An Economic Pearl Harbour

cucumber plant. Such an initiative surely requires long-term planning. It cannot be achieved in a short period of time. If any leader puts his faith in sloganeering, this may be attributable either to his naivety or his wish to exploit public sentiments. And if there are individuals who wish to see the success of their nation without a long-term period of travail, they should realize that this can be achieved only in the mind and not in reality. How to Win a Nobel Prize Nobel Laureate Professor Abdus Salam toured several Indian cities in 1986, and in one of the speeches he made (The Times of India, January 16, 1986), he cited South Korea as an example of extraordinarily rapid national development. He said that about 15 years ago, the gross national product per capita there was equal to that of India, but that thanks to the efforts the Koreans had made, it was now many times more. Giving the example of the team who had come from South Korea to Trieste, in Italy, where he resides, to find out from him how Nobel Prizes were won, he said that a similar spirit needed to be inculcated in the people of the Third World. He felt that it was this questing spirit which was the basis for all progress, be it of an individual or of a nation, and that this was true of progress both in this world and in the world Hereafter. All too often a process of stagnation sets in in the affairs of a nation and it would appear that an impasse had been reached in developmental matters. Instead of progress, there is decay. Instead of effort, there is inertia. When this stage is reached, a nation begins to tumble in disarray down the ladder of progress towards the lowermost rung and it is only the seekers, the strivers, who can pull it upwards from such an ignominious position and set