Please read this article by giving 10 minutes from your busy life.

* The Former 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 T. Vs, 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 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 as 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.

Thank you,

Dr. Abdul Kalaam

JAI HIND!!!!

Bribes in India is usually extracted while granting licenses and permits, as ' speed ' money to get the job done fast, in sale of jobs, postings and transfers,' pugree', black marketing, regularising unauthorised construction, in getting public goods and services, Banks fradulant deals, public contracts, leakages and ' party funds'.These are all crimes under law and every law existing in this regard such as Indian Penal Code 1860, Prevention of corruption Act 1947/1988, Representation of pepoles Act 1950, Commission of Enquiry Act 1952, and the Central Bureau of Investgation, Central Vigilance Commission, Anti Corruption Bureau in States, the Ombudsman are all been ineffective in checking this menace. On the contrary the incidence of corruption is on the increase.

Why do people become corrupt? We all have needs and we want them satisfied. Need for food, shelter, love and affection, status and recognition, self actualisation are all needs well recognised in us. When our needs are not met we feel frustrated and some may start taking devient means to satisfy somehow or other. Corrupt ways and means they may pick up by observing others, what the Psychologist call Modelling Effect.If others use devient means and get their needs satisfied easily and get away with it too makes them copy those behaviour. Parents, teachers, leaders in public, heroes in films all act as models for younger ones especially when their needs are unmet by honest means. ' yata raja tata praja ' As the king so is the citizen.Consumerism, which makes people want what they donot need, coupled with market economy and negative part of globalisation act as an additional impetus for corruption.

How do we tackle the problem? Alleviation of poverty can be a foundation for eradicating corruption as higher values in life can emerge when lower, 'belly ' needs, are satisfied. Education that emphasise the development of not only the Head but also Heart and Hands, a complete person, is yet another antidote for corruption. A holistic perspective on life will offer multiple levels of deriving happiness other than greeds alone. Hence, kindling spirituality ( not mere religiosity ) in people where in we experience connectedness of all beings enabling us to live in harmony by sharing and caring with feelings of equality ushering in a new paradigm of life for the good of self and others will not have any place for corruption.Further we must realise that corruption is not merely the reflection of general decline in standards and morality in public and civic life, that would be a too narrow view of the phenomenon. Instead, we must see it as a symptom reflecting something that has gone wrong in the management of the State, a development perspective. Corruption is perpetuated because there is a system where corruption pays and honesty never. aAsystem need to be built in which good is rewarded immediately and consistently and bad is punished immediately and consistently, both should go together. hand in hand.

Corruption is eating away the vitals of our country.People at large appeared to resign to this fact. After all it has been there all along the times and nothing worthwhile could be done about it, they would say. In fact some may even quote Kautilya, Prime Minister in Chandra Gupta Maurya Empire, 4th BC. who had said "Just as it is impossible not to taste honey or poison that one may find at the tip of one's tongue, so it is impossible for one dealing with government funds not to taste, atleast a little bit, of the king's wealth. Just as fish moving under water cannot possibly foundout either as drinking or not drinking water, so government servants employed in the government work cannot be found out(while) taking money(for themselves).

( Continued next )

Next: Corruption in India

Don't we need some introspection??

Today, in India corruption is totally institutionalised. You get a seat in a professional college not based on merit, but based on either caste or money. Is this not corruption??

I am in Dubai now and there is corruption here also. But, money changes hands when someone does something for you out of turn, and not for doing something which he is supposed to do!!!

We Indians can start avoiding bribing where ever we can. Let this be a beginning.

LET US START INTROSPECTING.

BLAMMING IS EASY.

WHEN YOU POINT A FINGER AGAINST A PERSON, FOUR FINGERS POINT TOWARDS YOU.

I AM NOT SUPPORTING CORRUPT HERE.

WHAT I AM TRYING TO SAY IS WE ARE ALSO RESPOSIBLE FOR CREATING CORRUPTION.

MSG 4558