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Sri Valluripalli Venkata Seshadri Rao Memorial Silver Jubilee Endowment Oration
Sri Valluripalli Venkata Seshadri Rao Memorial
Silver Jubilee Endowment Oration
By
Dr T H Chowdary
(Padma Sree awardee)
Chairman: Pragna Bharati , Telangana
Founder & Fellow Emeritus: Center for Telecom Management & Studies
Fellow: Tata Consultancy Services
Fellow: Institution of Engineers (India)
Convenor: Bharatiya Dharma Rakshana Samakhya
Former: President - IETE ; IT Advisor- Govt of Andhra Pradesh
First CMD – Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd (VSNL)
Chairman: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Hyderabad Kendra
Governor: INTELSAT, Washington
Executive Counsellor: INMARSAT, London
8,P&T Colony, Karkhana, Secunderabad-500009
M:9849067359 WhatsApp: 8309392687 T:(40) 2784-3121
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Gudlavalleru Engineering College, Krishan District
Andhra Pradesh
16 Feb 2024
A Tribute
During our struggle for freedom from Britain’s Imperial rule and when thereafter we embarked upon planned economic development , men with vision and enterprise , realising the need for science & technical education founded Industrial Training Institutions (ITIs), Polytechnics and engineering college. To set up an engineering college in a rural area such as Gudlavalleru (Krishan District, AP) was bold and noble idea of the late Sri Valluripalli Seshadri Rao garu.
On the occasion of the Silver Jubilee of the College it is my pleasure and privilege to deliver Sri Valluripalli Venkata Seshadri Rao Memorial Silver Jubilee Endowment Oration as a tribute to this noble person .
I thank the management for giving me this privilege .
Lives of great men all remind us
We may make our lives sublime
And departing leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time
Dr T.H. Chowdary
16 Feb 2024
Building a Prosperous, Powerful and Ethical India
to be Viswaguru Once Again
“India was the motherland of our race, and Sanskrit the mother of Europe’s languages; she was the mother of our philosophy; mother, through the Arabs, of much of our mathematics; mother, through the Buddha, of ideals embodied in Christianity; mother, through the village community, of self-government and democracy. Mother India is in many ways the mother of us all”.
- WILL DURANT
American historian
(b.5/11/1885 d. 7/11/1981)
“Whenever I have read any part of the Vedas, I have felt that some unearthly and unknown light illuminated me. In the great teaching of the Vedas, there is no touch of the sectarianism. It is of ages, climes, and nationalities and is the royal road for the attainment of the Great Knowledge. When I am at it, I feel that I am under the spangled heavens of a summer night”.
- HENRY DAVID THOREAU
American philosopher
(b. 12/7/1817 d. 16/5/1862)
“If I were to look over the whole world to find out the country most richly endowed with all the wealth, power and beauty that nature can bestow-in some parts a very paradise on earth - I should point to India. If I were to asked under what sky the human mind has most fully developed the choicest gifts, has most deeply pondered on the greatest problems of life, and has found solution of some of them which well deserve the attention even of those who have studied Plato and Kant - I should point to India. And if I were to ask myself from what literature we here in Europe, we who have been nurtured almost exclusively on the thought of Greeks and Romans, and of one Semitic race, the Jewish, may draw that corrective which is most wanted in order to make our inner life more truly human, a life not for this life only, but a transfigured and eternal life -- again I should point to India”.
- MAX MULLER
British Philologist and Orientalist of German origin
(b. 6/12/1823 d. 20/10/1900)
We owe a lot to Indians, who taught us how to count, w/o which no worthwhile scientific discovery could have been made”...
I have made the Gita as the main source of my inspiration and guide for the purpose of scientific investigation and formation of my theories.
