A Surprising Coincidence
July 7, 2005
Mount Pleasant, Iowa
Amma's next program in her tour across the US is Mount Pleasant - a land almost in the middle of nowhere, where cornfields dance in the lazy midsummer heat and fireflies light up the evening skies.
On the night that Amma reached Mt. Pleasant, something very interesting was beginning to happen on the other side of the globe. In Amritapuri, India, people had gathered for the inauguration of a very important project; a project which, when implemented in its entirety, will soon change the face of rural India. Chaired by the President of India, His Excellency Dr.Abdul Kalam, the function was the inauguration of the VRC (Village Resource Center) project which included the launching of the ISRO (Indian Space Research Organization) satellite to provide telecommunication facilities to rural parts of India. To read the complete report, please click here. With the help of satellite communication, Amma's vision is to bring cutting edge technology to the fingertips of India's rural folk, while preserving the cultural integrity of the nation's villages.
This technological advance will make many hitherto impossible tasks such as telemedicine and tele-education easily achievable and simplified. For example, in the near future, people in remote areas will have easy access to diagnosis and treatment by highly qualified healthcare providers sitting remotely in super-specialty hospitals like the AIMS (Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences) Hospital in Kochi, India.
At present the following centers are connected by satellite: Tsunami affected areas, Srayikkad & Nagapattinam, Amrita Kripa hospitals at Amritapuri & Kalpetta, Amritavidyalayam schools at Paripally orphanage, Puthiyakavu, Mananthavady & Ettimadai and expert centers at AIMS, Kochi, Amrita Vishwavidya Peetham, Ettimadai.
Very often, rural villagers do not have any exposure to the outside world. This leap in technology promises great advances in rural education and agricultural revolution, and with Amma's vision we can rest assured that the villages of India will not get left behind in a century-old time-warp.
Interestingly, when Amma reached Iowa and entered the house where she was staying, the live satellite relay of the inauguration ceremony had just started and Amma sat down to watch it. It was a remarkable coincidence because in the hustle and bustle of the travel from Dallas, no one had really planned for this to happen.
At the inauguration back in India, Amma's recorded message was played and its translation was read out. The President concluded his inaugural speech with a prayer, which he encouraged the orphan children from Amma's Paripally orphanage to repeat after him, "We are all God's children. Our minds are stronger than diamonds. We will...will...will! When God is with us, who can be against us?"
The ceremony ended with a brief vote of thanks which concluded with a statement by the speaker, in a voice full of emotion, "Wherever Amma is, I am sure that she is seeing us right now!" Little did he know that Amma was in fact physically watching the proceedings live, from halfway across the world!
At the end of the telecast, as people remarked how opportune it was that Amma had reached there right on time, Amma had just one thing to say, in all humility, "It must have been the intense prayer of the organizer children in India that made it possible for us to reach here in time for Amma to view it!"
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