The Hindu : National : Kalam to students: send e-mails as often as you wish

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Saturday, Mar 11, 2006

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National

Kalam to students: send e-mails as often as you wish

Sandeep Dikshit

Political correctness never mattered to the President "Have the courage to invent, have the courage to combat problems and also have the courage to discover the impossible."

YANGON: In a country where the army is in full control and the Internet restricted, political correctness did not matter to President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam when it came to interacting with students and telling what he thought was correct.

Handling sensitive questions from students with aplomb, he exhorted them to be courageous in order to combat as well as make full use of the Internet to gain knowledge. This in a country which uses the Fortinet filtering software to restrict access to the extent that it was a rare correspondent accompanying him who managed to send stories by e-mail.

In fact, in an engagement at a high school, the President donated 10 computers and dwelt on the power of the Internet and asked the students to get in touch with him on the net.

Never short of patience while his protocol officers fretted over late schedules, Mr. Kalam encouraged students to ask one last question and left only when there were no raised hands. Never did he duck any question, not even gender-sensitive ones. Asked whether boys had a higher intelligent quotient (IQ), the President began by stating that each brain had billions of neurons and the IQ level depended on how well the neurons were fed. "When I was at a university in Himachal Pradesh, which is in the Himalayas, I gave 67 gold medals. Of them 45 went to girls." The resounding applause indicated that the message went home.

"I will handle them"

And in the same school, when a teacher tried to assist a girl who fumbled for answers, the President said: "Teacher you keep quiet. I will handle them. Please don't worry." Mr. Kalam then went on to guide students through the mysteries of the universe — the black hole, the Milky Way and the Solar System.

After asking school students to send him e-mails as often as they wished, Mr. Kalam visited the University of Yangon where he delivered a homily on the power of the broadband and the Internet. Never mind that a free Internet will remain a dream for most of them. But the President had given them the hope to dream. At another engagement with students, he told them to be courageous. "Have the courage to invent, have the courage to combat problems and also have the courage to discover the impossible." Even as local army officials watched, the students recited after him the power of being courageous.

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