AFVOA Newletters of Year 2007

Page 32 of 68 3. It goes to the credit of our early leaders and administrators that within a generation we were able to get ourselves on our feet. Green revolution and white revolution brought on by visionaries progressively eradicated food shortages. The Five Year Plans gave us the opportunity to slowly and steadily build our industrial base and find jobs for our people. In due course great educational institutions and hospitals came up to ensure the physical and mental well being of our people. Simultaneously the innate Indian genius absorbed the technology that came flooding in from the West to create a singular, liberal nation with a unique cultural mix unseen any where on earth. 4. So today we stand as one of the fastest growing economies of the world. Our strength in almost every field is admirable. Our markets are huge and filled with opportunities. Our labor forces are the most sought after in the world for their ability to learn, their competence, liberal attitudes and for their discipline. Every foreign entrepreneur knows that he has no future unless he has an office and manufacturing facility in India. Yes, truly we are great today and a sought after member in any group of nations. This we have achieved. So where do we go from here? What about the future? What and where should we be in the year, say, 2025 when we would be sending our first men in Chandrayan to develop the moon? 5. The most urgent need of our nation is to do all we can to bring up those sections of population which need better health and housing facilities. Granted that in a free country like ours one has the choice to lift himself or not. All the same good, effective planning, allocation of resources, ensuring their efficient spending and monitoring of progress could do a lot towards that. This is where the vast resources in elderly citizens that we possess can be usefully engaged. Our senior citizens have seen it all, done it all. And, best of all, they are full of knowledge and abilities. It should be remembered that it is the present generation of senior citizens who built up the country when they were young. 6. It would be truly great to see these senior citizens join hands with the younger generation. The synergy and a combination of effort between trained wellderly brain and youthful brawn can surely work wonders. When that happens all our drawbacks such as economic backwardness, weaknesses in infrastructure and belief in outmoded ideas and beliefs would seem ephemeral and disappear as the morning dew before the rising sun. New social structures will come up which will impinge on society to bring about an age of growth with satisfaction. Our laws and legal systems have to be suitably evolved to accommodate this new outlook. 7. For, gone are the days when a person was considered unfit to work as soon as he was superannuated in his first career. Gone for ever too are the days when a retired person was considered too tired and incompetent to do anything more tedious than walk his grand children to school. These are days when retired people, in the winking of an eyelid, metamorphose into ‘ReAttired’ people ready and capable of starting new careers or organizations and run them with world class efficiency. 8. Nearer home we have a shining example of this ability. A group of seven Veterans got together in 1993, at Adyar, and dreamt of an organization to bring together the veterans and families on Chennai. They sowed the seed of this idea, they watered it with hard work, they nurtured it with determination, they nutriated it with love and kept at it through thick and thin. Within a matter of decade and a half these veterans found to their satisfaction that their dream has blossomed into the Armed Forces Veteran Officers’ Association, Chennai with over 350 members today and yet growing. 9. Let us take a leaf out of the life of these Founding Veterans. Let us all day dream and work