Dr.Abdul Kalam free essay sample

Dr. Avul Pakir Jainulabdeen Abdul Kalam born on 15th October 1931 at Rameswaram, in Tamil Nadu, , specialized in Aero Engineering from Madras Institute of Technology. Before his term as Indias president, he worked as an aeronautical engineer with DRDO and ISRO. He is popularly known as the Missile Man of India for his work on development of ballistic missile and space rocket technology. [5]. In India he is highly respected as a scientist and as an engineer. Kalam played a pivotal organisational, technical and political role in Indias Pokhran-II nuclear test in 1998, the first since the original nuclear test by India in 1974. He is a professor at Anna University (Chennai) and adjunct/visiting faculty at many other academic and research institutions across India. With the death of R. Venkataraman on January 27, 2009, Kalam became the only surviving former President of India. Political views APJ Abdul Kalam views on certain issues have been espoused by him in his book India 2020 where he strongly advocates an action plan to develop India into a knowledge superpower and into a developed nation by the year 2020. We will write a custom essay sample on Dr.Abdul Kalam or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Kalam is credited with the view that India ought to take a more assertive stance in international relations; he regards his work on Indias nuclear weapons program as a way to assert Indias place as a future superpower. Kalam continues to take an active interest in other developments in the field of science and technology as well. He has proposed a research programme for developing bio-implants. He is a supporter of Open source software over proprietary solutions and believes that the use of open source software on a large scale will bring more people the benefits of information technology.. Kalams belief in the power of science to resolve societys problems and his views of these problems as a result of inefficient distribution of resources is modernistic. He also sees science and technology as ideology-free areas and emphasises the cultivation of scientific temper and entrepreneurial drive. In this, he finds a lot of support among Indias new business leaders like the founders of Infosys and Wipro, (leading Indian IT corporations) who began their careers as technology professionals much in the same way Kalam did. Personal life Kalams father was a devout Muslim, who owned boats which he rented out to local fishermen and was a good friend of Hindu religious leaders and the school teachers at Rameshwaram. APJ Abdul Kalam mentions in his biography that to support his studies, he started his career as a newspaper vendor. This was also told in the book, A Boy and His Dream: Three Stories from the Childhood of Abdul Kalam by Vinita Krishna. The house Kalam was born in can still be found on the Mosque street in Rameshwaram, and his brothers curio shop abuts it. This has become a point-of-call for tourists who seek out the place. Kalam grew up in an intimate relationship with nature, and he says in Wings of Fire that he never could imagine that water could be so powerful a destroying force as that he witnessed when he was thirty three. That was in 1964 when a cyclonic storm swept away the Pamban bridge and a trainload of passengers with it and also Kalams native village, Dhanushkodi. He is a scholar of Thirukkural; in most of his speeches, he quotes at least one kural. Kalam has written several inspirational books, most notably his autobiography Wings of Fire, aimed at motivating Indian youth. Another of his books, Guiding Souls: Dialogues on the Purpose of Life reveals his spiritual side. He has written poems in Tamil as well. It has been reported that there is considerable demand in South Korea for translated versions of books authored by him. Kalam has also patronised grassroots innovations. He is closely associated with the Honey Bee Network and The National innovation Foundation. The NIF is a body of Government of India and operates from Ahmadabad, Gujrat. He respects all religions, including Sikhism and Hinduism. He is a vegetarian and a teetotaller. Kalam as an engineer Abdul Kalam graduated from Madras Institute of Technology majoring in Aeronautical Engineering. As the Project Director, he was heavily involved in the development of Indias first indigenous Satellite Launch Vehicle (SLV-III). As Chief Executive of Integrated Guided Missile Development Programme (IGMDP), he also played a major part in developing many missiles of India including Agni and Prithvi. Although the entire project has been criticised for being overrun and mismanaged[10]. He was the Chief Scientific Adviser to Defence Minister and Secretary, Department of Defence Research Development from July 1992 to December 1999. Pokhran-II nuclear tests were conducted during this period, led by him. He is one of those scientists who aims at putting technology created by him to multiple use. He used the light weight carbon-compound material designed for Agni to make callipers for the polio affected. This carbon composite material reduced the weight of the calipers to 400 grams (from its original weight of 4kgs. Nizams Institute of Medical