Our country is going through a difficult period when the ground rules for the behaviour of every citizen are being violated. There is unfortunately a trend to make profit out of poverty and move away from the concept that the means of achieving a goal are as important as the desired end. The word ‘accountability’ is fast disappearing from our dictionary. Green Revolution is getting replaced by greed revolution. Sri Aurobindo once remarked: ‘India has become the symbolic representation of all the difficulties of modern mankind. India will be the land of its resurrection – the resurrection to a higher and truer life.’ For achieving this goal of resurrection, it is important to promote the culture of compassion and honesty. Today, there are reports of widespread corruption in all major developmental activities and unfortunately also, in programmes designed to assist the poor. This is particularly serious with reference to the utilization of natural resources like cyberspace, coal, iron ore and other minerals, land, energy and water. The feeling that one should bribe for achieving his/her goal is becoming an unfortunate part of our ethos. This is the negation of the qualities on which Gandhiji laid so much emphasis, namely, truth, ahimsa and self-discipline.

I would like to congratulate the Government of Tamil Nadu for preparing a vision for 2023. Without vision, people perish. This vision envisages that by 2023 Tamil Nadu should become India's most prosperous and progressive state with no poverty, and where its people enjoy all the basic services of a modern society and live in harmonious engagement with the environment and with the rest of the world. However, vision represents only a desirable goal. To convert the vision into action and achievement, we will need synergy among professional skill, political will and people's participation.

One of the stated goals of the 2023 vision is ‘Tamil Nadu will preserve and care for its ecology and heritage’. Much has already been done, but there is scope for concerted action in the following areas: genetic resources and food security, living aquatic resources and food security, and safeguarding food security in an era of climate change and sea level rise. There is also great progress in the development of new technologies, particularly with reference to information communication technology, biotechnology and nanotechnology. These are powerful scientific tools and should be used only with public good in mind.