Former President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, India’s missile man, on Friday urged the nation’s youth to target reforming villages in the country as “vibrant engines of growth”. Dr Kalam interacted with an enthusiastic group of young men and women on the social networking website Facebook.
Organised by Penguin Books India to promote Dr Kalam’s latest book, Target 3 Billion, the Facebook chat attracted a large number of users hooking onto their screen in wait of his response to their questions.
Dr Kalam described his book, co-authored by Srijan Pal Singh, as his experiences and ideas on how the underprivileged population can achieve sustainable development. He said three billion people, almost half of humanity, live in villages, and their development should be the nation’s target. In his book, he said, he has evolved the model of Pura (Providing Urban Amenities in Rural Areas) for this purpose.
The online crowd was mostly upset with the growing corruption in India and wanted a practical solution from Dr Kalam to get rid of it. Many others were eager to know his take on various other issues in the country, such as child labour, women’s education, power crisis and so on.
Dr Kalam suggested a four-point formula to rein in corruption with stress on value-based education, e-governance, and a change of the youth attitude from what can I take to what can I give. He said that youth should start weeding out corruption from within their families.
On the power crisis, Dr Kalam said that he would have loved to make Rashtrapati Bhavan solar-powered.