Sciences (NIMS, Hyderabad) was the birthplace for the defence technology spin offs from Kalams labs via the DRDL (Defence Research and Development Laboratory), DMRL (Defence Metallurgical Research Lab) and the RCI (Research Centre Imarat). Addressing a conference at Athens, Greece, Kalam told that Seeing the children run with lighter callipers brought tears to the eyes of their parents. That was the real moment of bliss for me. Honours On Wednesday April 29, 2009, he became the first Asian to be bestowed the Hoover Medal, Americas top engineering prize, for his outstanding contribution to public service. Kalam has received honorary doctorates from as many as thirty universities, including the Carnegie Mellon University and the Nanyang Technological University of Singapore. The Government of India has honoured him with the nations highest civilian honours: the Padma Bhushan in 1981; Padma Vibhushan in 1990; and the Bharat Ratna in 1997 for his work with ISRO and DRDO and his role as a scientific advisor to the Indian government.. Kalam is the Third President of India to have been honoured with a Bharat Ratna before being elected to the highest office, the other two being Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan and Zakir Hussain. He is also the first scientist and first bachelor to occupy Rashtrapati Bhavan. Kalam has been chosen to receive prestigious 2008 Hoover Medal for his outstanding public service. The citation said that he is being recognised for making state-of-the-art healthcare available to the common man at affordable prices, bringing quality medical care to rural areas by establishing a link between doctors and technocrats, using spin-offs of defence technology to create state-of-the-art medical equipment and launching tele-medicine projects connecting remote rural-based hospitals to the super-specialty hospital. A pre eminent scientist, a gifted engineer, and a true visionary, he is also a humble humanitarian in every sense of the word, it added. Books and documentaries Oct 15, 1931 : Born at Dhanushkodi in Rameswaram district,Tamil Nadu. His father had to rent boats to pay his school fees. He studied at the Schwartz High School in Ramanathapuram. 1954-58 : After graduating in science from St. Josephs College in Tiruchi, he enrolled for Aeronautical Engineering at the Madras Institute of Technology in 1954. 1958 Kalam joined the Defence Research Development Organisation (DRDO) and served as a senior scientific assistant, heading a small team that developed a prototype hovercraft. But the project, never took off. 1962 : Following the lukewarm response to his hovercraft program, Kalam moved out of DRDO and joined Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) 1963-82 : Kalam joined the satellite launch vehicle team at Thumba, near Trivandram and soon became Project Director for SLV-3. 1980 : Rohini put into orbit in the month of July 1981 : Kalam honoured with the Padma Bhushan 1982 : Kalam returns to DRDO as its Director. Takes charge of Indias integrated guided missile development program. The program envisaged the launch of five major missiles. 1992 : Kalam takes over as the Scientific Advisor to Union Defence Minister. 1997 : Kalam honoured with Bharat Ratna, indias highest civilian award. May 11, 1998 : Adorning a Gorkha hat in the Rajasthan deserts, he orchestrated Indias underground nuclear tests. The scientist from a small hamlet in Tamil Nadu who had dreamt of India as a nuclear power many years ago had finally achieved it! 2002 : Kalam takes over as the President of India. WINGS OF FIRE by Dr. Â  I have three visions for India. In 3000 years of our history, people from all over the world have come and invaded us, captured our lands conquered our minds. From Alexander onwards. The Greeks, the Portuguese, the British, the French, the Dutch, all of them came and looted us, took over what was ours. Yet we have not done this to any other nation. We have not conquered anyone. We have not grabbed their land, their culture, their history and tried to enforce our way oflife on them. Why? Because we respect the freedom of others. That is why my first vision is that of FREEDOM. I believe that India got its first vision of this in 1857, when we started the war of independence. It is this freedom that we must protect and nurture and built on. If we are not free, no one will respect us. My second vision for India is DEVELOPMENT. For fifty years we have been a developing nation. It is time we see ourselves as a developed nation. We are among top 5 nations of the world in terms of GDP. We have 10 percent growth rate in most areas. Our poverty levels are falling, our achievements are being globally recognized today. Yet we lack the self-confidence to see ourselves as a developed nation, self reliant and self assured. Isnt this right? I have third vision. The India must stand up to the world. Because I believe that unless India stands up to the world, no one will respect us. Only strength respects strength. We must be strong not only as a military power but also as an economic power. Both must go hand-in-hand. My good fortune was to have worked with three great minds. Dr. Vikram Sarabhai of the Dept. of space, Professor