Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi opined that instead of
questioning the politicians as to what they can do for the country, the youth
should ask itself what it can do,. "You got to stop asking your
politicians how they are going to do this or that and start asking yourself,
how you are going to do it. Because that is how this country is going to move
forward," said Rahul Gandhi.
Rahul Gandhi's response came while addressing a gathering in
New Delhi when he was asked how he can help educate illiterate children. He was
chairing a talk on 'Future of the Internet- 1.2 Billion Empowered Indians' by
Vice President and Chief Internal Evangelist of Google Vinton G Cerf.
"Can I ask you a counter-question? How you are going to
help them? Not as a citizen but as a young Indian, how you are going to help
them?" he asked the questioner, a JNU student. Observing that there are
two ways to deal with the problem, Gandhi said, "One way is to think in a
rigid way. How we do this in a linear manner and the other way is to think in
an exponential way."
You got to stop asking your politicians how they are going
to do this or that and start asking yourself, Rahul Gandhi said. "To say
that internet is not connected to the eight year old child, you are cutting off
a very very powerful avenue. We don't know how it's connected. Let that child,
let his aspirations catch fire."
Referring to Sam Pitroda, Rahul Gandhi said, "He too
could have looked at it and said we want to provide access to every Indian over
telephone and thought about it in a linear fashion. They would have never got
that, they would be sitting here right now, still figuring out how to get
phones to Indians."
"What they essentially did is that they came out with
something called a rural exchange. You must have all seen a PCO and that humble
PCO is actually what gave you cell phones in your hands. Because it suddenly
opened up the system to millions of people and it did not do so in a linear
way. It did that in an exponential way," Rahul Gandhi said.
Inaugurating the session, the Congress leader also
emphasised on creating IT-based systems and structures which helps the country
deal with its several complexities. Replying to a poser on how many free Aakash
tablets have been distributed by the government in the past one year, Gandhi
said, "Frankly I am not the person who came up with the Aakash tablet. You
need to ask the gentleman who came up with it and you need to ask him that question."
