India completes her 60th year as a free nation on Aug. 15, 2007.

However, 60 years is a
short span in the life of a nation, and barely marks the first baby steps of a toddler.
Hence, any assessment of India has to be generous and optimistic.

We have made decent progress in several areas during the last 60 years. We have
produced world-class scientists, engineers, journalists, soldiers, bureaucrats, politicians
and doctors. We have built complex bridges and dams. We have sent satellites and
rockets into space. We have increased the number of doctors tenfold.

We have increased life expectancy from 32 years to 65 years. We have built about 1.25
million miles of new roads; we have multiplied our steel production by over 50 times and
cement production by almost 20 times. We have increased our exports from a few million
dollars at the time of independence to more than $125 billion now, with about $150
billion of imports.

There is an equally convincing set of data to show that we have a long way to go in
certain other areas. A whopping 350 million are illiterate; 260 million people are still
below the poverty line; 150 million people lack access to drinking water; 750 million
people lack decent sanitation; 50% of children are below acceptable nutrition levels; and
basic medicines are unavailable in 75% of villages.

Be that as it may, today I want to focus on a few major achievements that have
transformed the lives of our people in a way we never imagined would happen.

Green Revolution
Perhaps, no other Indian initiative has enhanced the national confidence as the Green
Revolution initiated by Dr. M.S. Swaminathan. This revolution, which started in 1965,
not only transformed India into a food-surplus economy from a food-deficit economy but
also triggered the expansion of the rural, non-farm economy. The lives of at least 400
million to 500 million Indians have been uplifted due to this initiative. From being a
perennial importer of grains, India became a net exporter of food grains 10 years ago.

White Revolution
Coming from a generation that experienced an acute shortage of milk, it is unimaginable
that, today, we have become the largest producer of milk in the world. The credit goes to
the extraordinary vision of one person, Dr. Verghese Kurien. In a nation where children
are malnourished, such abundance of milk has offered us the opportunity to fight
malnutrition with the means produced in India.

Economic Reforms Of 1991

The economic reforms of 1991--initiated by the late Narasimha Rao, Dr. Manmohan
Singh, Shri P. Chidambaram and Dr. Montek Singh Ahluwalia--opened up the minds of
Indian corporate leaders to the power of global markets, helped them accept competition
at home and abroad, and raised the confidence of consumers. Our hard currency reserves
have gone up from a mere $1.5 billion in 1991 to over $220 billion today. The reforms
encouraged entrepreneurship and gave confidence to businessmen and entrepreneurs to
dream big, create jobs, enhance exports, acquire companies abroad and follow the finest
principles of corporate governance.

Independent Media, Brave Journalists

The success of a democracy depends upon certain important values of governance:
fairness, transparency and accountability. The freeing of media, particularly television,
has laid the foundation for improving these values in our governments. The courage,
enthusiasm and zeal to seek truth of scores of idealistic journalists like N. Ram, Arun
Shourie, Sekhar Gupta, Sucheta Dalal, Barkha Dutt and Rajdeep Sardesai are what make
us feel confident that the future of this country is safe.

Telecom Revolution
No other technology has brought India--the urban and the rural--together so effectively as
the 500-line EPABX designed and implemented by the Center for Development of
Telematics under the leadership of Sam Pitroda. This program brought fresh confidence
to the people, as they could reach out, in a jiffy, to their loved ones, officials and doctors,
just to name a few. People no longer feel that they live in isolation.

Space Technology
Yash Pal's Satellite Instructional Television Experiment blossomed into a full-scale
television facility connecting millions of villages of India. Television has made our
political masters realize that their actions and inactions will be seen and judged by every
citizen--from the forgotten villages of Assam to the activist villages of Kerala. This
technology has given voice to the opinions of a billion people--the rich and the poor, the
educated and the uneducated, and the powerful and the disfranchised.

Atomic Energy
Dr. Homi Bhabha conceptualized the Indian nuclear program and initiated nuclear
science research in India. His program has made possible successful utilization of nuclear
energy in defense, power generation, medicine and allied areas. Our peaceful use of
nuclear energy has raised India's prestige as a mature and responsible player in this field.

Software Revolution
N. Vittal's Software Technology Program, along with the economic reforms of 1991, laid
the foundation for this industry's spectacular progress. India's information technology
exports grew from a mere $150 million in 1991-92 to $31.4 billion in 2006-07, and is
projected to reach $60 billion by 2010. The Indian IT industry is unique for several
reasons. It focused on exports; benchmarked with the best global companies; followed
the finest principles of corporate governance; created the largest number of jobs in the
organized sector; and demonstrated that Indians, too, could succeed in the most
competitive global markets.

What do these eight programs have in common? They were all led by visionaries. These
visionaries adopted and improved upon global benchmarks and settled for nothing less
despite tremendous odds. In each of these initiatives the national government was a
genuine catalyst whose extraordinary leaders helped fashion the India of today. They and
so many others created an India where all Indians have the freedom to design, innovate,
create and build their futures together. What a remarkable story of how the people and the
government can work together to achieve what was once thought impossible.