Satish Dhawan, who succeeded him, and Dr. Brahm Prakash, father of nuclear material. I was lucky to have worked with all three of them closely and consider this the great opportunity of my life. I see four milestones in my career: ONE : Twenty years I spent in ISRO. I was given the opportunity to be the project director for Indias first satellite launch vehicle, SLV3. The one thatlaunched Rohini. These years played a very important role in my life of a Scientist. TWO : After my ISRO years, i joined DRDO and got a chance to be the part of Indias guided missile program. It was my second bliss when Agni met its mission requirements in 1994. THREE : The Dept. of Atomic Energy and DRDO had this tremendous partnership in the recent nuclear tests, on May 11 and 13. This was the third bliss. The joy of participating with my team in these nuclear tests and proving to the world that India can make it. That we are no longer a developing nation but one of them. It made me feel very proud as an Indian. The fact that we have now developed for Agni a re-entry structure, for which we have developed this new material. A Very light material called carbon-carbon. FOUR : One day an orthopaedic surgeon from Nizam Institute of Medical Sciences visited my laboratory. He lifted the material and found it so light that he took me to his hospital and showed me his patients. There were these little girls and boys with heavy metallic calipers weighing over three Kgs. each, dragging their feet around. He said to me: Please remove the pain of my patients. In three weeks, we made these Floor reaction Orthosis 300 gram calipers and took them to the orthopaedic center. The children didnt believe their eyes. From dragging around a three kg. load on their legs, they could now move around! Their parents had tears in their eyes. That was my fourth bliss! Why is the media here so negative? Why are we in India so embarrassedto recognize our own strengths, our achievements? We are such a great nation. We have so many amazing success stories but we refuse to acknowledge them. Why? We are the second largest producer of wheat in the world. We are the second largest producers of rice. We are the first in milk production. We are number one in Remote sensing satellites. Look at Dr. Sudarshan, he has transferred the tribal village into a self-sustaining, self driving unit. There are millions of such achievements but our media is only obsessed with the bad news and failures and disasters. I was in Tel Aviv once and I was reading the Israeli newspaper. It was the day after a lot of attacks and bombardments and deaths had taken place. The Hamas had struck. But the front page of the newspaper had the picture of a Jewish gentleman who in five years had transformed his desert land into an orchid and a granary. It was his inspiring picture that everyone woke up to. The gory details of killings, bombardments,deaths, were inside in the newspaper, buried among other news. In India we only read about death, sickness,terrorism, crime. Why are we so negative? Another question: Why are we, as a nation so obsessed with Foreign things? we want foreign TVs, we want foreign shirts. We want foreign technology. Why this obsession with everything imported? Do we not realize that self-respect comes with self-reliance? I was in Hyderabad giving this lecture, when a 14 year old girl asked me for my autograph. I asked her what her goal in life is: She replied: I want to live in a developed India. For her, for you, we will have to built this developed India. You must proclaim. Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam. * Wings of Fire: An Autobiography of APJ Abdul Kalam by A. P. J Abdul Kalam, Arun Tiwari; by K. Bhushan, G. Katyal; A. P. H. Pub. Corp, 2002. * Scientist to President by Abdul A. P. J. Kalam; Gyan Publishing House, 2003. * Ignited Minds: Unleashing the Power Within India by A. P. J. Abdul Kalam; Penguin Books, 2003. * India 2020: A Vision for the New Millennium by A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, Y. S. Rajan; Penguin Books India, 2003. * India-my-dream by A. P. J. Abdul Kalam; Excel Books, 2004. * Envisioning an Empowered Nation: Technology for Societal Transformation by A. P. J. Abdul Kalam; TATA McGraw-Hill Publishing Company Ltd, 2004. * Guiding Souls: Dialogues on the Purpose of Life by A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, Arun K Tiwari; Ocean Books, 2005. * Children Ask Kalam by A. P. J Abdul Kalam; Pearson Education, ISBN 81-7758-245-3 Biographies * Eternal Quest: Life and Times of Dr. Avul Pakir Jainulabdeen Abdul Kalam by S. Chandra; Pentagon Publishers, 2002. * President A. P. J. Abdul Kalam by R. K. Pruthi; Anmol Publications, 2002. * A. P. J. Abdul Kalam: The Visionary of India by K. Bhushan, G. Katyal; A. P. H. Pub. Corp, 2002. * A little Dream (documentary film) by P. Dhanapal; Minveli Media Works Private Limited, 2008. [14] * The Kalam Effect: My Years with the President by P. M. Nair; Harper Collins, 2008. Attributed Quotes * All Gods creatures are His family; and he is the most beloved of God who tries to do most good to Gods creatures. God has not promised Skies always blue, Flower-strewn pathways All our life through; God