-Albert Einstein
German-born theoretical physicist - Theory of relativity (b. 14/3/1879 d. 18/4/1955)
“India is becoming the sink of the World’s gold”
- Pliny, Roman Philosopher (b 79AD)
Bharat was not poor:
India has been one of the two,( the other one was China) wealthiest countries in the world till the first decade of the 18th century. As long as in 74 AD, Pliny the great historian of Rome wrote, “India is becoming the sink of the world’s gold”. We were the largest exporting country in the world, receiving payments in gold. India and China, each had about 25% of the world’s GDP and 25% of the world trade. India had the most powerful navy of the world, that of the imperial Cholas who established their rule as Sailendra and Sri Vijaya Kingdoms ( modern Indonesia and Malaysia, Kampuchea and Vietnam).
All this glory and wealth declined and disappeared due to wars against invader looters-rulers and their residues, Resident -Non-Indians (RNIs) over nine centuries (11th to 20th) . When the foreign rule ended in 1947, India’s share in world’s wealth and trade was abysmally at about 2% for the world’s 20% of the population.
2. When the engineering college was being planned for Gudlavalleru some people wondered whether a village could be a proper place for an engineering college. There are no industries , no big businesses and is there a proper ambiance for an engineering college? The answer I used to give was that Birla’s planned an engineering college in Pilani in Rajasthan. They difficult to approach there were no industries that too it is in the middle of very poor country side. But Birla Institute of Technology & Science (BITS) has become a bye-word for excellence and under the same banner latter it had its likes under the same name . It is now available in a number of cities . What is necessary is what are the facilities for the students , what is the equipment for the laboratories , how qualified and dedicated are the teaching staff are what determine the name and fame of an institution. If it fosters research and creation of knowledge and its dissemination it would justify its existence in the rural area besides how does it contribute to the intellectual and aspirational stimulus for the rural families. On all these counts the Gudlavalleru Engineering College (GEC) has justified itself and that it is now an autonomous college from where number of Ph.Ds are coming and ranking companies are visiting to have campus recruitment are tributes with the founders to the management and the academic and other staff of this college. On this occasion on its Silver Jubilee I congratulate the founders , the teachers and the supporting staff for the eminence that this college has attained.
3. India is discovering itself and therefore it is much more appropriate to call this country Bharat which is the inheritor of its centuries -long glory until the ravages of intolerant and exploitative foreign powers had intruded into this county looted & destroyed its treasures and what is worse has even colonized the minds of its people into forgetfulness of its glorious past and induced imitation . It will be right to recall as what we were and what should be done to recapture the great heights economically and philosophically the country once attained.
4. Bharat Mahan: Some of the great builders of Mahabharat
Ø Jamsetji N Tata (b. 3/3/1839 d. 19/5/1904) was the Indian pioneer industrialist who founded the Tata Group, India's biggest conglomerate company. He established the Cotton Mills in 1878, Steel Mills , TISCO in Jamshedpur (1904) , Hydro Power - The Andhra Valley Power Corporation , Indian Institute of Science (1911) ; Taj Mahal Hotel (1903), Scholarship fund for Indians to quality for ICS - study in UK. Jamshedji Tata is regarded as the legendary Father of Indian Industry.
Freedom without Supportive Strength
Freedom without the strength to support it and, if need be, defend it, would be a cruel delusion. And the strength to defend freedom can itself only come from widespread industrialization and the infusion of modern science and technology into the country’s economic life.
Ø JRD Tata ( b. 29/7/1904 d. 29/11/1993) was the Indian aviator, industrialist, entrepreneur and Chairman of Tata Group. Born into the Tata Family of India, he was the son of noted businessman Ratanji Dadabhoy Tata and his French wife . He was born in Paris (France), a French citizen, served in the French Amry before coming to India. He renounced his French citizenship in 1929. He joined the Tata company in 1925. He was elevated to the Board in 1926.
He founded dozens of Tata companies during his more than 50 years of stewardship to utilise our national resources into products for the prosperity of India . Indian Airlines, Air India are the best known ( nationalized but ultimately privatized recently) .
He has no academic degree but was superior to any and every academician in several faculties.
He advocated family planning ( despite Jawaharlal Nehru’s expressed disapproval) to prevent the run-away growth of population, militating against prosperity for Indian families. He received United Nation’s award for work in this regard.
