India is as great in her present as she was in her past. India is finally here in 2020-at the pinnacle of success, the zenith promised by millennia of ideals. Here is but a very brief glimpse of what India has achieved. Merely ten years ago, a description as given below would have evoked mirth and incredulity as some wild flight of the imagination. But Indians have dreamed, dared to dream big and wildly, and transcended these dreams into reality. India’s journey through the ages has been one of courage and determination, of resilience, of rising higher after every fall; a journey of struggle, but struggle with a heart lightened by the enthusiasm of dreams and hope.
In 2008, when Chandrayaan-I was launched, how many could imagine that India would set up a colony on the moon within eleven years? But last year the honourable Prime Minister himself went to the moon to inaugurate the colony. But it has been the work of our esteemed predecessors over a century and the undaunted spirit of our youth that has made these miracles possible.
Just after Independence, Homi J Bhabha had planned a three phase Nuclear Program for India- first to obtain power from imported Uranium while it is converted into Plutonium; second to use this Plutonium with locally available Thorium to generate power; the Thorium being converted to Uranium which would be the power source for the third and final stage. Since India has one-third of all the Thorium in the world, there would be enough to power the country for hundreds of years! Today, the five major thorium derived U-292 based reactors are providing clean and safe energy to 1.3 billion Indians, their homes and automobiles.
This energy has helped place India at the forefront in almost all fields today. Power led to industry and infrastructure, these to economic development, and facilitated by education and the flamboyant Indian spirit, India in 2020 has no match.
But the search for power is not over yet. After achieving controlled nuclear fusion in a laboratory at Universal Institute of Technology (formerly IIT), Kharagpur, research is on to replicate it on a large scale. The erstwhile Oil India Limited, dealing with fossil fuels in the not too distant past, has changed its name to Oceania India Limited and is currently engaged in separating heavy water (D2O) from sea water for large scale fusion.
Naturally much credit goes to the new schooling system. Students are no longer forbidden to open textbooks while answering tests. The focus has shifted from gathering knowledge to freeing the mind. Creativity and imagination have stolen the focus from learning by rote. Anyway, everybody’s wrist computers can carry ZeraBytes more information than one can remember in a lifetime.
Indian Maglines has become the largest commercial air transporters in the world. Their antigravity amplifying pads do consume a bit of power for take-off and landing but once air-borne they slide along Earth’s magnetic lines of force. Power is needed only to change courses.
The marvel of the achievements of science is that all this energy is free from the contamination of pollution. Indian’s second green revolution has not been limited to her agricultural fields but has intricately touched the lives of over a billion Indians. Today a hot favourite among most Indian families is the genetically engineered “Ice-cream plant” where ice-creams grow instead of fruits! But it has to be grown in special boxes called “white house” to prevent the ice-cream from melting, and requires a calcium based fertilizer. Everybody today is attempting to grow different varieties of ice-cream.
Another matter of pride is the award of two Nobel Prizes to Dr A. P. J. Abdul Kalam. For the first time two of the much esteemed Prize is being given for the same discovery. Dr Kalam has won both the Prizes for Chemistry and for Environment (newly introduced) for his discovery of the process of converting Carbon dioxide into ozone in the stratosphere. With the help of specially constructed balloons, India is set to roll back the global threats of temperature change and ozone depletion.
Thinking of the stratosphere, one’s mind naturally goes to a place much further off-to India’s colony on the moon. After he became the Minister of Space Affairs, Mr. Laloo Prasad Yadav has made lunar tourism available at a very reasonable cost to the common man. But after that he has shocked everyone once again by retiring from active politics at the height of his career.
Indian politics could never do away with the multi-party system but today it has bonhomie that the Secretary General of the United Nations has asked the whole world to duplicate. Indeed for the first time after Independence, Indian politics shows the “Unity in Diversity” that the country has had been known for since time immemorial.
The backbone of Indian society has always been agriculture. Thus it is not surprising that India has taken a lead in farming activities with some near-miraculous discoveries. To elucidate the two best examples would be to mention the new rat species Ratus krishimitra and the angiosperm tree Indiana barsha. Ratus krishimitra is a genetically modified herbivore that specifically eats up the weeds and provides organic manure in its excreta. It has done away with harmful pesticides and weedicides, as well as chemical fertilizers. Meanwhile the Indiana barsha causes local cooling over an area, precipitating rain and thus minimizing any irrigation required.
