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Elective English–II

Notes • ONE: Twenty years I spent in ISRO. I was given the opportunity to be the project
director for India ‘s first satellite launch vehicle, SLV3. The one that launched Rohini.
These years played a very important role in my life of Scientist.
• TWO: After my ISRO years, I joined DRDO and got a chance to be the part of India ‘s
guided missile program. It was my second bliss when Agni met its mission requirements
in 1994.

• THREE: The Dept. of Atomic Energy and DRDO had this tremendous partnership in the
recent nuclear tests, on May 11 and 13. This was the third bliss. The joy of participating
with my team in these nuclear tests and proving to the world that India can make it.That
we are no longer a developing nation but one of them. It made me feel very proud as
an Indian. The fact that we have now developed for Agni a re-entry structure, for which
we have developed this new material. A very light material called carbon-carbon.
• FOUR: One day an orthopaedic surgeon from Nizam Institute of Medical Sciences visited
my laboratory. He lifted the material and found it so light that he took me to his hospital
and showed me his patients. There were these little girls and boys with heavy metallic
calipers weighing over three kgs., each dragging their feet around. He said to me: Please
remove the pain of my patients. In three weeks, we made these Floor reaction Orthosis
300 gram calipers and took them to the orthopaedic center. The children didn’t believe
their eyes. From dragging around a three kg. load on their legs, they could now move
around! Their parents had tears in their eyes. That was my forth bliss!
Why is the media here so negative? Why are we in India so embarrassed to recognize our own
strengths, our achievements? We are such a great nation. We have so many amazing success
stories but we refuse to acknowledge them. Why? We are the second largest producer of wheat
in the world. We are the second largest producer in rice. We are the first in milk production.
We are number one in remote sensing satellites. Look at Dr. Sudarshan, he has transferred the
tribal village into a self-sustaining, self-driving unit. There are millions of such achievements
but our media is only obsessed with the bad news and failures and disasters.
I was in Tel Aviv once and I was reading the Israeli newspaper. It was the day after a lot of
attacks and bombardments and deaths had taken place. The Hamas had struck. But the front
page of the newspaper had the picture of a Jewish gentleman who in five years had transformed
his desert land into an orchid and a granary. It was this inspiring picture that everyone woke
up to. The gory details of killings, bombardments, deaths, were inside in the newspaper,
buried among other news. In India we only read about death, sickness, terrorism, crime. Why
are we so negative?

4.2 Four Milestones in Dr. Kalam’s Career

Dr. Kalam says that being the project director for India’s first satellite launch vehicle, SLV3,
was the first milestone in his career. Second was when Agni met its mission requirements in
1994. Third came the partnership between DRDO and the Dept of Atomic Energy. Removing
the pain of little boys and girls in hospital, by replacing heavy metallic callipers weighing over
three kg each with 300-gram callipers, was the fourth bliss or milestone of his career.

The Media’s Obsession with Bad News, Failures and Disasters

Dr. Kalam wonders how the media in India could be so negative. Giving the example of
Dr. Sudarshan, who has transferred the tribal village into a self-sustaining, self-driving unit,
Dr. Kalam says that there are millions of such achievements in India but our media is only
obsessed with only the bad news and failures and disasters.

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