He received two of India's highest civilian awards the Padma Vibhushan (1955) and the Bharat Ratna (1992). He is the only industrialist- businessman who got the Bharat Ratna. Upon his death ( 29/11/1993 ), the Indian Parliament was adjourned in his memory – an honour not usually given to persons who are not members of parliament.
Ø Bharata Ratna Sir M Visvesvaraya ( b. 15/9/1861 d. 14/4/1962) was the first engineer who became Chief Minister ( Diwan) of a state, Mysore. Doctors became Chief Ministers galore but not engineers. The other engineers who became not Chief Minister but the President of the country was Dr APJ Kalam. He hailed from a poor Telugu Brahmin family whose ancestors migrated from the village Mokshagundam in Kurnool district to the environs of Bengaluru , Karnataka. He was an engineer from the famous college of engineering Pune. He started his carrier in Nasik. Sindh was part of Bombay Presidency There he constructed the Sukkur barrage (1894 at the age 33) where he earned his spurs. Coming back to Mysore he was responsible for industrializing and building up the prosperity by using State’s nature resources . He built the Krishna Raja Sagar barrage on the River Kaveri. Brining irrigation facilities to a parched region Mandya district. He built the Bhadravati Iran and Steel Company, Mysore Sandel Oil and Soap factory. He launched the Mysore University and founded the Bank of Mysore . He was chief engineer of Mysore (1809) at age 48. He was Diwan ( at the age 51) from 1912 till 1918. He was knighted by King George-V. In 1915 at age 54 the Nizam utilized his services to plan and executed a flood protection system in 1915. He founded the All Indian Manufacturers Association and wrote a series of papers for a planned industrialization of the country. He was a visionary engineer statesmen. Bharat honoured him by conferring the Bharata Ratna in the year 1955 at his age 94. The devoted Brahmin engineer planner, Chief Minister, statesman and visionary lived for a 101 years passing away in the year 1962. The engineering fraternity of Bharat, Sri Lanka, and Tanzania observes his Birthday 25 Sept as the Engineers Day.
Ø Homi J. Bhabha ( b. 30/10/1909 d. 24/1/1966) was the Indian nuclear physicist who is widely credited as the "father of the Indian nuclear programme". He was the founding director and professor of physics at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), as well as the founding director of the Atomic Energy Establishment, Trombay (AEET) which was renamed the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) in his honour. The BARC was launched on 3 Jan 1954. He confidently asserted that he could build an atomic bomb in 3 months that was in 1950s . Bharat tested a nuclear device on May 18,1 974 in Pokhran , Rajasthan. Interestingly it was a smiling Buddha. An Atomic bomb was tested on 11 & 13 of May 1998. Truly can it be said that this Parsi son Homi Jahangir Bhabha was a visionary who infused hope and confidence into Bharat’s scientists. He died 18 days after claiming that he could build an atomic bomb in the crash of an Air India flight 101 on Mont Blanc in Switzerland on the 24 of Jan 1966. Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) was founded in 1945 at the instance of Homi J. Bhabha, a noted atomic scientist as the first Director. TIFR spawned the BARC, ECIL among others.
Ø Vikram Sarabhai (b. 12/8/1919 d. 30/12/1971) was the Indian physicist and astronomer who initiated space research and helped to develop nuclear power in India. His Karma Bhoomi was Ahmadabad . ISRO set up at the initiative of Dr. Vikram Sarabhai in 1962. He was honoured with Padma Bhushan in 1966 and the Padma Vibhushan (posthumously) in 1972. I had a pleasant experience with him. I took over charge of the battered Ahmadabad Telephones in the first week of 1971. A few days after that he sent for me and he gave me an inspiring message and task and said that we should meet every fortnight. Alas ! that was not to be because he passed away at the end of that month itself. His wife, Mrinalini was a great Bharatanatyam dancer and a noble hostess. The Sarabhais in Ahmedabad are great industrialists and Anusyabehn Sarabhai was a labour leader.
