Pune, January 17: From an unscheduled stop in the middle of the road to interact with children from St Crispin’s Home (orphanage), meeting music maestro Bhimsen Joshi, spending time with children affected by cancer and participating in experiments with students at the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan's Science Exploratory to giving directions to the National Insurance Academy and asking automobile sector to develop alternative fuels to stem foreign exchange outflow and sharing thoughts on the future of computers and convergence at the silver jubilee function of Tata Research Design and Development Centre, President A P J Abdul Kalam's day two in the city was future perfect. With anecdotes and narrating life stories of the great scientists, Kalam laid out the road map for transforming the country.

On farm sector and insurance
Agriculture growth has stagnated, even as industrial and service sectors are growing at 12 and 18 per cent respectively. While the number of people engaged in agriculture and land under farming will reduce considerably, the required food production will double to almost 350 million tones by 2020. The Finance Ministry has doubled the agricultural credit by banks to Rs 2 lakh crore, but it has not touched the life of needy farmers. His advice: National Insurance Academy (NIA) should conduct research to bring micro-credit to farmers and create innovative insurance products for them.

On crude oil and clean air
One of the concerns is that the $45 billion automotive business consumes $35 billion in foreign exchange for procurement of crude oil. Over 30 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide is dumped in the atmosphere every year by nations, particularly the developed ones. His solution: Develop alternative fuels for automobiles.

On education
The complete syllabus of primary education should be changed and children should not need school bags. It should be relative education, where teachers teach in a creative manner. In the future, a convergence of IT, biotechnology and nanotechnology will have the maximum impact on human life. His prescription: I am working with the Ministry of Human Resource Development and NCERT. We can create virtual classrooms where the children can see for themselves various activities taking place in various places and learn.

On convergence of technologies
Knowledge revolution is indeed the foundation for leading India into a developed nation. The convergence of bio, nano and information, communication technologies is expected to touch every area of concern to the humanity. With material convergence and biotechnology, a new science called Intelligent Bioscience will be born which will lead to a disease free, happy and more intelligent human habitat with longevity and high human capabilities.

Meanwhile…
At TRDDC function when the President saw students sitting in the front row, he said it was a cultural variation. "This is a cultural variation for me. Usually, students sit in the back rows and the big wigs in the front," he said. And for the 30-minute delay in reaching the venue, the President apologised: "I am sorry, I was late because some of the students asked me some questions and I was giving answers to them."

Source: http://cities.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=218120