President A P J Abdul Kalam on Monday said that to meet the challenge of uplifting 260 million people living below the poverty line, there was need for the economy to grow at the rate of 10 per cent annum consistently for over a decade.
Delivering the first Professor Manohar Lal Sondhi lecture in New Delhi, he said, "Our nation is going through a major challenge of uplifting 260 million who are below the poverty line. They need habitat, they need food, health care and they need education and employment, finally resulting in better life."
He said to meet the needs of increasing population by 2020 there is need for a second Green Revolution, which will enable increased productivity.
Paying tributes to Sondhi, the President said the best way to do so is to convene a meeting of young scientists similar to what Sondhi had described of Nalanda where scholars from all over the world met to exchange ideas.
Kalam said these young scientists who should preferably be below 40 have a lot of dreams and "this is the best way to honour the memory of Sondhi."
He said Sondhi's association with bureaucracy, scientific community and culture elevated him to the status of a visionary politician who advocated India as a strong nation economically.
Stressing on the need for improving the quality of education, Kalam said that with the successful launch of Educational Satellite in September last year, it was possible to work on a viable distance education for many parts of the nation.
He said there was need to adopt a three-pronged approach for ensuring success of distance education programme namely-connectivity, tele-education system and content generation and deployment.
The President said along the lines of tele-education, even health care can be done through the use of tele-medicine so that people residing in remote areas could also avail of latest medicare facilities.
In the power sector, he said besides investments in conventional power routes like thermal and hydro, emphasis needs to be placed on generation of power using nuclear energy and renewable energy.
The President said India was the world's fifth largest producer of wind power and that there is need to augment other renewable energy sources for power generation like solar photovoltaic, solar thermal, small hydro and biomass power.
Among those present included former Prime Minister Inder Kumar Gujral, Karan Singh, MP, M J Akbar, Editor, Asian Age and former Director General, Punjab Police, K P S Gill.