President's challenge to Indian scientists

President Dr A.P.J. Abdul Kalam lived up to his reputation of being the icon of the younger generation, especially children during his visit to the city on Tuesday.

But he was no less impressive at a gathering of scientists that included 14 Nobel laureates at the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB).

While his message to children was "to dream and dream big", he threw up three major challenges to scientists gathered at the CCMB's silver jubilee celebrations.

The first challenge was pollution in the Himalayas.

"If you could come out with micro-organisms that can tolerate extreme temperatures, then the problem of pollution can be tackled," he said.

The next was to develop a vaccine to prevent HIV, malaria and tuberculosis.

Evaluate ancient and traditional knowledge and translate it into potential drugs to fight various diseases. "But the biggest challenge", he said, "was to surpass the computer's mind".

Quoting from the book Age of Spiritual Mission, Abdul Kalam said while in 1998, the human brain could do a billion calculations per second, a $1,000 computer will make a trillion calculations by 2009.

The same computer will be able to challenge 1,000 human brains by 2029.

"Do you want the computer to master you? The marvel of the human mind is to dream and create. We can make the computer just a tool, if we take up the challenge," pointed out Abdul Kalam, a scientist of international repute himself.

To students at the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan earlier in the day, his message was hard work, perseverance and acquiring knowledge. And of course to dream and transform dreams into thoughts then into action.

Placards such as "We love you Kalam Anna" (We love you, brother) greeted him.

Not surprisingly, before leaving he plunged into the crowd of students and made their day by shaking hands with them and giving them each a personal exhortation to dream.

In the question and answer session, Deepak, a student, said, "We have one Mahatma, one Vivekananda and one Abdul Kalam. How do we get more Abdul Kalams?"

Abdul Kalam, said modestly, "Just acquire knowledge."

Another student asked: "What is the best thing about being the President of India?" Abdul Kalam answered: "He is a good guy."

At another function to inaugurate the first indigenous cardiac catheterisation laboratory at Care Hospital here, Abdul Kalam urged corporate hospitals to take their health care facilities to rural areas instead of making people come to them.

While 70 per cent of the people lived in villages, it was the urbanites who were benefiting from advanced health care, he said.

"If medical facilities available in urban areas can be taken to rural areas, most of the healthcare problems in the country can be solved," he said.