 |  | |
| SUBSCRIBE | |
 | |
| CURRENT ISSUE | |
| |
| |
| LETTER FROM THE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF | |
| |
| UPCOMING EVENTS | |
| |
| CURRENT ISSUE JULY 03, 2006 |
| ANNIVERSARY ISSUE: 30 GOLDEN MOMENTS |
 |
| Golden Moments What makes for achievement? An event. An hour. A gentle push from a persistent friend. Or just good timing. Thirty icons, at the top of their game, look back and re-live their finest moments. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| My Best Year  For President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, the journey to his golden moment, like the nation's travel, has been long and fulfilling. "There were many incidents that gave me cheer and few that brought tears," he says. In December 2005, while addressing a gathering attached to a research and development institution for physically challenged children in Orissa, a Class X student asked him, "Mr President, our teacher explained about you on the basis of the book Wings of Fire. You have varied experiences. Which one gave you maximum fulfilment?" As it was then, the answer is still difficult. The President says he was happy in 1980 when his team successfully launched a four-stage satellite launch vehicle, the slv-3, a first for India and a major scientific achievement, which put the Rohini satellite in orbit. Then in 1989, he was elated when his team successfully launched Agni, an intermediate-range ballistic missile, giving India a missile capable of delivering weapons with a high degree of accuracy. In 1998, India carried out the Pokharan nuclear tests. "When we were at the site of the event, witnessing in real time, India becoming a nuclear weapons state, it gave us great thrill," he recalls. Then again, "while I was Chairman of the Technology Information Forecasting and Assessment Council, a major decision was taken to bring out a vision document to transform India into an economically developed nation before 2020. This involved nationwide debate and brainstorming sessions among a cross section of people through 500 specialists. It resulted in 20 volumes of the Vision Document 2020 which has become a roadmap for development missions. This was the fourth task that gave me a high degree of happiness".
There is yet another moment. Technology used for the Agni heat shield, incorporating carbon-carbon material, when used for Floor Reaction Orthosis calipers (a mobility device for polio victims), brought down their weight to 300 gm from 3 kg. When these calipers were fitted on children afflicted with polio, it enabled them to walk and run around as parents watched with tears running down their faces. "This beautiful scene in 1990 was pure bliss," the President says. "Today, the lightweight calipers have helped 10,000 children in various parts of the nation." But above all is a question posed by a little girl this year. While visiting Rashtrapati Bhavan on May 22, 2006, Anukriti, a student of Sri Sathya Sai Jagriti Vidya Mandir School in Haryana's Darwa village, asked the President: "Why cannot India become a developed nation before the year 2020?" A thoughtful question, indeed. That, the President says, was "an ignited mind" demanding a developed India before 2020. "It is a question that reflects how the desire to live in a developed India has entered the minds of the youth." Kalam assured Anukriti that her dream would be taken to the highest institution of the nation. The same sentiment has been echoed by more than one million youth whom the President has met so far on his extraordinary travels. It represents the aspirations of the 540 million youth who will play a key role in transforming India into a developed nation. So what could be better than the present? Indeed. -By Raj Chengappa My Best Year
When in 1981 Salman Rushdie published Midnight's Children, his second novel, he left an indelible mark on the world of literature and created an entire sub-genre of Indo-Anglian writing. The modern masterpiece went on to win the Booker in 1993 and is still special to the 59-year-old Mumbai-born writer. "I am happy that it has continued to be read. For me, it was the beginning of a literary journey that has circled away from and back towards India, and will no doubt continue to do so." His fifth book, The Satanic Verses, plunged into controversy when sections of the Islamic clergy took umbrage and issued death threats against him, forcing him to go underground. Rushdie does not like to dwell on that dark phase and prefers to concentrate his energies on expanding his writing repertoire. This includes Haroun and the Sea of Stories, which he had originally conceived for his son. But, as he concedes, "It occurred to me after finishing it that many of the children's works I like-Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, Winnie the Pooh-were written, like Haroun..., to please children. Many of them, however, aren't children's books at all. There are many adult satisfactions within them. I hope that's also true of Haroun..." Two years ago, Rushdie married, for the fourth time, model and actor Padma Lakshmi at a private ceremony in Manhattan. Now, he shuttles between New York and London and declines to declare a favourite between the two: "I like both the cities. I don't even find them very different." A writer is at home wherever the inspiration is. -By Anil Padmanabhan My Best Year
