The Nithari killings in mind, President A P J Abdul Kalam today called for speedy and exemplary punishment to perpetrators of crimes against children.In his address to the nation on the eve of the Republic Day, Kalam, who’s extremely popular with children, did not mention Nithari but said “some recent incidences of crime against children have shocked the whole nation and left deep scars in all of us.” He called for concerted action by society to fight such criminals and suggested the importance of watchful neighbours and an action-oriented police machinery. “In addition, as a preventive action we have to identify people who have such tendency in society through modern psychological aid tests,” he said in the section of his address that was marked “Children are our wealth”.In his address, the last of his term, Kalam spoke on issues close to him, his very own Vision 2020 of future India: development, science, aerospace and aeronautical achievements, communication, information technology and India’s place in the global economy.According to him, though India was recognized as one of the best destinations for services, “within our society we are yet to grow to appreciate and pay for the services”. “However, developed nations are gauged by the quality of service the citizens get from the government and from the corporate with which they do business,” he said while advocating the need for feedback to improve services.Providing leadership to one billion people with multi-cultural, multi-language and multi-religious backgrounds was India’s core competence. But what was more important, he said, was how people gave back to their country. And said this was his chosen topic for the nation.To achieve the goals of the future, a national movement of development was essential and every citizen in the country needed to participate in it to “reach the unreached”. For instance, he said, the corporate sector should think of reaching the unreached as an essential component of corporate social responsibility.Elsewhere, in a world dominated by communication, extending communication for the privileged to include connectivity to the unreached should be part of India’s technological upheaval. As he advocated the need for education, the President spoke of an initiative for evolving a global human resource cadre by the country to acquire, impart, create and share knowledge.
