Former President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam on Thursday called for electing the right type of people to Parliament and State legislatures and said the people have a responsibility in this regard.
Speaking at the launch of his latest book Squaring the Circle: Seven Steps to Indian Renaissance which was written in the form of a dialogue along with his close associate, Arun Tiwari, he said the book highlighted, among others, the results of developmental politics. He said “political system is equal to political politics + development politics”.
Elaborating further, he said there was one kind of politics which involved only getting elected to Parliament and legislatures. The other was developmental politics which concerned itself with improving a particular constituency. Unfortunately, developmental politics did not dominate public life.
He said the book at various places highlighted “how our unobstructed parliament discussion would have avoided people’s unrest” and cited corruption issues, national vision and turbulence of the youth as examples.
Pro-active steps
He said the book gave solutions on how important Parliament was and must take pro-active action for the national issues, particularly it was very important in the environment of present social media.
“The social media has tremendous effect on the minds of the youth and also it is a very fast group. Parliament has to recognise the importance of social media”, he added.
Mr. Tiwari said the launch of this book coincided with the celebration of the sale of one million copies of Wings of Fire , which was also co-authored by him along with Dr. Kalam. He said the book has been translated into 13 Indian and six foreign languages.
Dr. D. Balasubramanian, Director of Research, L.V. Prasad Eye Institute, said it was important that such a book was launched in the present-day atmosphere of negativity as Dr. Kalam was a positivist. The book ignites the minds and challenges one to square the circle.
