 Perhaps the earliest ambassadors from India were the fishing boats that inadvertently reached distant shores. They carried with them stories of a temptingly rich and prosperous land. Indian spices dominated ancient trade. If the mountains of the north were purple with saffron flowers and were part of the silk route, the tropical hills of the south were redolent with cardamom and were part of the sea route. Products at that time were not only commodities which were grown, agricultural produce like spices, but also very beautifully manufactured items, various kinds of gold and other metal ornaments. Very highly developed pottery, various kinds of utensils made of different metals, household decorations, architecture, building materials and textiles. Indian textiles have made a special mark on international fashion ramps. When Mahatma Gandhi picked up the spinning wheel as a symbol of freedom, he liberated a thousand looms in every part of the country. The mechanized mills of Manchester had forced Indian looms to remain silent for centuries. Perhaps that is the reason it has taken time for Indian fabric to recover its self-esteem. But the wheels are spinning again and the fabric that was once coveted by aristocrats of the Roman Empire is once again ready to take on the world. India had, according to economic historians, at one point, 25% share of the world trade. Burton Russell has several times deeply appreciated that the Indians contributed zero in mathematics. And it is a profound contribution. Like nothing. Param Ten Thousand, a supercomputer, indigenously developed by CDAC, is one of the largest computers in Asia. Weather computing, seismic data processing, medical imaging, geomatics, the uses of the supercomputer are immense. And it has put to rest any doubts about India's capabilities in the field. The Indian technological juggernaut is picking up pace. And all these faxes and emails and internet systems is the resultant effect of the short-millimeter wave which was discovered by an Indian scientist in India, Jagadish Chandra Bose. If you want to see where we have had real great successes, I think those were the areas in which outside health was not easily available. Despite trade sanctions by developed countries and despite its limited resources, India has a broad-based space program which, in the words of Dr. Vikram Sarabhai, seeks to apply technologies to the real problems of man and society. 1946, Anand Gujarat. In this sleepy cattle-rearing district, farmers from two villages pooled together 247 litres of milk and formed a cooperative. Today, Amul has become a billion-litre cooperative giant with two million farmers as members. It has catapulted India to the position of number one producer of milk in the world. Its benefits are percolated right down to the people and brought social change and progress in real terms. Iron and steel are today the backbone of Indian industry. Established only in 1904, India now has a capacity of making 16.1 million tonnes of integrated steel, ranking it eighth in the world. Ispaat International, the brainchild of entrepreneur Lakshmi Mittal, has a network of steel-making facilities in seven countries. This helicopter, taking off from a base in Mumbai, is headed out into the Arabian Sea. Forty-five kilometres from the shore in the middle of choppy waves and high-speed winds stands a mammoth metal construction, the Bombay High. This offshore oil rig accounts for over 70% of the total production of the Oil and Natural Gas Commission of India. Ten-thousand kilometres of pipeline wind their way in and around the platform carrying crude oil from the seabed onto the refinery at Urand. This expertise and technology is now exported to other developing countries.