Ø A.P.J Abdul Kalam (b. 15/10/1931 d.17/7/2015) While no engineer became the Chief Minister and engineer that became the Rashtrapati of Bharat was Dr APJ Abdul Kalam. He was born in a poor Muslim family in Rameswaram where his father was selling flowers to the Hindu pilgrims visiting the famous Rameswaram temple. He got his engineering degree from the first privately established engineering college, The Madras Institute of Technology (MIT) in Guindy , Chennai. Dr APJ Kalam and the Defence Research and Development Organization (DRDO) where he spent all his carrier in government service are synonyms. He known as the Missile Man. He familiared him with all the missiles used in the Mahabharata war. So this missile man named all the missiles after those in the Mahabharata war - Agni, Prithvi, Thrishul, Akash, Nag…. Besides being a scientist engineer he was a visionary dreaming to build a powerful and prosperous and united Bharat. When he became the Rashtrapati he loved to share his knowledge and vision with the young in the country. As a Rashtrapati he toured the country extensively addressing young students in high schools and colleges to inspire them to acquire knowledge and build a powerful and prosperous and united country . He worked closely with and for ISRO. He was honored by the Rashtrapati of Bharat with Padma Bhushan in 1981 and Padma Vibhushan in 1990 and Bharat Ratna in 1997.
I cherish my association with this great soul. When I was conducted a meeting to the Vice Chancellors of AP, I admitted him to address them. During the Question & Answer session one Vice Chancellor asked how corruption could be removed. On the dais on one side of the Rashtrapati was the governor on the other side Chief Minister and myself. Dr APJ Kalam looked at the governor askance .There is no response he looked at the Chief Minister there was no response. Then he answered . There are only two people who have the power to curb corruption in the bud – the Mother and the teacher !
At another session on another occasion when I invited him to address the teachers of secondary schools from government and private institution . The question by everybody was, “why in government schools the performance is poor and why it is far better in private schools ? The discussions were frank. And the noble Dr Kalam inspired the teachers and instructed them that they are responsible along with mothers for turning out the young into noble persons. He is an absolute example of integrity as a President he did not want to spend government money for giving Iftar party ( to Muslims during Ramzan). He used his money from his personal account gave it to his Secretary and asked him to spend at a mosque.
His brothers and other relatives came to Rashtrapati Bhavan to see Delhi. He spent his personal money for their travel, he paid for all the charges for the Guest houses and food that was given to them and engaged a private bus to take the visitors round the city. Is there any parallel to Dr APJ Kalam’s incorruptibility and integrity ?
He was the dreamer and induced to dare to dream and accomplished. He invented the word imagineering - young should have imagination and the engineering talent to realise their dreams for a glorious Bharat.
It is unfortunate that his co-religionists did not consider him a Muslim because he did not marry and have children.
Ø Dhirubhai Ambani (b. 28/12/1932 d. 6/7/2002) was born in a poor Gujarat family . In his youth he migrated to Aden (the gateway to the sewage canal in the South Western tip of Yemen) .They worked at a gas filling station. After a few years he returned to Gujarat and in Ahmedabad he was selling cloth ! From such humble origins he has built by dreaming and labouring to build the Reliance Empire in India. In 1977 he started the Reliance Industries. Every bank he approach refuse to give any loan or put an investment. He vowed that he would make the citizens of India investors and dealers in the Stock Market. He got the Vimal Cloth Stores all over the country as his canvas was for investment. Millions put in the money. One rupee share in 1977 is now aiding at Rs. 3,500 and over a time bonus shares had given . His elder son Mukhesh Ambani is as good a dreamer as father . The Reliance industries is into oil refinery, power production, gas and oil prospecting and to cap them all telecommunications. The R-Jio launched in 2016 is made a disrupted debut into mobile telephony and data internet services. I was Advisor to the Reliance in 1994. I saw Dhirubhai at work and instructing his sons. Reliance decided to get into telecoms. They would bid for licenses. Myself , Anil Ambani and a former Secretary of Finance of the GOI went to the AT&T in the USA and forged a MOU for a joint venture. Officials of the AT&T had a return visit. There was a meeting with Dhirubhai. The AT&T team was vaxing eloquently about the extensive share holding and how many American families look forward to annual dividend that AT&T pays. Dhirubhai condemned short and said in India people do not invest for dividend , they invest for growth. They were stuck and came to the conclusion that Dhirubai would outfit them and therefore they withdrew from the alliance. Dhirubhia on my advice declared, “ We will make telephony cheaper than a post card and at the same price all over India” The R-Jio is living upto that. It is now the premier telecom company in the country ahead of earlier entrance and squelching all but three rivals two of which are loss-makers and highest-debt holders . The Reliance companies are now competing with the TCS in having the highest stock market valuation each at about Rs. 15 lakh cr .
