SPEECH DELIVERED BY HIS EXCELLENCY, THE PRESIDENT OF INDIA ON 14 MAY 1989

The Hon’ble Minster for Education , the Hon’ble Minister for State for Public Relations, Major Gen Suri, Principal and members of the staff and dear students.

It gives me very great pleasure to participate in your Annual Day function, The Sainik School is the youngest in India. Out of the 18 Sainik Schools spread throughout the length and breadth of this vast country, Tira School was started in 1978. But after seeing the wonderful performance and also going through the annual report of your school, I must offer my felicitations and congratulations on the excellent show that you have put up.

Your academic success has been remarkable. Within a short span of hardly four years you have been able to get 65 of your boys admitted in the NDA. The physical exercises and demonstration which you put before us this afternoon, speaks volumes on ability of the students, not only to participate in the games, but also to maintain that strict discipline so necessary for success in life.

India is a great nation, It is a great country and notwithstanding all the little tensions that you hear from time to time. We can not forget the great progress this country achieved during the last 40 years after independence. I will give you a few examples. At the time of our Independence we were short of food. We were going round the world asking for food aid and food gifts. Today thanks to the application of science and technology to agriculture, we have not only been able to achieve a measure of self sufficiency in food but also be able to give some little food assistance to other countries in dire distress. Three years ago we gave one hundred thousand tons of food grains to Ethiopia which suffered one of the worst famines in world history. About two years ago we were able to give 50 tons food to Sudan during its worst drought. We are indeed proud of our achievement in agriculture which speaks volumes on the ability of our farmers. to readjust their lives to the modern needs and also be able to apply modern scientific and technological methods to agriculture. In the field of industry you will recall that at the time of our independence we were importing every small thing from outside the country. We used to import safety pins from Japan. We used to import fountain pens from England and we have hardly anything worth calling our own manufactures. After 40 years of progress today we are one of the 10 industrialized countries of the world. We produce a variety of manufactures that is really bewildering.

Even the most advanced and developed countries are not a little amazed at the progress that India has made during the last 40 years. We produce steel; we produce fertilizers; agricultural implement; every kind of chemicals; pharmaceuticals and we are one of the minor exporters of engineering goods in the world. This great progress has been achieved because of the emphasis which the first Prime Minister of India, Pt. Jawahar Lal Nehru laid on science and technology. He said that India cannot progress unless we introduce scientific methods and a scientific temper amongst our people. Thanks to his vision, a large number of laboratories that he set up, the research institutions that have sprung up, India is today among the forefront of nations in many fields. We have achieved considerable success in atomic energy and in space. We are one of the few countries which have a sea-bed mining license even concerning the number of developed countries which have been competing for this privilege. We have put up a satellite in the orbit and we have covered the whole country from Kanya Kumar to Kashmir to Lakshadeep and Andaman Islands with television sets. Our communication system has so much improved that we can talk to the people all over India spread over the long and vast distances in a trice. In the matter of scientific personnel we are the third largest in number.  After the United States and Soviet Union, India stands third among the number of scientific and technological personnel in the world. I am emphasizing all these things because I want the young men, particularly the students to have full faith in the future of the country, of the greatness of this country, of the vast strides that his country has made after independence and the striking progress that we are still making towards the cherished goal of giving the people the highest standard of life.
           
Sainik Schools have a very important role to play in our economy. Sainik Schools train boys who the quality of leadership in whatever walk of life they may accept. Today our country needs not his small pusillanimous men. The country today needs giants in every field; people who will gave an excellent account of themselves in whatever walk of life they may be left  or they may choose to go. The spirit of developing excellence in oneself is a basis idea of some of our universities and of modern schools. The Sainik Schools are avowedly branch of that system of education and they are able to provide country with one of the best services. I consider among the services in India, the defense services as the noblest because the defense services protect the country at the risk of their own life.  It is not lay other who quail, drive and earn a fat salary. It is they who stand in the forefront in the most trying climate under very exhausting circumstances and provide the country that kind national defense to protect its integrity and its honor.

And the Sainik School train the boys both mentally and physically to meet the great challenges of the time. I am also happy that since the boys live in one campus they develop homogeneity and a camaraderie which   makes them feel that they are a part and parcel of this great country. Linguistic, regional and religious chauvinism just disappear from the minds of these young boys. It is they who build up the national integration and build up the faith in the national unity and integrity. It is a great institution which deserves to be supported by every one. And I am very happy that his great institution here in Tira is giving an excellent account of itself in every walk of life that is brought to them in their curriculum.

While I wish every success to this institution, I wish the boys of this Sainik School a continued success in their career and in the service of the nation.

President R.Venketaraman 
( 1987-1992 )