably, I have to tell the person the following story. It was a long time ago. I was young and bright, bold and idealistic. I was in the final year of my Master's course in computer Science at The Indian Institute of Science (IISc) in Bangalore, then known as the Tata Institute. Life was full of fun and joy. I did not know what helplessness or injustice meant.

It was probably the April of 1974. Bangalore was getting warm and gulmohars were blooming at the IISc campus. I was the only girl in my postgraduate department and was staying at the ladies' hostel. Other girls were pursuing research in different departments of Science. I was looking forward to going abroad to complete a doctorate in computer science. I had been offered scholarships from Universities in the US. I had not thought of taking up a job in India.

One day, while on the way to my hostel from our lecture-hall complex, I saw an advertisement on the notice board.It was a standard job-requirement notice from the famous automobile company Telco (now Tata Motors). It stated that the company required young, bright engineers, hardworking and with an excellent academic background, etc.

At the bottom was a small line: "Lady candidates need not apply." I read it and was very upset. For the first time in my life I was up against gender discrimination.

Though I was not keen on taking up the job, I saw it as a challenge. I had done extremely well in academics, better than most of my male peers. Little did I know then that in real life academic excellence is not enough to be successful.

After reading the notice I went fuming to my room. I decided to inform the topmost person in Telco's management about the injustice the company was perpetrating. I got a postcard and started to write, but there was a problem: I did not know who headed Telco. I thought it must be one of the Tatas.

I knew JRD Tata was the head of the Tata Group; I had seen his pictures in newspapers (actually, Sumant Moolgaokar was the company's chairman then). I took the card, addressed it to JRD and started writing. To this day I remember clearly what I wrote. "The great Tatas have always been pioneers. They are the people who started the basic infrastructure industries in India, such as iron and steel, chemicals, textiles and locomotives. They have cared for higher education in India, such as iron and steel, chemicals, textiles and locomotives. They have cared for higher education in India since 1900 and they were responsible for the establishment of the Indian Institute of Science. Fortunately, I study there. But I am surprised how a company such as Telco is discriminating on the basis of gender."

I posted the letter and forgot about it. Less than 10 days later, I received a telegram stating that I had to appear for an interview at Telco's Pune facility at the company's expense. I was taken aback by the telegram. My hostel mated told me I should use the opportunity to go to Pune free of cost and buy them the famous Pune saris forcheap! I collected Rs 30 each from everyone who wanted a sari. When I look back, I feel like laughing at the reasons for my going, but back then they
seemed good enough to make the trip.

It was my first visit to Pune and I immediately fell in love with the city. To this day it remains dear to me. I feel as much at home in Pune as I do in Hubli, my hometown. The place changed my life in so many ways. As directed, I went to Telco's Pimpri office for the interview.
There were six people on the panel and I realised then that this was serious business.

"This is the girl who wrote to JRD," I heard somebody whisper as soon as I entered the room. By then I knew for sure that I would not get the job.The realisation abolished all fear from my mind, so I was rather cool while the interview was being conducted. Even before the interview started, I reckoned the panel was biased, so I told them, rather impolitely, "I hope this is only a technical interview." They were taken aback by my rudeness, and even today I am ashamed about my attitude.

The panel asked me technical questions and I answered all of them. Then an elderly gentleman with an affectionate voice told me, "Do you know why we said lady candidates need not apply? The reason is that we have never employed any ladies on the shop floor. This is not a co-ed college; this is a factory. When it comes to academics, you are a first ranker throughout.
We appreciate that, but people like you should work in research laboratories. "

I was a young girl from small-town Hubli. My world had been a limited place. I did not know the ways of large corporate houses and their difficulties, so I answered, "But you must start somewhere, otherwise no woman will ever be able to work in your factories." Finally, after a long interview, I was told I had been successful. So this was what the future had in store for me. Never had I thought I would take up a job in Pune. I met a shy young man from Karnataka there, we became good friends and we got married.

