Kalam an inspirational figure, votary of simple living, high thinking: Governor

Chennai

Participating in the function organised by the Students Federation of India, he paid rich tributes to Dr Kalam and said he was a people’s President, who rose to that position after serving the Nation as a missile scientist.

Stating that the life voyage of Dr Kalam was truly a lesson for everyone of to learn, he said his father’s profession was to build and rent boats. Kalam was a diligent and intelligent student in the class. He distributed newspapers in his locality to support his father, Governor said. He was a very promising student and showed enormous likings towards science and mathematics, Governor said.

Dr Kalam went to St Joseph’s College after completing his school education and later qualified for admission to the Madras Institute of Technology to earn a degree in aeronautical engineering. Failing to qualify as a fighter pilot for the Indian Air force, Dr Kalam set about pursuing a career as a space scientist, Purohit said.

Recalling that Dr Kalam came to be known as the Missile Man of India for his work on the development of ballistic missile and launch vehicle technology, Banwarilal Purohit said he also played a pivotal organisational, technical and political role in India’s Pokhran-II nuclear tests in 1998. Kalam was the third President of India to have been honoured with a Bharat Ratna, before becoming the President and was also the first scientist to occupy Rashtrapati Bhawan.

Purohit said in May 2012, Kalam launched a programme for the youth of India called the ‘What Can I Give Movement’, with a central theme of defeating corruption. India Vision 2020 was a document prepared by the Technology Information, Forecasting and Assessment Council of the Department of Science and Technology commissioned under the Chairmanship of Dr Kalam and a team of 500 experts.

It aimed at doubling the present production of agricultural and food processing, providing urban amenities to rural areas, increasing solar power operations ensuring literacy, social security, and overall health for the population, increasing e-governance to promote education in remote areas, promotion of nuclear technology, space technology and defense technology and reducing the levels of poverty and illiteracy, encouraging the purchase of Swadeshi goods thereby providing strength to the Indian Economy, he added.