With the growth of infrastructure and human resources, India’s economy has run through an amazing last decade-transcending her into a superpower. At present exchange rates, 1 rupee is equivalent to around 1.5 Euros and 4 Americos, the new currency of America and Canada combined. Recently, the Indian Parliament passed a grant of Rs 500 billion to the United States to improve their education system. India’s aid to the middle-east countries need little mention. After dramatic collapse of their economies when the world switched over from fossil fuels to safer and purer forms of energy, it was mainly through the efforts of our country that saw them through.
As rigorous a supporter of non-violence as ever, India has led from the front in nuclear disarmament by dismantling its arsenal of Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles. Crippled by our magnanimity, a certain neighbouring country has been forced to do the same, setting up a worldwide chain reaction compelling several nations to disarm their nuclear warheads too.
The menace of terrorism that had reared its ugly head during the end of the last century has been cut down. Control of population, development of the educational, the power and the industrial sectors has dealt a fatal blow at its roots. The government is now considering that the police force should no longer carry any firearms as there has been a paucity of any serious crimes.
But our armed forces are not sitting idle. The Indian Air Force has constructed a super secret plane that is rumoured to go around the world in 80 minutes. Its working is a top military secret but it is guaranteed to be cent per cent environment friendly. It, however, does not carry humans because human flesh cannot withstand the enormous g-force built-up during its flight. The Indian navy has put 9 of its best nuclear submarines to construct an underwater city in the Indian Ocean. With the full cooperation of the United Nations, it would be ready to support half a million persons within three years and would be expandable later on. A tentative name for the city is “Jaalaswarg”
In the field of medicine, India boasts of providing the most affordable treatment in the world. It is the favoured destination for insulin secreting β-cell transplant to cure diabetes permanently. Also Indian neuro-surgeons have received worldwide accolade for the “Brain- bypass” surgery to prevent stroke. Interesting to know is that all this has been made possible by the marriage of medicine and engineering that has led to the evolution of “Microtelesurgery”. The principle underlying this is the introduction of “medical microbots” into the blood stream that can be manipulated by surgeons outside to go to the wanted sites and effect repairs there. This also has achieved unprecedented success in the treatment of advanced cancers. India has also become the first country to achieve 100% coverage of the AIDS vaccine.
Also worth mentioning is the National Health Mission (Formerly the National Rural Health Mission, revised in 2012). This programme has had unprecedented success in promoting health in all aspects and has played a major role in control of the population explosion that had been threatening the country since 1920. India achieved a Net Reproduction Rate of 1 by 2016 and it has been stable in the last four years. The strength of a nation is known by the consideration it pays to its weakest members, and India has one of the lowest Infant Mortality Rate in the world (<>
India’s disease burden and a lot of social problems have dramatically reduced after the eradication of tobacco smoking and alcohol drinking. The people who could not give up these habits smoke figarettes or drink welcohol. Figarettes are just placebos that help to improve lung functioning while welcohol has choline that protects the liver.
The health-promotive aspects have also boosted India’s performance in various games and tournaments. This year India just felt short of topping the Olympics gold tally by 2 medals in a close race with China. However, after a gap of almost 40 years, Indian Hockey has won the Olympic gold again. And since Sehwag has become the coach of the Indian Cricket Team, India has not lost a single 5-5 match, creating a new record of being undefeated in 48 matches.
In the world of entertainment, India has never been behind. After introduction of 3-D movies, the latest craze is “facies de Cinema”. Now every viewer can chose the face of the hero and heroine they themselves see in the movie. Statistics say more than 80% chose their own faces. For obvious reasons the government has banned the changing of the villain’s face.
Digboi, in Assam, where the first refinery was set up in Asia, will be the site for the “International Museum of The Fossil Fuel Era”. It would have samples of all fossil fuels, mini-replicas of the machinery used to process these, and the largest collection of all sorts of automobiles that used to run on fossil fuel. Most modern automobiles have been converted to run on solar power and are augmented by electricity charging units (former “petrol pumps”). But a few will be preserved for historical purposes at this museum.
Thus, India has helped establish a new era. Rising from under the tag of a “Third World Country”, defying the pedantic pundits, surmounting the poverty of millions, she has emerged victorious in a tryst with destiny. Her victory of her own right, achieved through her own struggle - the “Heaven of Freedom” as envisaged by Rabindranath Tagore “where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection”.
India will not rest on her wreaths. The unexplored future beckons. To be stagnant has never been advocated in India. Dynamism is the secret of her life. The dynamism of truth and beauty intertwined with hope and courage has been leading her on this path and will do so till the end of time. Indians dream big such that even if a fraction of their dreams come true, they astonish the world! Time becomes immaterial for the spirit of India. At her darkest hour or at the pinnacle of success in 2020, the Indian spirit shines with equal intensity. I am proud to be an Indian any day, anywhere.
