New Delhi, Sept 28: Sources of renewable energy,
whose usage has increased five-fold in recent years, should be
tapped to a greater extent to help India achieve its goal of
energy security by 2020, President A P J Abdul Kalam said
on Thursday.
Apart from traditional sources of energy, it would look
to power generated through renewable energy technologies,
which has to be increased from the current level of five per
cent to 25 percent, Kalam said in the 2006 Philip Tobias
lecture delivered via videoconferencing from the Rashtrapati
Bhavan's multimedia studio to an audience in Johannesburg.
In his lecture titled "human evolution and progress",
Kalam spoke about challenges before modern society like
provision of adequate and safe drinking water and sanitation
for a vast number of people around the globe, an official
release said.
The search for alternate and clean sources of energy
in light of the predicted depletion of fossil fuels over the
next 10 decades, low-intensity terrorism, disease and
environmental degradation were listed by Kalam among the
challenges confronting mankind.
Stating that energy was an important parameter for
development, he said the continuously increasing cost of oil
sourced from fossil materials has prompted many groups to
seriously consider alternative energy options.
He said in the transportation sector, India plans to
use a large proportion of bio-diesel and ethanol.
Referring to the issue of education, Kalam said that
if children were not given value-based teaching in school, no
government or society could establish a transparent society or
a society with integrity.
Concluding his address, he said India had identified
five areas -- agriculture and food processing, education and
healthcare, information and communication technology,
infrastructure development and self-reliance in critical
technologies -- to concentrate on so that its mission of
becoming a developed nation was realised.
The annual lecture was instituted in honour of Phillip
Tobias, a well-known South African scientist in the fields of
genetics through anatomical studies to pealaeonthropology.
Bureau Report
First Published: Thursday, September 28, 2006, 00:00