has not promised Sun without rain, Joy without sorrow, Peace without pain. * I will not be presumptuous enough to say that my life can be a role model for anybody; but some poor child living in an obscure place in an underprivileged social setting may find a little solace in the way my destiny has been shaped. It could perhaps help such children liberate themselves from the bondage of their illusory backwardness and hopelessness? * Thinking is progress. Non-thinking is stagnation of the individual, organisation and the country. Thinking leads to action. Knowledge without action is useless and irrelevant. Knowledge with action, converts adversity into prosperity. * Thinking should become your capital asset, no matter whatever ups and downs you come across in your life. * What actions are most excellent? To gladden the heart of a human being, to feed the hungry, to help the afflicted to lighten the sorrow of the sorrowful and to remove the wrongs of injured. * When you speak, speak the truth; perform when you promise; discharge your trust?. Withhold your hands from striking, and from taking that which is unlawful and bad? * Whenever you face problems or are in the middle of them just think— What has happened, has happened for the good. What is happening is happening for the good. And what will happen will also happen for the good Speech by Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam, I have three visions for India. In 3000 years of our history people from all over the world have come and invaded us, captured our lands, conquered our minds. From Alexander onwards. The Greeks, the Turks, the Moguls, the Portuguese, the British, the French, the Dutch, all of them came and looted us, took over what was ours. Yet we have not done this to any other nation. We have not conquered anyone. We have not grabbed their land, their culture, their history and tried to enforce our way of life on them. Why? Because we respect the freedom of others. That is why my first vision is that of FREEDOM. I believe that India got its first vision of this in 1857, when we started the war of independence. It is this freedom that we must protect and nurture and build on. If we are not free, no one will respect us. My second vision for India is DEVELOPMENT. For fifty years we have been a developing nation. It is time we see ourselves as a developed nation. We are among top 5 nations of the world in terms of GDP. We have 10 percent growth rate in most areas. Our poverty levels are falling. Our achievements are being globally recognized today. Yet we lack the self-confidence to see ourselves as a developed nation, self-reliant and self-assured. Isnt this incorrect? I have a THIRD vision. India must stand up to the world. Because I believe that unless India stands up to the world, no one will respect us. Only strength respects strength. We must be strong not only as a military power but also as an economic power. Both must go hand-in-hand. My good fortune was to have worked with three great minds. Dr. Vikram Sarabhai of the Dept. of space, Professor Satish Dhawan, who succeeded him and Dr. Brahm Prakash, father of nuclear material. I was lucky to have worked with all three of them closely and consider this the great opportunity of my life. I see four milestones in my career: ONE: Twenty years I spent in ISRO. I was given the opportunity to be the project director for Indias first satellitelaunch vehicle, SLV3. The one that launched Rohini. These years played a very important role in my life of Scientist. TWO: After my ISRO years, I joined DRDO and got a chance to be the part of Indias missile program. It was my second bliss when Agni met its mission requirements in 1994. THREE: The Dept. of Atomic Energy and DRDO had this tremendous partnership in the recent nuclear tests, on May 11 and 13. This was the third bliss. The joy of participating with my team in these nuclear tests and proving to the world that India can make it, that we are no longer a developing nation but one of them. It made me feel very proud as an Indian. The fact that we have now developed for Agni a re-entry structure, for which we have developed This new material. A Very light material called carbon-carbon. FOUR: One day an orthopedic surgeon from Nizam Institute of Medical Sciences visited my laboratory. He lifted the material and found it so light that he took me to his hospital and showed me his patients. There were these little girls and boys with heavy metallic calipers weighing over three kg. each, dragging their feet around. He said to me: Please remove the pain of my patients. In three weeks, we made these Floor reaction Orthosis 300 gram calipers and took them to the orthopedic centre. The children didnt believe their eyes. From dragging around a three kg. load on their legs, they could now move around! Their parents had tears in their eyes. That was my fourth bliss! Why is the media here so negative? Why are we in India so embarrassed to recognize our own strengths, our achievements? We are such a great nation. We have so many amazing success stories but we refuse to acknowledge them. Why? We are the first in milk production. We are number one in Remote sensing satellites. We