It was only after joining Telco that I realised who JRD was: the uncrowned king of Indian industry. Now I was scared, but I did not get to meethim till I was transferred to Bombay. One day I had to show some reports to Mr Moolgaokar, our chairman, who we all knew as SM. I was in his office on the first floor of Bombay House (the Tata headquarters) when, suddenly JRD walked in. That was the first time I saw "appro JRD". Appro means "our" in Gujarati. This was the affectionate term by which

people at BombayHouse called him. I was feeling very nervous, remembering my postcard episode. SM introduced me nicely, "Jeh (that's what his close associates called him), this young woman is an engineer and that too a postgraduate. She is the first woman to work on the Telco shop floor." JRD looked at me. I was praying he would not ask me any questions about my interview (or the postcard that preceded it). Thankfully, he didn't. Instead, he remarked. "It is nice that girls are getting into engineering in our country. By the way, what is your name?" "When I joined Telco I was Sudha Kulkarni, Sir," I replied. "Now I am Sudha Murthy." He smiled and kindly smile and started a discussion with SM. As for me, I almost ran out of the room. After that I used to see JRD on and off. He was the Tata Group chairman and I was merely an engineer. There was nothing that we had in common.  Iwas in awe of him.

One day I was waiting for Murthy, my husband, to pick me up after office hours. To my surprise I saw JRD standing next to me. I did not know how to react. Yet again I started worrying about that postcard. Looking back,I realise JRD had forgotten about it. It must have been a small incidentfor him, but not so for me. "Young lady, why are you here?" he asked. "Office time is over." I said, "Sir, I'm waiting for my husband to come and pick me up." JRD said, "It is getting dark and there's no one in the corridor. I'll wait with you till your husband comes."

I was quite used to waiting for Murthy, but having JRD waiting Alongside made me extremely uncomfortable. I was nervous. Out of the corner of my eye I looked at him. He wore a simple white pant and shirt. He was old, yet his face was glowing.
There wasn't any air of superiority about him. I was thinking, "Look at this person.

He is a chairman, a well-respected man in our country and he is waiting for the sake of an ordinary employee." Then I saw Murthy and I rushed out. JRD called and said, "Young lady, tell your husband never to make his wife wait again."

In 1982 I had to resign from my job at Telco.

I was reluctant to go,but I really did not have a choice. I was coming down the steps of Bombay House after wrapping up my final settlement when I saw JRD coming up. He was absorbed in thought. I wanted to say goodbye to him, so I stopped. Hesaw me and paused. Gently, he said, "So what are you doing, Mrs Kulkarni?" (That was the way he always addressed me.) 
"Sir, I am leaving Telco."
"Where are you going?" he asked.
"Pune, Sir. My husband is starting a company called Infosys and I'm shifting to Pune."
"Oh! And what will you do when you are successful."
"Sir, I don't know whether we will be successful."
"Never start with diffidence," he advised me. "Always start with confidence. When you are successful you must give back to society.
Society gives us so much; we must reciprocate. I wish you all the best."
Then JRD continued walking up the stairs. I stood there for what seemed like a millennium. That was the last time I saw him alive. Many years later I met Ratan Tata in the same Bombay House, occupying the chair JRD once did.

I told him of my many sweet memories of working with Telco. Later, he wrote to me, "It was nice hearing about Jeh from you.
The sad part is that he's not alive to see you today."

I consider JRD a great man because, despite being an extremely busy person, he valued one postcard written by a young girl seeking justice. He must have received thousands of letters everyday. He could have thrown mine away, but he didn't do that. He respected the intentions of thatunknown girl, who had neither influence nor money, and gave her an opportunity in 
his company. He did not merely give her a job; he changed her life and mindset forever.
Close to 50 per cent of the students in today's engineering colleges are girls. And there are women on the shop floor in many industry segments.

I see these changes and I think of JRD. If at all time stops and asks me what I want from life, I would say I wish JRD were alive today to see how the company we started has grown. He would have enjoyed it wholeheartedly.

