India 2020: a Vision for the New Millennium PDF
Preview India 2020: a Vision for the New Millennium
1 INDIA 2020 A Vision for the New Millennium A.P.J. Abdul Kalam With Y.S. Rajan PENGUIN BOOKS 2 PENGUIN BOOKS Published by the penguin group Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi 110 017, India Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014,USA Penguin Group (Canada), 10 Alcorn Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4V 3B2 (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England Penguin, Ireland,25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland(a division of Penguin Books Ltd) Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd) Penguin Group (NZ), cnr Airborne and Rosedale Road, Albany, Auckland 1310, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd) Penguin Group (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England First published in Viking by Penguin Books India 1998 Published by Penguin Books 2002 Copyright @ A.P.J. Kalam and Y.S. Rajan 1998 All rights reserved 15 14 13 12 Typeset in Nebraska by SURYA, New Delhi Printed at Chaman Offset Printers, NewDelhi This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by any way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior written consent in any form of binding or cover otherthan in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser and without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the abovementioned publisher of this book. 3 After one of his talks delivered by Dr Kalam, a tenyearold girl came up to him for his autograph. ‘What is your ambition?’ he asked her. ‘I want to live in a developed India,’ she replied without hesitation. This book is dedicated to her and the millions of Indians who share her aspiration. 4 If those who think to achieve, Have a firm and focused mind, They will realize what they thought of, And even as they have thought of. Thirukkural 5 Contents Acknowledgements vi Preface vii 1. Can India Become a Developed Country? 10 2. What other countries Envision for Themselves 31 3. Evoultion of Technology Vision 2020 49 4. Food, Agriculture and Processing 61 5. Materials and the Future 83 6. Chemicals Industries and Our Biological Wealth 110 7. Manufacturing for the future 129 8. Services As People’s Wealth 143 9. Strategic Industries 170 10.Health Care for All 196 11.The Enabling Infrastructure 217 12.Realizing the Vision 240 Afterword 250 Appendix 264 References and further reading 266 6 Acknowledgements In writing this book, our ideas have been shaped by several hundred Indianssome very well known. Each interaction enriched our experience and added a new dimension to understanding India’s developmental needs and actions required. It is difficult to list every name. First and foremost, we are thankful to the Chairpersons and Cochairpersons of the various Technology Vision 2020 Task Forces and Panels as well as the coordinators and the key TIFAC persons who helped in the whole Vision 2020 exercise. Their names are listed in an Appendix to this book. In addition, the members of the Governing Council of TIFAC continue to be a source of encouragement. There are many members of the Technology Vision 2020 Task Forces, Panels, recently constituted Action Team members and the staff of TIFAC. We thank them for their dedicated work. Results of their work have been the source of a number of useful inputs in writing this book. We thank Prof V.S. Ramamurthy, Secretary, Department of Science and Technology, for the encouragement and the permission given to use the material from TIFAC reports. While embarking on this journey of writing a book, we realized the magnitude of various detailed activities starting with the manuscript. The book would not have taken this shape without the sincere, untiring and dedicated effort put forth by H. Sheridon, beyond his long office hours. His laptop computer was always busy for the past several months. We also thank Krishna Chopra of Penguin Books for his excellent project management in shaping the book to its final form. Y.S. Rajan would like to thank his wife Gomathi, who has been a great source of strength through her affection and tender care and through the candid expression of her insights into reallife situations. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam would like to place on records his thanks to the thousands of Indians who write to him on several occasions and inspire him to undertake several technological tasks for India. 7 Preface Both of us were born when India was still struggling for her Independence. One was in the final year of school when Jawaharlal Nehru made his famous speech about India waking up to make her tryst with destiny; the other was a child speaking a first few words. Our families were not known for riches or power. Destiny in the form of the progressive measures taken by independent India to harness science and technology in order to develop a modern nation brought us together. It was the vision of Vikram Sasrabhai, supported by Nehru and Homi Bhabha, which gave us the opportunity to work on the space programme. The programme was aimed at carrying developmental messages into homes all over the country, especially in the 6 lakh villages, by leapfrogging many traditional routes. The programme also aimed at surveying the natural resources of the country so that they could be harnessed to benefit our people. Many in India must have considered these objectives an unattainable