The Hindu Business Line : Nobility in politics must for economic prosperity, says Kalam

PARTICIPATING at the Annual Convocation of Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics, Pune, the President, Dr A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, said economic prosperity is not possible if nobility in politics is absent.

Freedom is the essence of democracy, but it does not mean licence for unbridled behaviour. Behaviour with a total sense of responsibility is the hallmark of any genuine democratic set-up.

He noted that misusing the freedom that is innate in a democratic set-up is nothing but vandalism. Kidnapping of children, which seems to have become the pastime of certain anti-social elements, falls into this category. This is a slap on the face of civilised society and a complete travesty of the values, which a just and fair society stands for.

Dr Kalam said the evolution of enlightened human beings is indeed a big challenge for the world community. There are three components to that. The first component is education with value system, second is religions graduating into spiritual forces to bring universal brotherhood and the third is poverty eradication by attaining economic prosperity through a national vision.

He pointed out that India now has a major challenge of uplifting 260 million people who are below the poverty line. The GDP is growing at more than six per cent per annum, whereas, economists suggest that to uplift the people below poverty line, the economy has to grow at the rate of 10 per cent per annum consistently, for over a decade.

Dr Kalam said to meet the needs of one billion people, five areas where India has core competence for integrated action have been identified. These include agriculture and food processing, education and healthcare, reliable and quality electric power, surface transport and infrastructure for all parts of the country, information and communication technology and self reliance in strategic sectors. These five areas are closely inter-related and if well maintained would lead to national, food and economic security, and national security.

One of the important components of national development is PURA (Providing Urban Amenities in Rural Areas), which will eliminate the rural-urban divide. This model can be followed by the other nations also, he said. Dr Kalam noted that the number of PURA units is estimated to be 7000, envisaging integrated connectivity to bring prosperity to rural India.

These are physical connectivity of village clusters through quality roads and transport; electronic connectivity through telecommunication with high bandwidth fibre 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 would lead to economic connectivity through starting of enterprises with the help of banks, micro credits and marketing of the products, he added.

Dr Kalam also conferred 26 post-graduate degrees to the students passing out of the Gokhale Institute.

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