Dr A.P.J.Abdul Kalam, Former President of India will be at IIMA on September 13, 2008 (Saturday) to deliver his first seminar to students of IIMA. The seminar sessions scheduled during the day are part of the course on Globalising and Resurgent India through Innovative Transformation (GRIT) with Prof Anil K Gupta as co-faculty.

Dr.Kalam reached Ahmedabad airport on 12th of September and went to IIM Ahmedabad campus for organic food dinner after which he went to Circuit house for rest. On September 13th he will be starting his lecture at IIMA’s CR2 class room at 10.00 A.M. His lecture will continue till 1.15 P.M. After which he will join lunch and will take rest. In order to maximise interaction in the class, the size will be restricted to the maximum of 70 -80 students distributed proportionately among PGP, PGP-ABM and other programmes.

At 3.00 P.M. he will be conducting discussion session in which students would discuss their plans and ideas to achieve 10 points of Vision 2020. Students will be expected to submit project proposals for creating scenarios based on multiple and if necessary, contending options for specific policy and institutional changes.The faculty would comment on these proposals and the project teams would be enabled to consult the subject matter specialists through invited lectures and interactions or visit to them. The final reports will be presented in open sessions in which other faculty members and the students may also be invited to ask questions and make comments. The reports will be revised and those of them, which are of outstanding quality, may be published for wider debate every year.

Dr. A.P.J.Abdul Kalam will be happy to comment on the projects and respond to queries by email and in case students would like to meet him in Delhi for guidance in their project work during the course that can also be worked out.? All the GRIT participants should define their project ideas around the following ten pillars of 2020 strategy as visualized by Dr.A.P.J.Abdul Kalam:

1. A Nation where the rural and urban divide has reduced to a think line.
2. A Nation where there is an equitable distribution and adequate access to energy and quality water.
3. A Nation where agriculture, industry and service sector work together in symphony.
4. A Nation where education with value system is not denied to any meritorious candidates because of societal or economic discrimination.
5. A Nation, which is the best destination for the most talented scholars, scientists and investors.
6. A Nation where the best of health care is available to all.
7. A Nation where the governance is responsive, transparent and corruption free.
8. A Nation where poverty has been totally eradicated, illiteracy removed and crimes against women and children are absent and none in the society feels alienated.
9. A Nation that is prosperous, healthy, secure, devoid of terrorism, peaceful and happy and continues with a sustainable growth path.
10. A Nation that is one of the best places to live in and is proud of its leadership.

In addition to the normal project work with well defined deadlines, there may be interactions with the parliamentary committees and the ministers on the specific policy issues.

At 5.15 Dr. Kalam will interact with media persons at RJMCI. Dr. Kalam will catch the flight for Delhi then after.

Talking to DeshGujarat, Prof Anil Gupta said that the whole lecture and discussion by Dr. Abdul Kalam in IIMA would be available through webcasting on internet live.He said that whole material of ‘GRIT’ course was already available online.

About ‘GRIT’

India is going through a phase of rapid economic development.However, the growth is not inclusive enough.In every sector of Indian economy, there is a scope of innovation to make the development process more creative, innovative and inclusive. This course is not about just understanding where we stand. It is about creating scenarios to reach where India is poised to be.There are several questions that the world expects India to answer.How would children be educated so that they would discharge the responsibilities of a developed nation. Will Indian model of development be a replica of the western model or will it have some unique characteristics?What will be the relationship between state, industry and civil society during the transition and afterwords?The vision of India 2020 may need to be looked at afresh in the light of challenges that growth impulses are throwing up.The increasing aspirations of socially disadvantaged groups have to be accommodated in a peaceful and cooperative manner.But, social cleavages in several parts of the country require new ways of dealing with disquiet and dissent.

Apart from looking at the competing scenarios, the students are also expected in this course to create disruptive innovative pathways of progress within the country and internationally. Large number of less or least developed countries look upto India for building their capacity.Can India create a pool of open source innovations in governance, technologies and infrastructure development, which can be shared widely? The innovations by common people provide a tremendous opportunity for improving the quality of life of millions of people within the country and outside. In many cases, these innovations in informal sector complement the innovations in formal sector.The role of science and technology in India has been very pivotal and yet the best students do not go for a career in science and technology any more.How do we make the strategic sectors of Indian economy attract the best minds with passion for pursuing India’s progress?

The relationship of India with its neighbors and other super powers requires an approach, which will make India’s position strategically quite different from other countries.What these strategic choices are and how Indian economic, social and cultural diversity would influence these choices?Can an economically developed country live in peace with lesser developed neighbors? How to take lesser developed nations along in India’s march for prosperous future?

One of the important gaps in the entire planning process is to rely only on GDP as the index of development. In this course, students will try to develop NPI (National Prosperity Index), which will look at not just the stocks and the flow of goods and services, but also of various tangible and intangible changes in the quality of life and the environment. This might help in evolving a true index of national prosperity.The paradox of high growth of GDP not reflecting the large scale deprivation or dissatisfaction will have to be resolved.

There is also a crisis of leadership.The students have to learn how to develop visions for taking the country forward, create commitment around these visions among the parliamentarians and then selling these policy perspectives to the cabinet.It is hoped that some of the policy scenarios evolved by the students will be discussed with the parliamentary standing committee of the concerned ministry and once these get accepted, the cabinet notes will be facilitated.On some other policies, which cut across various ministries, feedback will be sought from larger number of MPs across party lines to take the ideas forward.Analysis will be done of why certain policy changes fail to take off so that failure management is learnt as carefully as managing the success.Students will also develop strategies to achieve success in various initiatives such as PURA (Providing Urban Amenities in Rural Areas); provision for mental work and not menial work in employment guarantee programmes; converting the whole country into a literate society within ten years; halving the dropout rate of students within five years at secondary level (from 60 to 30 per cent) and eliminating it in ten years; removing corruption in everyday life in at least ten most frequent public-private interactions, etc.