My greetings to all of you participating in the inauguration of Sanskrit School, Pune in this beautiful environment. I am happy that Sanskrit School is taking certain initiatives which will go a long way in promoting creativity among the children. For example, providing cupboards for the children in the school, so that they need not carry the heavy load of books and note books is an important action. Secondly, the conduct of Social Studies, Science and Mathematics classes in the laboratories with all the equipments and displays will certainly lead to creative thinking. While I am in the midst of the students of Sanskrit School, I would like to talk on the topic “Knowledge makes you Great”.

The next component of knowledge is righteousness. Righteousness is described in a divine hymn.

Friends, when you are growing as a young person, in student life you have to acquire a unique trait of righteousness in the heart. In our language we call it Dharma. This righteousness in the heart is built by parents and teachers of Sanskrit School. The student life is very important. With righteous in the heart you will develop and evolve beauty in the character. The beauty in the character in a young person brings harmony in the home, to the joy of the parents. Harmony in the home propagates to the society and the nation. Order in the nation leads to peace in the world. Righteousness in the heart of the youth of the nation finally leads to peace in the world.

The third component is courage, which is defined as follows:

Courage to think different,

Courage to invent,

Courage to travel into an unexplored path,

Courage to discover the impossible,

Courage to combat the problems and succeed,

Are the unique qualities of the youth.

As a youth of my nation, I will work and work with courage to achieve success in all the missions.

Where from you will acquire the knowledge up to the age of seventeen? Yes, you can certainly acquire from home, good books, teachers and teaching environment and coming into contact with good human beings. When the knowledge acquired is used with righteousness and courage in all the educational campuses, we will have empowered and enlightened citizens, which is required for the growth of the individual and the growth of the nation.

Hence friends, now you realize, knowledge is equal to the equation:

Knowledge = creativity + righteousness + courage.

Now the teachers and educators may like to see how the real knowledge can be imparted to the students.

Now let me talk about the value of time.

Let not thy winged days, be spent in vain

As you all know, the earth rotates on its own axis once in a day having 24 hours or 1440 minutes or 86400 seconds. Earth itself orbits around the sun. It takes nearly one year for an orbit. With the completion of one rotation of earth around the sun, your age is added by one year as you are living on planet earth. Seconds fly, minutes fly, hours, days fly and years fly. We have no control over it. The only thing that we can do is, while the time flies, we can navigate the time. “Let not thy winged days, be spent in vain”. Now let me talk about the thoughts expressed by a creative mind during a competition.

Creative mind: Planetary life – 3000AD

On March 22, 2005, I participated in the award ceremony of Shankar’s International Children’s Competition at New Delhi. There I found the visualization of a 13 year old girl named Aardhra Krishna on how the earth’s civilization will look like around 3000 AD. In her imagination, the citizens are forced to migrate to Mars and have made Mars the home to a flourishing civilization. This advanced civilization, which was man made, comes suddenly under threat created by nature in the form of an asteroid of Jupiter. The asteroid from Jupiter orbit was coming towards Mars and Mars was in danger of extinction. The Scientists on Mars come up with a very innovative plan of a barrage of nuclear cannons to attack the oncoming asteroid. The bombardment destroyed the asteroid and the year 3000 sees a Martian civilization surviving from the fury of the nature by an innovative scientific application. What a wonderful thinking of a young girl! Dear students, I am sure your minds are equally powerful in visualizing and thinking. Let me share with you an event which actually took place in July 2005 through a NASA Space experiment.

Deep Impact on Comet Tempel-I

This event relates to the impact of the NASA spacecraft called deep impact smashing into the comet Tempel-I, with enough force to create a football stadium sized crater with a depth of a 14 storey building. The spacecraft was navigated by an Indian Shyam Bhaskaran – the deep impact travelled 431 million kms in 172 days escaping from the earth orbit and intercepted the comet at a straight distance from earth at 134 million km. the comet was orbiting around the sun every five and half years. This is considered as one of the landmarks in space exploration.