In 2016, he was honoured posthumously with the Padma Vibhushan, India's second-highest civilian honour for his contributions to trade and industry.
Ø Bhogaraju Pattabhi Sitaramayya ( b. 24/11/1880 d. 17/12/1959) was one of the great leaders of the Indian National Congress and a leading activist in the freedom struggle . He saw the need for economic development of the country . So, he founded the Andhra Bank in Machilipatnam ( 28/11/1923). The Andhra Scientific Company ( 9/4/1937) which was taken over by the Bharat Electronics in 1982 and Andhra Insurance Company, Krishna Jilla Co-Operative Bank in Krishna District and Bhagyalakshmi Bank. These commercial ventures show Dr Pattabhi’s foresight in the task to build an economically strong Bharat .
Ø Swami Vivekananda (b. 12/1/1863 d. 4/5/1902 ) was India’s great Hindu monk, philosopher who with his address at the Parliament of the World’s Religions on 11/9/1893 in Chicago, USA with the opening words , “Sisters and Brothers of America” established him as India’s philosophical, cultural and dharmic nationalist herald of Bharat’s millennial civilization, culture & dharma. Young Bharateeyas take inspiration from his speeches to build Bharat Mahan. When Sri Eknath Ranade requested the permission of the government of India to erect the Vivekananda Rock Memorial off Kanyakumari the then “secular” Education Minister Humayun Kabir in Nehru’s cabinet turned it down. Sri Ranade collected signatures of 350 MPs in an appeal to Nehru for the permission. Nehru had to give it.
Ø G D Birla (b. 10/4/1894 d. 11/6/1983) was not only a businessman and industrialist he supported Bharat’s freedom movement by significantly financing the Indian National Congress. (The House of Bajaj was another which financed the Congress movement). Sri Birla founded the Birla College of Engineering in 1946 and Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS ), Pilani in 1964 which has through its several campuses in Bharat has been promoting high caliber technical education. To build up economic strength of Bharat he founded the United Commercial Bank (UCO Bank) in 1943. Besides several industrial companies he has also built up what have come to be known as Birla Mandirs in several cities like Delhi & Hyderabad. He was honored by the Rashtrapati of Bharat with the award Padma Vibhushan in 1957.
Ø Verghese Kurian ( b. 26/11/21 d. 9/9/2012) was the engineer from my Alma mater College of Engineering Guindy, Chennai. He organized the dairy farmers in Gujrat and in a challenge and defiance of the then dominant British company Polson in this sector . He built up the prosperity of cattle owners and made his Amul brand of butter overtake the British company Polson. He is rightly called the “Father of The White Revolution” (just as Sri B V Rao is called the “Father of Poultry Industry” in Bharat).
He was awarded Ramon Magsaysay Award in 1964 and World Food Prize in 1989. In 1999, he received Padma Vibhushan. He was conferred the Order of Agricultural Merit by the French Government in 1997.
