INDIA DESTINATION 2020

Vision India 2020 is a thought which was stressed upon by our former president
Mr.A.P.J Abdul Kalam with the aim of better India ahead. Identifying potentials
and anticipating the challenges to our future progress in different sectors of the
national economy does not constitute a vision of the country's future. These
disparate threads need to be woven together to reflect the integrated nature of our
national life. Then, there still remains the question of whether to be preoccupied
by the negative possibilities or to throw our full weight behind efforts to fully
realise the positive potentials revealed by this analysis

This vision portrays the need and desire to convert our country’s developing status
into developed one. India, being one of the powerful countries in the world in
terms of power, energy and resources. Being a full fledged country there are
certain obstacles which prevent India from becoming the super power. These
obstacles such as poverty, unemployment, scarcity and other natural causes
interrupt its development. .

The vision is to transform India into an economic, scientific and military power.
At the core of 'India 2020' is the elimination of poverty — not merely by lifting
the poor above the poverty line but by providing them with a fairly assured
income. I personally believe that it is possible to eliminate poverty by 2020.

The first step would be to create wealth at the lowest socio-economic level by
means of increasing agricultural productivity, followed by improvement in agro-
processing. Simultaneously, the health, education and infrastructure sectors have
to be strengthened. Efforts should be made to empower people with technological
and knowledge skills That will determine whether we regard the following
statement as a promising glimpse of what India can become in 2020, or as mere
fantasy and wishful thinking.

We also have to keep pace with the most advanced technology. Developments in
the areas of space science, electronics and communications may hold the solutions
to many of our problems. Also, we cannot ignore the issue of national security.
Economic and social security, food security and military security will all have to
be addressed in an integrated manner.

India 2020 will be bustling with energy, entrepreneurship and innovation. The
country's 1.35 billion people will be better fed, dressed and housed, taller and
healthier, more educated and longer living than any generation in the country's
long history. Illiteracy and all major contagious diseases will have disappeared.
School enrolment from age 6 to 14 will near 100 per cent and drop out rates will
fall to less than one in twenty.

A second productivity revolution in Indian agriculture, coupled with

diversification to commercial crops, agri-business, processing industries, agro-
exports and massive efforts towards afforestation and wasteland development will
generate abundant farm and non-farm employment opportunities for the rural
workforce. These in turn will stimulate demand for consumer goods and services,
giving a fillip to the urban economy and the informal sector as well as rapid
expansion of the services sector.

India's claim to the title Silicon Valley of Asia will be followed by the
diversification from IT to biotechnology, medical sciences and other emerging
fields of technology, widening the field of India's international competitiveness
and generating a large number of employment opportunities for the educated
youth. These developments, driven by the firm...