15th August 2000

"At the stroke of midnight when the world was asleep, we awoke to freedom and liberty".
"The soul of a nation, found utterance".
It was just the beginning. The midnight hour, thronged with memories of the past, and throbbing with significance for the future, is a golden moment to relish on. Jawahar Lal Nehru.



"If there is one place on the face of earth where all the  dreams of living men have found a home from the very earliest days when man began the dream of existence, it is India."  Romain Rolland

"We owe a lot to Indians, who taught us how to count, without which no worthwhile scientific discovery could have been made."  Elbert Einstein.
 

"Civilizations have arisen in other parts of the world. In ancient and modern times, wonderful ideas have been carried forward from one race to another...But mark you, my friends, it has been always with the  blast of war trumpets and the march of embattled cohorts. Each idea had to be soaked in a deluge of blood..... Each word of power had to be followed by the groans of millions, by the wails of orphans, by the tears of widows. This,  many other nations have taught; but India for thousands of years peacefully  existed. Here activity prevailed when even Greece did not exist... Even earlier, when history has no record, and tradition dares not peer into the gloom of  that intense past, even from until now, ideas after ideas have marched out  from her, but every word has been spoken with a blessing behind it and peace before it. We, of all nations of the world, have never been a conquering race, and that blessing is on our head, and therefore we live...."  Swami Vivekananda.

: "She [India]  has left indelible imprints on one fourth of the human race in the course of a long succession of centuries. She has the right to reclaim ... her place amongst the great nations summarizing and symbolizing the spirit of humanity. From Persia to the Chinese sea, from the icy regions of Siberia to Islands of Java and Borneo, India has propagated her beliefs, her tales,  and her civilization."  Sylvia Levi
 

"India is the cradle of the human race, the birthplace of  human speech, the mother of history, grandmother of legend, and great grand mother of tradition. Our most valuable and most instructive materials in the history of man are treasured up in India only."  Mark Twain.