The Penguin Annual Lecture 2012 by Dr A P J Abdul Kalam at India Habitat Center, Delhi, INDIA - BEYOND 2020 || 18th December 2012

Former President-turned best-selling writer Dr A P J Abdul Kalam uncovered a 10-point agenda for India beyond 2020 as a nation where the rural and urban divide will be reduced to a thin line, distribution of wealth will be equitable and education and value system will not be denied to people. The unveiling was performed on 18th of January at India Habitat Center. It was Penguin Annual Lecture. Let's check out this PHOTO JOURNEY to know more about the great talk by Dr. Kalam.

Andrew Phillips, CEO Penguin India, started the event with some information about top selling books of 2012 and welcomes Dr Kalam on stage.

Penguin Books India, the largest English language trade publisher in the subcontinent, hosted  the Penguin Annual Lecture Series 2012. On the occasion of Penguin Books India’s 25th Year anniversary, the Penguin Annual Lecture was delivered by Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam on 'Beyond 2020: Sustained Development Missions for the Nation'. Dr. Kalam shared his well-founded beliefs on the need for sustainable development of the nation and visualized India as an economically developed nation by the year 2020.  

Avul Pakir Jainulabdeen Abdul Kalam, born on 15 October 1931 and usually referred to as Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, is an Indian scientist and administrator who served as the 11th President of India. Dr Kalam was born and raised in Rameswaram, Tamil Nadu, studied physics at the St. Joseph's College, Tiruchirappalli, and aerospace engineering at the Madras Institute of Technology (MIT), Chennai. A great personality and humble citizen on the country.

After joining the stage, Dr Kalam started presenting his ideas about sustainable growth of India through his detailed slides on Beyond 2020: Sustained Development Missions For the Nation.

The Penguin Annual Lecture series every year features some of the world's most respected leaders, thinkers and writers, and builds on Penguin India's commitment to bring the finest minds in the world in direct contact with Indian audiences. It is one-of-its-kind annual lecture event to be organized by a publishing house in India. The previous Penguin Annual Lectures have been delivered by journalist and writer Thomas Friedman in 2007, diplomat and writer Chris Patten in 2008, Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen in 2009, eminent historian Ramachandra Guha in 2010 and his holiness the Dalai Lama in 2011. 

Creative leaders with vision will be among key drivers for evolution of a sustainable development model that can lead to an economically developed, happy and peaceful India beyond 2020, according to former President A P J Abdul Kalam.

Talking about the value system Dr A  P J Abdul Kalam said that 'I want to see how many young children can change the value system in country. During 2003 youth started to ask what I can do to change the situation and contribute to the development of the nation.....During the last 6 months I see a further change in the youth, who now say I can do it. This has given me confidence that India will become an economically developed nation by 2020.'

Dr Kalam has been working on sustainable model for civic amenities in rural India under the project 'Provision of Urban Amenities in Rural Areas (PURA)' since 2003. He said that it could improve the lot of 700 million people of India by developing systems that would 'act as enablers' for inclusive growth.

Dr Kalam also focused on giving back to the environment. He added that for millions of years humanity has always been taking resources without giving anything back to the planet. Time has come to take less and less from nature to achieve sustainability....It will lead to well-being of the people and continuous growth. Audience had some interesting questions around the same during end of the session.

Dr A P J Abdul Kalam gave new thoughts to ensure how the benefits of the economic prosperity reach the people at the bottom of the pyramid, as also to ensure qualitative and quantitative benefits reach the 700 million people in the 6,00,000 villages. Dr Kalam cited need of visionary leaders, like C Subramanium, MS Awaminathan and Vikram Sarabhai. 

During the talk, Dr Kalam added about the role of publishing houses. Dr Kalam has authored books like the 'India 2020: A Vision for the New Millennium', 'Ignited Minds' and 'Turning Points: A Journey Through Challenges'. He said that big publishers like Penguin could become partners in the country's development success story by 'presenting more researches and papers on the country's success stories in the development in the form of books and e-books'.

The missile man of India narrated an incident of 1990s, when during his address to a group of children in Ahmedabad a young girl got up and asked him when she could start 'to sing a song of India?'. Dr. Kalam said that he came to understand that the girl's elder brother, who lived in the US, used to give her accounts about the beautiful lakes, roads and prosperity there and she wanted Kalam to tell her when she too can 'sing a song about India like her brother was singing a song about America'. 

During the end of the session, Dr Kalam took around 10 questions from audience and while answering one of the question around Anti-Corruption in India, he mentioned - 'I believe that Anna Hazare route is definitely going to bring us a very powerful law on anti-corruption one day. But there is no place in jail as all the prisons would get filled up, do you want that?'

In Dr Kalam's book India 2020, he strongly advocates an action plan to develop India into a knowledge superpower and a developed nation by the year 2020. He regards his work on India's nuclear weapons program as a way to assert India's place as a future superpower. It was reported that, there was a considerable demand in South Korea for translated versions of books authored by him.

Kalam continues to take an active interest in other developments in the field of science and technology. He has proposed a research program for developing bio-implants. He is a supporter of Open Source over proprietary solutions and believes that the use of free software on a large scale will bring the benefits of information technology to more people.

CEO, Penguin India, sharing Thanks notes with everyone present and Dr Kalam @ India Habitat Center (IHC, Delhi)

During the end of the talk audience wanted to have autographs of Dr Kalam on his book or other pads. At the same time son of CEO came to the stage to get the autographs. Somehow, this disturbed me a bit. Isn't it a type of corruption where selected people get access to something for which others are putting their best efforts. Anyways, would like to hear your thoughts around the same?