President Pranab Mukherjee's book in which reminisces about crucial events of his political life including Indira Gandhi's assassination, Babri Masjid demolition, operation Blue Star and his ouster from Rajiv Gandhi's Cabinet was released today by Vice President Hamid Ansari.
The President has chronicled some momentous developments of the 1980s and 1990s, considered most turbulent in India's post independence history, in the book--The Turbulent Years: 1980-1996.
Mukherjee has termed his exit from the Rajiv Gandhi Cabinet and Congress party as a "fiasco" which he himself had created.
"I have candidly recognised in the book that I should have not ventured this because I was never a mass leader and I did not have the type of following which rebels from Congress like Ajay Mukherjee in 1960s or recently Mamata and in one sense Indira ji herself had," the President said.
Mukherjee sheds new light on every major political occurrence of the time--from Rajiv Gandhi's ascendance as Prime Minister to the emergence of P V Narsimha Rao as leader of the nation.
"It is for the readers to read and come to their own conclusion. I did not deliberately speak on (matters) which are highly confidential...I had a bit conservative approach. As and when facts will be released by the government, the people would come to know. Not from somebody's account who was in the government," he said.
This book is second part of his memoirs after entering political life.
Senior BJP leader L K Advani, former CAG Vinod Rai, former Union Minister Karan Singh were among those present at the function held at Rashtrapati Bhavan.
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Noting that the government apparatus has it own limitations, the President said social issues can only be solved with the involvement of people.
"The first and foremost requirement is food. Therefore to my mind this is a commendable job which has been initiated by this foundation and which has been contributed, funded and supportedand provided with government and many other organisations," he said.
Lauding the efforts of the foundation which started with serving food to 1,500 children of neighbouring schools every day in the year 2000 to serving 1.5 million children per day at 26 locations in 10 states, Mukherjee said people should join such initiatives in whatever small ways possible.
The foundation has so far served two billion hot meals to children in over 12,000 schools across the country with the cost coming to about Rs 1,600 crore of which Rs 900 crore has been borne by the central and state governments and the remaining by supporters of the programme.
"We may criticise, we may write articles ... But problems will not be solved. Problems will remain as it is staring at us. If we come forward and make a contribution in whatever small or meagre way, I am sure we will be able to solve many of these problems," he said.
"Thanks to our policy makers and the hard work of our farmers, we have been able to produce enough to meet our requirement but because of social structures and various other inadequacies we have not been able to guarantee an assured meal to each and every citizen of this country," he said.
The President said the Constitutional requirement of free, compulsory and universal education had to wait till 2009 to be fulfilled when government passed the Act in this regard but it only provides a legal framework.
He said such an initiative also requires a conducive atmosphere which is possible with the involvement of people.
The President attended serving of meals to some children and also paid a visit to ISKCON temple here.
The function was also attended by Minister of Human Resources Development Prakash Javadekar who highlighted the importance of mid-day meal in schools.
Sharing his experience of mid-day meals, Javadekar said at some places the quality of breakfast is so good that it cannot be matched even with five star hotels.
He said the quality of education has to improve and children must be fed. "We will improve mid-day meals wherever required and improve the standards where they are already very good," he said.
Other dignitaries present on the occasion included Karnataka Governor Vajubhai Rudabhai Vala, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, Union Minister for Statistics and Program Implementation D V Sadananda Gowda, former HRD Minister Murli Manohar Joshi and Chairperson of Infosys Foundation Sudha Murty.
