 In times gone by, India was known all over the world as a country of great learning. There were several university towns and Agraha villages that anticipated the modern university campus. Great philosophers and scientists, men like Aryabharta and Nagarjuna, flourished within a tradition of fiercely independent intellectual inquiry. The world's largest democracy is engaged in the exciting task of preserving and enhancing this great tradition in its contemporary temples of learning. The father of the Indian nation, Mahatma Gandhi, emphasized that reducing human suffering was the noblest mission that any individual or institution could pursue. This ideal inspired the timely creation of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi. Ames, as it is popularly known, epitomizes India's determination to provide standard health care to all its people. The sheer volume of work provides the students an in-depth clinical experience that is probably unparalleled in the world. It treats 1.5 million outpatients and 80,000 inpatients and conducts 98,000 operations every year. The interns may be exposed to as many as 3,000 open heart surgeries conducted annually, as compared to 700 in an average medical college in the United States. Ames has given support and direction to the entire Indian medical community. It has emerged as an institution where all the components of health care, from bench research to bedside care, from policy making to program evaluation, is geared towards meeting the ultimate goal of eliminating human suffering. Despite being a late entrant to space technology, India rapidly spanned the time lag and went on to build one of the largest constellations of remote sensing satellites in the world. This achievement was made possible by the Indian Space Research Organization. The ISRO developed various applications for the sociotechnological benefit of the country. Those space research and related studies began under the supervision of the Department of Atomic Energy in 1961. It was in 1969 that the Indian Space Research Organization was formally constituted. We are among the five or six countries who are really space faring in the sense of having capability to build satellites, ability to launch them and ability to use these systems for the national requirements. The achievement of ISRO and the Department of Space have made it possible for the nation to celebrate 25 successful years of the space program. The effort made by the ISRO has paid rich dividends. For today, through a well-orchestrated program, India has emerged as a front-ranking nation.