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Collected Quotes from Albert Einstein

[Note: This list of Einstein quotes was being forwarded around the Internet in e-mail, so I decided to put it on my web page. I'm afraid I can't vouch for its authenticity, tell you where it came from, who compiled the list, who Kevin Harris is, or anything like that. Still, the quotes are interesting and enlightening. ]

Collected Quotes from Albert Einstein

·         "Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius -- and a lot of courage -- to move in the opposite direction."

·         "Imagination is more important than knowledge."

·         "Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love."

·         "I want to know God's thoughts; the rest are details."

·         "The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax."

·         "Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one."

·         "The only real valuable thing is intuition."

·         "A person starts to live when he can live outside himself."

·         "I am convinced that He (God) does not play dice."

·         "God is subtle but he is not malicious."

·         "Weakness of attitude becomes weakness of character."

·         "I never think of the future. It comes soon enough."

·         "The eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility."

·         "Sometimes one pays most for the things one gets for nothing."

·         "Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind."

·         "Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new."

·         "Great spirits have often encountered violent opposition from weak minds."

·         "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler."

·         "Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen."

·         "Science is a wonderful thing if one does not have to earn one's living at it."

·         "The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources."

·         "The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education."

·         "God does not care about our mathematical difficulties. He integrates empirically."

·         "The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking."

·         "Technological progress is like an axe in the hands of a pathological criminal."

·         "Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding."

·         "The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible."

·         "We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them."

·         "Education is what remains after one has forgotten everything he learned in school."

·         "The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing."

·         "Do not worry about your difficulties in Mathematics. I can assure you mine are still greater."

·         "Equations are more important to me, because politics is for the present, but an equation is something for eternity."

·         "If A is a success in life, then A equals x plus y plus z. Work is x; y is play; and z is keeping your mouth shut."

·         "Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the the universe."

·         "As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain, as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality."

·         "Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods."

·         "I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."

·         "In order to form an immaculate member of a flock of sheep one must, above all, be a sheep."

·         "The fear of death is the most unjustified of all fears, for there's no risk of accident for someone who's dead."

·         "Too many of us look upon Americans as dollar chasers. This is a cruel libel, even if it is reiterated thoughtlessly by the Americans themselves."

·         "Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism -- how passionately I hate them!"

·         "No, this trick won't work...How on earth are you ever going to explain in terms of chemistry and physics so important a biological phenomenon as first love?"

·         "My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind."

·         "Yes, we have to divide up our time like that, between our politics and our equations. But to me our equations are far more important, for politics are only a matter of present concern. A mathematical equation stands forever."

·         "The release of atom power has changed everything except our way of thinking...the solution to this problem lies in the heart of mankind. If only I had known, I should have become a watchmaker."

·         "Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence."

·         "The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed."

·         "A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeeded be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death."

·         "The further the spiritual evolution of mankind advances, the more certain it seems to me that the path to genuine religiosity does not lie through the fear of life, and the fear of death, and blind faith, but through striving after rational knowledge."

·         "Now he has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That means nothing. People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion."

·         "You see, wire telegraph is a kind of a very, very long cat. You pull his tail in New York and his head is meowing in Los Angeles. Do you understand this? And radio operates exactly the same way: you send signals here, they receive them there. The only difference is that there is no cat."

·         "One had to cram all this stuff into one's mind for the examinations, whether one liked it or not. This coercion had such a deterring effect on me that, after I had passed the final examination, I found the consideration of any scientific problems distasteful to me for an entire year."

·         "...one of the strongest motives that lead men to art and science is escape from everyday life with its painful crudity and hopeless dreariness, from the fetters of one's own ever-shifting desires. A finely tempered nature longs to escape from the personal life into the world of objective perception and thought."

·         "He who joyfully marches to music rank and file, has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would surely suffice. This disgrace to civilization should be done away with at once. Heroism at command, how violently I hate all this, how despicable and ignoble war is; I would rather be torn to shreds than be a part of so base an action. It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder."

·         "A human being is a part of a whole, called by us _universe_, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest... a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty."

·         "Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts." (Sign hanging in Einstein's office at Princeton)

Copyright: Kevin Harris 1995 (may be freely distributed with this acknowledgement)

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