The beginning of a New Year is always a time to look back and to look ahead. A year is but a speck in the life of an ancient nation like India, which is ever youthful in spite of her great antiquity. However, unlike our nation, all of us have a limited life. My mind probes these questions as my eyes feast on the verdant environs of Kumarakom resort on the banks of the sea-sized Vembanad Lake in Kerala. I have come here for my year-end holidays, far away from the national capital.
Nature s silent beauty provides a perfect setting here for contemplation.
And I wish to share some of my thoughts with my countrymen with this article. Our country is facing many problems that are a legacy of our history. I wish to share my views on two of them. A self-confident and resilient nation does not postpone the inconvenient issues of yesterday to a distant tomorrow. Rather, it strives to decisively overcome the problems of the past so that it can pursue its developmental agenda for the future with single-minded determination.