This event is important to divert asteroids which may hit the earth in future. One such large asteroid 1950 AD is expected to hit the earth on March 16, 2880 AD and nearly one third of the earth will be damaged like the depth impact one spacecraft is required to sent with high energy material to divert or break the asteroid to move it out of the present orbit.

Friends, as a member of Sanskriti School, I suggest to the teachers to ensure that the student acquire three unique characteristics in their life.

• Realizing the importance of the present, that is today.
• The confidence that I can do it and
• Building righteousness in the heart.

Friends, India today have a mission of transforming itself into a developed nation with a value system. This is a great challenge. This can be achieved through our youth power. Youth has got the power of ideas, ambition and ability. This resource of the youth is an important building block for transforming India into a developed nation. No youth today need to fear about the future. They will definitely be partners in building the India of their dreams.

Friends, I would like to assert that “No youth today need to fear about the future” if you have an aim in life, realize that spent time cannot be recovered hence the precious time has to be used for achieving the goal, have confidence to win, have confidence to defeat the problems and succeed and have a righteous heart, you will definitely succeed in all your missions.

What the teachers can give to the students for their growth? In an integrated way it can be said, that an enlightened human being can be created by the teacher through providing two unique characteristics. One is, building capacities among the students to inquire, to innovate, be creative, and develop the qualities of entrepreneurship and moral leadership. Second is the development of moral value system. I am sure teachers of Sanskriti School will be creating these capacities among their students.

My best wishes to all the team members of Sanskriti School and other schools present here for success in their educational carrier.

May god bless you.

Seven point oath

• Education is a lifetime mission. I will work, work and work and succeed.
• Wherever I am, a thought will always come to my mind. That is, what I can innovate, invent or discover.
• I will always remember that “Let not my winged days, be spent in vain”.
• I realize I have to set a great scientific goal that will lead me to think high, work and persevere to realize the goal.
• My greatest friend will be great scientific minds, great teachers and great books.
• I firmly believe that no problem can defeat me; I will become the captain of the problem, defeat the problem and succeed.
• My national flag files in my heart and I will bring glory to my nation.

Q and A session with Dr. Kalam

Kritika Agarwal, Class VIII

Q.1 Do you believe in ghosts or superstitions? What are you afraid of?

Answer : No, when I got down after the flight from the supersonic jet in 2006, someone immediately asked, were you not afraid? My answer was, dear friend, I was fully busy in my flight and flight control system operations. I did not have time to get afraid.

Srushti Susarla, Class VII

Q.2 What is the main factor that made India so prosperous at one time, which is not there now?

Answer : Work with integrity and succeed with integrity.

Karan Rawat, Class V

Q.3 Which one was more satisfying? Being the BIG BOSS of ISRO or the BIG BOSS of India?

Answer : All jobs require some competence. I tried to acquire that competence wherever I went.

Ahona Mukherjee, Class V

Q.4 Respected Sir, can you please give us a message of inspiration?

Answer :

Anurag Konkar, Class V

Q.5 How can we children help in the progress of India?

Answer : Plant five trees. Educate five members who cannot read and write. Conserve power wherever you can. Use renewable energy wherever possible. Keep your place clean and tidy. Excel in your education. Be righteous.

Priya Dingorkar, Class VII

Q.6 If you had supernatural powers what would you like to do?

Answer : I do not believe in supernatural power.

Hardik Kaushik, Class VIII

Q.7 Why do you love children?

Answer : They have no bias and they have a dream. Also they have enthusiasm to work.

Saiyami Takale, Class IX

Q.8 Why do you like to follow strict discipline in everything you do?

Answer : This is the only way to succeed.

Aerk Dimri Class VII

Q.9 Who inspired you and who is your role model?

Answer : Shri Sivasubramania Iyer

Kriti Singh Class VIII

Q.10 Please tell us the most memorable event/Episode as the President of India.

Answer : Meeting six thousand farmers in Rashtrapati Bhavan and discussing with them their success and challenges.

Avyakta Dabke Class VII

Q.11 Since we are spending millions on space Technology would you elaborate on how exactly it is useful to the common man in India?

Answer : Communication, resource mapping and weather prediction. All are useful to the society.