When Arthur Dunkel, then the director-general of GATT, predecessor to the World Trade Organisation, called Jagdish Bhagwati to recruit him as an economic adviser, the erudite professor asked whether the recommendation had come from the Government of India or of the United States. Neither, said Dunkel, explaining, "Because I know both of them would have objected." This exchange captures the singular trait-unflinching commitment to speaking his mind-that defines the professor. It has also enabled him to stay a steadfast supporter of globalisation, even while other votaries have had a change of heart in the face of a growing number of critics. "I see globalisation as an instrument of policy. It can be used to accelerate growth and attack poverty," he says. Born in a Gujarati family, he left for England to study when he was 19. In 1961, he joined the Indian Statistical Institute, Delhi, as professor of economics. The same year, the young economist was asked by the Planning Commission of India to formulate a poverty alleviation strategy. "Those years were extremely formative and helped me remould my thoughts and challenge conventional thinking. It married my intellectual thoughts with the social reality of poverty," recalls Bhagwati. -By Anil Padmanabhan My Best Year
His father turned down the post of finance minister of Pakistan, little knowing that his son would one day be one of the richest persons in independent India. An undergraduate in electrical engineering at Stanford University, California, Azim Hasham Premji had to cut short his academic career at the age of 21 when his father passed away. Premji had to take over the reins of the family-run vegetable oil company, Western India Vegetable Products Limited (later shortened to Wipro) at Amalner in Maharashtra. From the vegetable oil business to one of the world's largest IT service providers and a software behemoth, his company has come a long way. He remembers the challenges he faced in shifting the thrust from consumer products to global tech services, creating an enterprise worth $19 billion (Rs 87,000 crore) with an employee strength of nearly 52,000 worldwide. For Premji, the exit of IBM from India in 1975 was a momentous event. The departure of Big Blue, as IBM was known, left a big gap for Indian companies like Wipro to fill with locally made minicomputers. "That was an opportunity for us in computer hardware. In the early 1980s itself we decided to have a 300-member information technology R&D team," recalls Premji, adding that it was a "strange, counter-intuitive and tough decision for a company as small as ours because back then even a 30-member R&D team was unheard of". A quiet Ismaili Muslim who prefers solitude to the spotlight, Premji is high on action and low on rhetoric. He believes so much in professionalising his company that he says he has no plans to anoint either of his two sons as heir (Premji's family owns nearly 85 per cent of Wipro). "We are right inside the storm that is transforming India and the world," he says. -By Stephen David My Best Year
If a single man could claim to have energised his sport, it would have to be Prakash Padukone. To those who remember 1980 and 1981, Padukone will forever be numero uno. For three weeks in March 1980, no one could touch the Indian with the gentlest of voices, the most silent of on-court shuffles and the most stinging of stroke-play. He won the Danish Open, the Swedish Open and finally, the ultimate prize in badminton, the All-England title, which he says was a lifelong ambition. His victory led to shuttle mania and the high noon of Indian badminton when the best in the world came to India to play for prize money (the live coverage was aired on Doordarshan in black and white). The sport swallowed up many column inches in newspapers and Liem Swie King and Morten Frost Hansen became household names. He could have been content-he was already national men's champion in 1971 at 15. By 1979, he had won the nationals nine times, along with medals at the Asian and the Commonwealth Games. He became the first of his tribe to venture out into the chill of northern Europe to train at a Danish club, willing to stretch the boundaries of his abilities. In 1981, with China coming out from behind the bamboo curtain and the threat of Chinese sportsmen sweeping the world, Padukone beat Han Jian in the World Cup final in Kuala Lumpur, 15-0, 18-16. It was the only time Han would be blanked out in a match in what was to be a career of great dominance. After the match, almost 15,000 spectators, the majority of them Chinese, pelted the courts with whatever they could lay their hands on. Padukone looked on in surprise, then packed his bags and collected his trophy. From heading the Badminton Association of India at one point of time to running a coaching academy in his native Bangalore today, Prakash Padukone is forever a champion, both for his achievement and integrity. -By Sharda Ugra
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
