 Fifty years in science is a very long time, particularly during the last century when things happened so fast. When I started working, just before that, the pi-mason was discovered, which was considered to be responsible for forces between protons and neutrons and so on, which kept the nuclear together. But after that, a enormous number of discoveries happened and one felt very lucky that one came in at that time. Cosmic rays were discovered of course in the beginning of the last century when one found that there is something which comes from outside with ionised air, which means there must be some charged particles or something coming which produces ions and one found then ultimately that radiation comes from outside and not from the earth. Development of the emulsion block detectors was done better here probably for the first time in this country than anywhere else. So the world has opened up. You don't see only in light, you see in many, many different parts of the spectrum which comes. The universe speaks to us and we have to find out how it speaks and what it says and what's going on. For many people of my generation who went into science because they did science, but there was also an underlying feeling that science is also for the country. We were influenced by Jawaharlal's rhetoric in this. So that was the time when a large number of CSIR laboratories were opened, one after the other, Batnagar was around and then Hohi Baba came and Tata Institute was set up by Hohi Baba and the Tommy Ganaji laboratories came and a large number of laboratories started growing in the country. What we want us to remember at the time of independence in this country we didn't even make a radio. Even our pencils were imported, erasers were imported, watches were not there. I mean they thought I should have fundamental research which was the so-called cradle of the atomic energy program. It was beginning to grow there. We had to sit down, people had to sit down and wire all the circuits and valves and so on and so forth right from the beginning. And so starting from that going to the success of the atomic energy program in reactors, in metallurgy, in all kinds of things was I think rather unexpected by most people. Similarly in space we had nothing. Our first rockets were carried on bicycles. From there to go to launchers, building satellites, some of the best satellites in the world. This rather peculiar thing about Indian situation is that there are things which are considered by the world to be at the cutting edge and very difficult. Very few countries in the world have been able to do it. We have been able to do it. Why is it that what world considers difficult is easy for us and what they consider to be very easy. For example providing sanitation and water is very difficult for us. In 1975 India embarked on a bold experiment to test for the very first time in the world the developmental and educational impact of direct television broadcast to remote villages. One of the key figures behind the satellite instructional television experiment was Professor Yashpal. You see I was doing high energy physics, cosmic rays, astrophysics and one of the cosmic ray physicists at that time few years senior to me was Vikram Sarabhai. Vikram Sarabhai had this dream of using satellites for bringing television to villages of India. People don't realize now how this unconnected we were. Telephones or television was not there and it was under Sarabhai department of atomic energy initiative was taken to put a hundred TV sets around villages in Delhi. The challenge being to develop all the ground equipment oneself. We built earth station ourselves and that was the kind of team where we developed the front end converters, the low noise amplifiers, earth stations. First dish antennas were developed in India. People forget not abroad. They were 15 or 20 built by NASA just to test the satellite with the loan to us. But they ran in hundreds and thousands were built in India and tested in India. And we felt that we have a lead and we will go on building on this lead and in all this area we will develop cameras, we will develop new kinds of TV sets, new earth stations and cover the world also including ourselves. Wishful thinking. Anything which is effective these days in changing people's minds unfortunately gets appropriated for selling things. So in some sense media is working now by large as an entire education, entire thinking enterprise. The world over. Everybody knows in their bones that to bombing and killing children and women and people no matter for what purpose is not going to serve that purpose is for something else. But you can persuade people that no no no no there is a great villain out there. We must somehow bomb his whole country in order to capture him and destroy him. Unfortunately all powerful things media etc. become subservient to that and same also to corporations which want to advertise. How come that while science flourishes scientific temper diminishes. I don't think that by and large most scientists have a great scientific temper. You can have millions agitate in Europe in America everywhere for example for the war in Iraq. But all they have to say is oh don't worry about it once we start fighting and a few of our people die patriotism will take over and everybody will support. Super specialist in technology of one area or in sciences of one area is a super specialist in area. This super specialist essentially are people who can be called upon and used by others for their ends. Make such a big bomb or such kind of a bomb in which buildings are not destroyed but people get killed. It's a challenge. To a super specialist is a challenge and he will be involved with that challenge. He doesn't care what it will do. So there is to assume that every super specialist will also worry about the larger aspects of where the world is going. I think it's terrible.