5. National Population Policy:
In 2023 India’s population was at 1430 mln; we overtook the world’s most populist country China. Is this a matter of rejoicing or critical evaluation. If that population is so many mouths to feed and bodies to clothe and house , it is a disaster. But if those numbers are that many intelligent, inquisitive and inventive minds then the population is a great asset. Government of India is giving food stuffs for over 800 mln ( nearly 760%) people for the last few years. Millions live in hovels but not in houses with necessary amenities. The population of Uttar Pradesh today at over 220 mln is what the whole of undivided India had in the year 1901. We have been adding nearly 10 mln people per year and even as the total fertility rate has been coming down, because the base has been expanding , the number of people being added has not been diminishing. The area of the country does not increase beyond the 3.4 mln sq. kmts. The population density of India in 1951 was 117 and now in 2021 it is 425 per sq. mts. The poverty and the density are very well related. Bihar has the highest population density 1,100 people per sq. kmts and they are having the lowest PCI of Rs. 57,000 and the lowest telephone penetration of 55 per 100 people while the PCI of Bharat is over Rs. 1,85,000 and the telephone density is 85% at end of Sept 2023 . What is worse is, while the population as a proportion of the total of the well- to-do people is declining that of the have- nots has been increasing, requiring the government to spend more and more on welfare to the extent that the state and Union governments have to transfer money into what have come to be known as DBT- direct bank transfers of cash. The target of doubling the farmer’s income is not being achieved by larger production fetching higher but by input subsidies by the state and Union governments.
6. Prime Minister had been frequently mentioning that in the last 9.5 years India’s economy has gone up from the 11th position to the 5th position in the world (see table below). It is not only the amount of GDP that matters , more importantly as far as the peoples’ wellbeing is concerned in the per capita income. One can see form the table ours is a miserable $ 2,643 compare to China’s , USA and other top 5 countries.
The World’s Top Five Economies
|
Country |
USA |
China |
Germany |
Japan |
India |
|
GDP ($ Trln) |
27 |
17.7 |
4.4 |
4.2 |
3.7 |
|
Pop (mln) |
333 mln |
1,444 |
81 |
127 |
1,341 |
|
Per Capita GDP ($) |
81,818 |
12,258 |
54,321 |
33,071 |
2,643 |
7. China’s PCI until the late 1980s was less than that of India. But today it is 4.8 times more than India . The reason is, from the 1970s onwards Chian has adopted a population policy that is related to its economic wellbeing and its aspiration to be a great power which it was once like Bharat at the beginning of the 18th century . In 1980 one child-norm and from the year 2016 two-children policy and now people getting exhorted to have three- children . All this is related to the economic growth . China now has the world’s second highest GDP ($ 17.52 trillion) after the US. Even then because of its population its PCI is $ 12,621.721 in Dec 2023 much less than that of the most prosperous countries like the USA , Japan and Germany . The lesson is that, it is not only the amount of GDP that is significant but the PCI . Although India’s GDP $ 3.7 trillion, the fifth largest economy, the PCI is very low that of USA and China.
8. The most troubling problem of unemployment in this country especially of the young will be troubling us and create political instability and rise of the populist regional politicians. Government’s do not create wealth. They are to facilitate the creation of wealth by the individual and corporate efforts of well -educated and motivated people. Scientists, engineers and technicians of good quality are required to convert natural resources including that of sun in the skies, water in the oceans and minerals from underground. In this respect the quantity and quality of our engineers is very important . India is now producing 15 lakhs of engineers per year. The number is not equal by any country in the world or any combination of any number of countries. The sad fact however is employables among them are under 15%. Thinking that they don’t have skills this country as embarked upon a great skilling effort . We have even created Skill Development Ministry in the Union government and there is talk of even Skill Development University! We now have millions of certified (as engineers) but not qualified for doing any engineering. Welfare measures like enabling everybody to go to colleges including engineering and other professions with fee reimbursement as a social welfare measure, has not been producing enough desired consequences.
9. A proper population policy that is related to our economy just as in China must be adopted without any further delay. Another depression fact about the population growth is that, it is not among the well -to-do education and wealth wise families but among the poor and among certain ill-intentioned section of our population. This is to be corrected.
10. Finally, Bharat was great; it will be greater and a Viswaguru if we draw inspiration from what we had been till we went under foreign rule of plunderers, iconoclasts, theologically inspired and talked intolerant hordes.
Let me end this with the very eternally valid advice of Abraham Lincon.
“You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.
You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.
You cannot establish sound security on borrowed money.
You cannot keep out trouble by spending more than you earn.
You cannot build character and courage
by taking away man’s initiative and independence.
You cannot help men permanently by doing for them
What they could do for themselves.”
- Abraham Lincoln
(Source: Freedom First, May 1989)
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