Build up free nation through bold and swift development: Kalam

New Delhi, May 10 (UNI) Observing that India's freedom won by suffering and sacrifice has to be alertly guarded and expanded, President A P J Abdul Kalam today said fredom and Independence must be ''our continuing quest to accelerate our evolution as a free nation through a bold and swift development.'' ''The time has now arrived for Parliament and the Legislatures to emerge with a new vision and leadership to make our nation not only enlightened, united, harmonious, rich and prosperous, but above all, a safe nation, invulnerable forever to invasion and infiltration across its borders,'' he said while addressing Parliament at a commemorative function in the Central Hall on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the First War of Independence.

Calling upon the young Parliamentarians ''to come out of small aims,'' Dr Kalam asked them to have a big aim and work for the nation in Parliament and outside.

''I see in you the eternal spirit of Mahatma Gandhi, Dr Rajendra prasad, Sardar Patel, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, Subhas Chandra Bose, Dr Ambedkar, Abdul Kalam Azad, Rajaji and many great visionary leaders of our nation," he said, asking "Can you also become visionary leaders, putting the nation above yourself ? Can you become one of the great ones of India? Dr Kalam, whose current term in Rashtrapathi Bhavan expires in July, asked the Parliamentarians to resolve to implement Mission India-2020 for a strong, prosperous and happy nation. ''If the Mission 2020 is implemented, it will end poverty, illiteracy, corruption, rural and urban divide, societal and economic discrimination and crimes against women and children,'' he added.

''You can become visionary leaders if you enliven Parliament with leadership for the great mission of transforming India into an ecomically prosperous, happy, strong and safe nation before 2020," he told the Parliamentarians, while telling them that "history will remember you for launching a great, bold and swift mission for the nation, a notable departure from small and fragmented actions." Dr Kalam said national leadership had to radiate confidence in the people and boldly emerge by formulating and implementing new national missions, targeting specific time-bound goals.

''Many challenges need to be responded to : the emergence of multi-party coalitions as a regular form of government, that need to rapidly evolve as a stable, two-party system, the need to strength internal security to cope with global terrorism and new forms of internal law and order problems,'' he said, in this context.

The President said the resurgence of nationalism which started in 1857 as a small streams of dissent against the British yoke had soon joined together to become a powerful flood as a nationwide movement to regain ''our lost freedom''.

''This freedom movement created a renaissance of visionary, devoted and passionate leadership across the entire spectrum of our civilisational heritage, in multiple fields..." UNI