Few takeaways from “Ignited Minds”

It’s been three years since we lost the Missile Man of India, one of the most celebrated Indian scientists of this era. Even though the man himself, Dr. A P J Abdul Kalam, left us, his works and his writings are still present with us to guide and re-shape this rising India.

Dr. Kalam is a man who needs no introduction. He spent the bulk of his career in the prestigious Indian government organizations ISRO, and DRDO and also served as the 11th President of India.

This article is about a few takeaways I was able to glean from one of his popular works, Ignited Minds.

Big Picture, Coordination, and Inclusiveness — An aspect which was heavily and regularly cited in the book was that Dr. Kalam felt a lot of institutions work separately instead of moving together with a common goal in mind. He cited several examples for this. One of them was the lack or absence of any industries, which can use steel as the input material and convert them to finished products, around the Bokaro steel plant in Jharkhand. If the State and Central governments could have coordinated and industrialized this area in a coordinated manner, the created steel can be transported to nearby industries in a quick time, for a cheaper cost and overall, give us a finished product with a quick turnaround. It helps in the development of this area and also with getting a finished product with a better price. The lack of this inclusiveness is not doing India any favors.

Connectivity — Expanding on the idea that India should look to achieve the status of a developed country with urgency, he looks at the current rate of urbanization. He says that the way to become a developed country is not via its populace abandoning villages and migrating to the cities. He says that we should try to emulate and provide similar facilities, like those available in the cities, in the villages. The biggest problem for overcoming this obstacle is the lack of connectivity or transportation facilities between the villages and their nearby cities. He suggests that nearby villages must be pooled up and roads or highways should be built between this pool and the nearby city. He goes on to say that once this problem is solved, and once people get similar facilities as cities at their doorstep, no one will be interested in migrating away from their original homes.

Determination — Dr. Abdul Kalam explained that the conviction, the drive to live with freedom is what energized an entire generation of Indians. He says that the current generation of Millenials should yearn to live in a developed nation with a similar zeal. He feels that this is what will provide the acceleration for the country’s development.

Education — For India to become the next superpower that it is expected to be, manpower is the biggest requirement. Dr. Kalam believes that it is possible only by achieving 100% literacy. He feels that at the same time that India improves her higher education facilities by establishing more research-oriented organizations, she should also improve her primary school facilities which will enable and give a direction to the younger generation during their initiation itself.

Value Addition — Dr. Kalam says that India is a country which is blessed with so much variety w.r.t. minerals and raw materials. But as long as India concentrates on just extracting and exporting the low-income raw material, he says that India is not going to take huge steps w.r.t. development. For this, he gives us the example of beryllium diaphragms which are used in missiles. When India was taking its baby steps towards missile development, a committee was formed to procure the necessary beryllium diaphragms. For this, the committee approached a certain company from the US but they had backed out in the last minute citing the US government’s objection of the export of any parts which can be used in missiles. The startling observation that Dr. Kalam’s team made during this phase was that the raw material, Beryllium was actually being mined in India and exported to Japan. Japan purifies it and later sends it to the US where the final product is being manufactured. The difference in the price of the finished product to the price of the raw material is huge and due to the absence of the industry making the final product, India is losing a huge amount of income. So, without any value addition, India is just exporting all the raw materials for a dead cheap price and making a net loss when they are importing the final product.

The above are only a few points made by Dr. Kalam in this excellent book. It’s not a very long read and something that should be picked up by all non-fiction book lovers who want to understand the current challenges that India as a country is facing.

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