dream in the early 60’s when the space programme was born. We, however, along with many of our colleagues, saw these aims as a vision real and attainable. What followed was a shared mission. Every person in ISRO believed that they were born to realize all that space technology can bring to the country and its people. For us, then, there was no going back. There were days and nights o work. Many failures and a few hardwon successes. The system which were designed, developed, fabricated and tested were directed towards a common goala strong India, a developed and proud India with the benefits available all over the country. It is gratifying to note the vision, in relation to space technology, has come true now especially in terms of reaching out to the people; providing communication through networks in remote areas; disaster warning systems; quick resource surveys to target ground water, save our forest cover and so on. And, of course, in areas of certain strategic strengths, vital to India in a world which respects only strength. We are also proud and happy that dreams of many Indians in the agricultural, scientific, artistic, cultural and social fields have also come true.However, the vision of a 8 prosperous India without poverty, an India strong in trade and commerce, an India strong in many fields of science and technology, an India with innovative industry and with health and education for all, has remained just partially realized. In some areas, in fact, pessimism has taken deep roots. We have completed the fiftieth year of our independence, with a large majority born after independence. Every year about twenty million Indians are being added to the nation. What vision can they have? Should we, like some, question the very concept of development and leave our people to the same condition of stagnation which existed there for centuries? Or think only of the upper strata of society and leave the rest to their fate, employing such nice sounding phrases as ‘market driven strategies’ and ‘competitiveness’? Or leave the initiative to various globalizing forces? Where should we see India (and its people) going in the next two decades? In the next five decades? And more? The authors were fortunate to have been associated with a large number of persons who were interested in posing these questions and finding some answers. These came substantially through a novel organization, the Technology Information, Forecasting and Assessment Council (TIFAC), which launched a major exercise called Technology Vision for India up to 2020. About 500 experts with unique experience in industry, Academic, laboratories and government administration were deeply involved in the exercise. Experts and socially aware persons also participated. About 5000 people contributed indirectly through responses to questionnaires and other inputs. Subsequently, while the teams deliberated on various issues and the draft reports, and later when the report was released by the Prime Minister on 2 August 1996, we had numerous opportunities to interact with many others about a vision for India. We had the benefit of various inputs ranging from encouraging suggestions for specific actions to pessimistic comments about the inability of systems to act on anything focused and long term. We traveled widely to interact with different sections of people in variegated parts of the country. We also reflected on the imperatives for India in changing world. We are aware of our systems of governance and social and political compulsions. We are fortunate to have gained experience in implementing projects involving people of 9 various strata as beneficiaries, as well as projects entailing strong commercial pressures and those that are high profile, such as a satellite or a launch vehicle or project. The execution of these schemes provided varied experiences, which worked as base line knowledge for the shaping of this book. Having taken these factors into account and after studying several vision reports of India and other countries, we still believe firmly that India can reach a developed country status by 2020. The Indian people can rise well above the present poverty and contribute more productively to their country because of their own improved health, education missile and selfesteem. India can have considerable technological strengths, so crucial for its strategic strengths and for economic and traderelated strengths. In this book we have attempted to share some of these thoughts. We have also disclosed elements of a few action plans, which can be missions for many young people in the country. We hope that these will help to stimulate young Indians and ignite their minds in the same way that we were ignited by the space programme three decades ago. Our vision ahead for the country and the missiles we see before us make us feel young even now. A developed India, by 2020 or even earlier is not a dream. It need not even be a mere aspiration in the minds of many Indians. It is a mission we can we can all take up and accomplish. Ignited young minds, we feel, are a powerful resource. This resource is mightier than any resource on the earth, in the sky and under the sea. We must all work together to transform our ‘developing india’ into a ‘developed india’, and the revolution required for this effort must start in our minds.This book,2020,will hopefully be the source for igniting many minds.
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