Kochi will fall comfortably back into cosy wrangling about the best way to cook its lobster or pottering about its high street, MG Road. But its totally literate population will know, unlike in other Indian burgs, that on this day the water of 191 countries was collected in a kalash and poured on a kalpataru sapling newly-planted by Mata Amritanandamayi and President Kalam.A symbolic gesture, it is just one more grace note in the many sounded over the four-day fiesta to celebrate the hugging guru’s birthday. Inside Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, a crowd of more than 50,000 cheered them and sank back to be charmed by Kerala CM A.K. Anthony who praised Amma and pleaded for national unity and progress, ending with a rousing ‘‘Jai Hind’’.Earlier, Amma and Kalam addressed a group of CEOs to share his vision of PURA: Providing Urban Amenities in Rural Areas, an aspect of his India 2020 plan for Societal Transformation, launched in Amma’s presence. Four areas have been adopted for the development of health, education and housing facilities by corporates in south India. Netscale CEO B.V. Jagadeesh has taken up the development of ‘‘Amritapuras’’ — five villages near Bagalur (Karnataka); M. Manickam, VC, Sakthi Sugars Group, will take on Pollach-Amritapura (TN); S.V. Balasubramaniam, Chairman, Bannari-Amman Group will make ‘‘Amritapuras’’ at Sathyamangalam and G. Bhaktavatsalam, Chairman, K.G. Hospital and PG Institute takes on Saravanampetti.Kalam wants Indian CEOs to deliver connectivity to the 5,80,000 villages at four levels. Further, electronic connectivity would provide tele-education, village internet, village-cluster call centres and tele-medicine.Netcoon Sabeer Bhatia demanded better laws and better mechanisms to implement those laws to attract FDI and prophesied that Business Process Outsourcing would be the engine for India’s future economic growth.The CEO resolution was presented to Kalam by C.K. Prahalad, management guru and senior professor at Michigan University on behalf of 160 global business leaders to endorse Kalam’s India 2020 Vision: ‘‘We think it is do-able. We believe that we can reinterpret purnaswaraj. I have been in India several times, but I have not seen the type of enthusiasm seen at the Amritavarsham CEO summit.’’While these deliberations took place, the stadium saw a constant flow of activity. African dancers, Japanese monks, Finnish, Australian and Austrian delegates in elegant ashram whites milled about, taking in an art exhibition on the theme of Amma.
