There is a gateway to wealth and it is information technology. For a big country like India, information technology is essential. Communication and information can have a big market here. It is not practical to connect the different corners of such a big country with cables. It has to be connected through a wireless means. This is the evolving technology and soon, it will be studied extensively in universities also.
If there was a proper communication facility and information flow between Rikhia and Kolkata or Rikhia and Dhanbad for example, then industries and enterprises could be set up here. Deoghar would not be the automatic choice then. Now all the big industries are set up in cities due to availability of facilities such as transport and telephones, etc. However, if telephones were not required, then industries would also flourish in villages, in the very interiors. Then village people would also have access to good employment, and wealth would flow out to them. They would also be able to build modern houses and develop a modern culture. At present all such things are limited to Delhi, Bhagalpur or Deoghar.
In the near future, information and transport technology will be such that communication with places in the far-off interiors will become easy. In Australia, for example, the ranches in the interiors do not have road access; they can only be reached by air. Their children do not go to school, but receive their learning through satellite television. Australia is a big country and it is not practical to run cables across it. We will also have to adopt a technology with which we can connect far off places. Imagine if you could hire a small plane at fifity rupees per head and fly seventy-five miles from Deoghar in the interiors! These developments should come about. There is no money in villages and there is no buying power there; only those who have money will spend it. So for wealth to come into villages, parallel facilities will have to go there.
At present Indian villages don’t have any facility. When I came to Rikhia, there was no telephone or electricity here. We organized underground cables, but what is needed is wireless communication. Today computers have made everything possible and the use of this technology can change the face of villages.
In the coming years, wealth will not remain concentrated in cities. Those who have money will not want to live in the polluted cities; they will want to live in places like Rikhia. The environment of a village is clean so the city dwellers will want to come to villages. To bring such people to the villages the most important factor is communication and information. If this is available, then the wealthy will come to the villages and there will be prosperity here.
Education is the birthright of every individual, and it is the job of the government to provide its citizens their rights. The way the government provides law through the courts, protection through the army, administration through its machinery, it must provide education to our children. The right to education should be free all over the world. Also, the institutions that provide free education should get tax benefits. Education should not become a business. Flow of money does not make a business. Even our institutions receive money, but we don’t run a business.
There is so much of poverty in India that people cannot educate their children. Therefore, all of us should contribute a part of our earnings towards education of the less privileged. People should give freely. It is not difficult to spare a part of your earnings. You can stop smoking and divert all your cigarette money towards social upliftment. I am not ready to believe that the prosperous cannot spare a part of their wealth for the non-prosperous. You should develop an attitude of sharing. Help the needy and the poor. There are many institutions that you can contribute to.
Education is the most important thing for a society; no society can rise if its members are not educated. It is what brings prosperity to a house. A human being is born for higher achievements whether material or spiritual, and education is a tool to bring out an individual’s hidden potential. So, contribute in the creation of a school if you can. You can even give toys and games for smaller children. It is not very difficult to create a small school; the children can go there until the age of fifteen and if a child is brilliant, arrangements can be made for his or her further education.