Pune, March 18, 1999

Shri. Ravindra Gupta, Secretary, Department of Electronics, Prof. C.N.R. Rao, President, Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, Dr. V.P. Bhatkar, Chairman, ETH Research Labs, Distinguished Guests, members of the C-DAC family.

A warm welcome to C-DAC’s Annual Foundation Day celebration and very best wishes for the New Year on Gudi Padwa.

On this auspicious occasion every year, we have been meeting when C-DAC has always striven to communicate its significant accomplishments in the year as its humble contribution to the Indian Science & Technology. We have been privileged to have your patronage, in joining with us to share the joy of this accomplishment. The occasion has thus, over the years, become a landmark celebration of the year, and everyone in this fine city of Pune always look forward to participate and be with us in this celebration –- a celebration of Indian Research & Development.

Last year, from this platform, on this day, we brought the news of India building its largest Supercomputer, a machine which only a few countries in the world possess. That was a milestone in the history of the decade of existence of C-DAC, and we all shared the happy moments of accomplishments and those on the other side of the globe looked at it as a proof of what the developing world is capable of contributing to the world of science -- a shining example of Indian Science.

We immediately realized that it was not the time to sit back, as we are dealing with a technology that is moving with unprecedented speed, a speed never encountered in the history of the Industrial Revolution. Also, we are amidst an environment in which high technologies are not traded but bargained. So we have to continue to work untiringly, ceaselessly, to not only bring self-reliance but also self-confidence in building and using these technologies.

We immediately realized that it was not the time to sit back, as we are dealing with a technology that is moving with unprecedented speed, a speed never encountered in the history of the Industrial Revolution. Also, we are amidst an environment in which high technologies are not traded but bargained. So we have to continue to work untiringly, ceaselessly, to not only bring self-reliance but also self-confidence in building and using these technologies.

We have been fortunate to receive the much-needed support from the Government through the Department of Electronics, our parent. In our pursuing this path, C-DAC has come a long way in a decade of its existence, rising from an R & D institution that the Government set up to address a specific need to building self reliance in the area of vital importance -- the High Performance Computing and Communication (HPCC), to a high end IT solution provider, corporate major in the country.

After an eventful year of 1997-98, I would like to inform that this year was equally rewarding. A year in which we not only consolidated on our past accomplishments, but charted our path to gear up for the coming millenium. A shift in the focus, on both technology and business fronts, and a strategy to capitalize on strengths we have at our sister institutions in India and a look overseas for achieving our goals.