“When you wish upon a star,
Makes no difference who you are
Anything your heart desires
Will come to you”

Friends, I am delighted to address you all, in the country and those living abroad, after working with you and completing five beautiful and eventful years in Rashtrapati Bhavan. Today, it is indeed a thanks giving occasion. I enjoyed every minute of my tenure enriched by the wonderful association from each one of you.

I have many unique experiences to share with you, which signify the following important messages:

(1) Accelerate development: Aspiration of the youth, (2) Empower villages, (3) Mobilise rural core competence for competitiveness, (4) Seed to Food: Backbone for agricultural growth, (5) Defeat problems and succeed, (6)  Overcome problems through partnership, (7) Courage in combating calamities, (8) Connectivity for societal transformation, (9) Defending the nation: Our pride and (10) Youth movement for Developed India 2020.
A question from a little girl, Anukriti, of Sri Sathya Sai Jagriti Vidya Mandir School, of Darwa in Haryana, during children’s visit to Rashtrapati Bhavan on May 22, 2006, rings in my mind.

Anukriti asked me “why India cannot become a developed nation before the year 2020?”. I appreciated the question and assured her  that her dream would be taken to the highest institution of the nation and we would work for it to achieve before 2020. This question reflects how the desire to live in developed India has entered into the minds of the youth. The same feelings are echoed by over 15 lakh youth, whom I have met so far and who represent the dream of the 540 million youth of the nation.

I recall my visit to Nagaland on October 26, 2002. It was a unique experience for me at Khuzama village to meet tribal village council members and discuss with them the village progress and the dream of citizens. I was very happy to see the empowered village council functioning with financial powers and taking decisions. I saw a prosperous village with fruits and vegetables production. However, there is a need for providing physical connectivity in Nagaland through quality roads for enabling faster movement of products from villages to the market.

I would like to talk about the initiative of Periyar Maniammai College of Technology for Women, Vallam, Tanjore of Providing Urban Amenities in Rural Areas (PURA) complex involving 65 villages with a population of 3 lakhs. This includes provision of three connectivities — physical, electronic and knowledge — leading to economic connectivity. Periyar PURA has health care centres, primary to post graduate level education and vocational training centres. This has resulted in large-scale employment generation and creation of number of entrepreneurs with the active support of 1,000 self-help groups. Two hundred acres of wasteland has been developed into a cultivable land.  It provides a sustainable economic development model for the whole region.

The whole country needs 7,000 PURA to bridging the rural-urban divide.

On February 24, 2007, at Coimbatore, I had a beautiful experience. As I got ready for meeting the first person out of 20 appointments, a wheel-chair was in sight with a smiling person, probably in his late 50s. Unfortunately, he has no hands and legs. His radiant face was revealing his happy state of mind. He introduced himself as Vidwan Coimbatore S R Krishna Murthy. I asked him how this had happened. He smilingly said that it was from by birth. He thanked God, his parents, teachers and many others for giving him confidence, training and help. I asked him, what I could do for him?

He said, “I don’t need anything from you. I would like to sing in front of you”. I readily agreed. He sang melodiously the Saint Thyagraja’s pancha ratna kriti entharo mahanubavulu giving me a glimpse of his talent. I was quite touched. Despite being physically challenged, the latent talent of music could blossom in this person with his positive attitude and perseverance, encouraged by the parents, teachers, academics and rasikas.

I visited Urusa village, in Jammu & Kashmir, which was just recovering from the devastating earthquake on November 26, 2005. It has been adopted by the Air Force for providing relief and medical aid to the residents. I found that the school building had been severely damaged. I met all the school children and citizens. The villagers praised the Army and Air Force for their role in rescue and relief operations along with state government.
Despite severe loss due to the earthquake, the children and residents of the village participated in the relief operation with the armed forces and were smiling when I met them. They told me that the school was functional in temporary tents.

In 2005, I met the Tribal Council leaders, students, children of Chuckchucha village during my visit to Car Nicobar Islands. While various reconstruction and rehabilitation activities were in progress, I realised the unique trait among the Car-Nicobar islanders. Even though there were many human losses due to the Tsunami of Dec 26, 2004, they had taken possession of affected victims as their children and there is nothing like orphanage there.

Pan American e network
I addressed the Pan African Parliament on September 16, 2004, at Johannesburg, South Africa. This was attended by 53 member countries of the African Union, where I proposed the concept of Pan African e-Network for providing seamless and integrated satellite, fibre optics and wireless network connecting 53 African countries at an estimated cost of US $ 100 million.

As part of the project, 12 universities (7 from India and 5 from Africa), 17 super specialty hospitals (12 from India and 5 from Africa), 53 telemedicine centres and 53 tele-education centres in Africa will be connected. The pilot project on tele-education and telemedicine in Ethiopia has already been commissioned. Indira Gandhi National Open University has taken up MBA course for 34 Ethiopian students. Specialists from CARE Hospital, Hyderabad are providing one-hour live tele-consultation to doctors in Black Lion Hospital, Addis Ababa in Cardiology and Radiology since November 2006.

I visited KUMAR in Siachen Glacier located at 17,000 feet altitude held by the Indian Army, had a memorable underwater journey in INS Sindhurakshak and flew in a Sukhoi-30 fighter experiencing 2.5 g. I personally felt proud of our ever vigilant soldiers, sailors and air warriors performing their tasks beyond the call of their duty even in the most adverse circumstances natural and man made. The Nation cherishes the valour, commitment and devotion to duty of our defence forces.

Conclusion
I was touched by the variety of Indian panorama, emotional content of the tune, cultural diversity and unity of minds in the vast land of ours. There are also many new adventures by institutions and individuals. Our country is blessed with natural resources, has shown considerable progress in the last 60 years, and above all we have hard working people, particularly the power of the 540 million youth of the country. Every sector of our country has given me the confidence that India can become a developed nation well before 2020.

Dear Citizens, I conclude my address by sharing with you my mission in life which is to bring connectivity between billion hearts and minds of the people of India in our multicultural society and to embed the self confidence that “we can do it”. I will be always with you, dear citizens, in the great mission of making India a developed nation before 2020.

Jai hind