Country needs compassionate leaders: Kalam

The missile man answered various questions hurled at him and the students were thrilled with Kalam’s thought provoking answers. Calling upon the students to plant saplings, Kalam said, “The country has 300 million young boys and girls. If each one could plant five saplings, the country can easily have 1.5 billion trees. Assuming that about half-a-billion saplings die, still we can have one million trees. A great achievement!,” he added.

To a question on the vision of future space programmes in the World, Kalam said that it was the biggest challenge faced by the nations. Answering a query on carbon credit system, he said that the cars driven in the cities emit as much as 30 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide.

“Alternatives like solar power, nuclear power and bio fuel should be used to bring down the carbon levels,” he pointed out.  The former president said that  thermal power accounted to 60 percent of India’s total power generation of 150,000 MW, while hydro power accounted for nearly 30 per cent.

Kalam asked the students to derive inspiration from eminent women like Kenyan environmentalist and Nobel Peace prize winner Wangri Mathai and Sister Antonia Brenner who lived in a prison in Mexico working as a missionary nun.     

Encouraging the students, he said, “The country needs leadership with compassion. We need doctors, teachers and political leaders with compassion. The value of love is required for the development of local society.”