are the second largest producer of wheat. We are the second largest producer of rice. Look at Dr. Sudarshan, he has transferred the tribal village into a self-sustaining, self-driving unit. There are millions of such achievements but our media is only obsessed in the bad news and failures and disasters. I was in Tel Aviv once and I was reading the Israeli newspaper. It was the day after a lot of attacks and bombardments and deaths had taken place. The Hamas had struck. But the front page of the newspaper had the pictureof a Jewish gentleman who in five years had transformed his desert land into an orchid and a granary. It was this inspiring picture that everyone woke up to. The gory details of killings, bombardments, deaths, were inside in the newspaper, buried among other news. In India we only read about death, sickness, terrorism, crime. Why are we so NEGATIVE? Another question: Why are we, as a nation so obsessed with foreign things? We want foreign TVs, we want foreign shirts. We want foreign technology. Why this obsession with everything imported. Do we not realize that self-respect comes with self-reliance? I was in Hyderabad giving this lecture, when a 14 year old girl asked me for my autograph. I asked her what her goal in life is: She replied: I want to live in a developed India. For her, you and I will have to build this developed India. You must proclaim. India is not an under-developed nation; it is a highly developed nation. Allow me to come back with vengeance. Got 10 minutes for your country? YOU say that our government is inefficient. YOU say that our laws are too old. YOU say that the municipality does not pick up the garbage. YOU say that the phones dont work, the railways are a joke, the airline is the worst in the world, mails never reach their destination. YOU say that our country has been fed to the dogs and is the absolute pits. YOU say, say and say. What do YOU do about it? Take a person on his way to Singapore. Give him a name YOURS. Give him a face YOURS. YOU walk out of the airport and you are at your International best. In Singapore you dont throw cigarette butts on the roads or eat in the stores. YOU are as proud of their Underground Links as they are. You pay $5 (approx. Rs. 60) to drive through Orchard Road (equivalent of Mahim Causeway or Pedder Road) between 5 PM and 8 PM. YOU comeback to the parking lot to punch your parking ticket if you have over stayed in a restaurant or a shopping mall irrespective of your status identity. In Singapore you dont say anything, DO YOU? YOU wouldnt dare to eat in public during Ramadan, in Dubai. YOU would not dare to go out without your head covered in Jeddah. YOU would not dare to buy an employee of the telephone exchange in London at 10 pounds (Rs. 650) a month to, see to it that my STD and ISD calls are billed to someone else. YOU would not dare to speed beyond 55 mph (88 kph) in Washington and then tell the traffic cop, Jaanta hai sala main kaun hoon (Do you know who I am? ). I am so and sos son. Take your two bucks and get lost. YOU wouldnt chuck an empty coconut shell anywhere other than the garbage pail on the beaches in Australia and New Zealand. Why dont YOU spit Paan on the streets of Tokyo? Why dont YOU use examination jockeys or buy fake certificates in Boston? We are still talking of the same YOU. YOU who can respect and conform to a foreign system in other countries but cannot in your own. You who will throw papers and cigarettes on the road the moment you touch Indian ground. If you can be an involved and appreciative citizen in an alien country why cannot you be the same here in India. Once in an interview, the famous Ex-municipal commissioner of Bombay Mr. Tinaikar had a point to make. Rich peoples dogs are walked on the streets to leave their affluent droppings all over the place, he said. And then the same people turn around to criticize and blame the authorities for inefficiency and dirty pavements. What do they expect the officers to do? Go down with a broom every time their dog feels the pressure in his bowels? In America every dog owner has to clean up after his pet has done the job. Same in Japan. Will the Indian citizen do that here? Hes right. We go to the polls to choose a government and after that forfeit all responsibility. We sit back wanting to be pampered and expect the government to do everything for us whilst our contribution is totally negative. We expect the government to clean up but we are not going to stop chucking garbage all over the place nor are we going to stop to pick a up a stray piece of paper and throw it in the bin. We expect the railways to provide clean bathrooms but we are not going to learn the proper use of bathrooms. We want Indian Airlines and Air India to provide the best of food and toiletries but we are not going to stop pilfering at the least opportunity. This applies even to the staff who is known not to pass on the service to the public. When it comes to burning social issues like those related to women, dowry, girl child and others, we make loud drawing room protestations and continue to do the reverse at home. Our excuse? Its the whole system which has to change, how will it matter if I alone forego my sons rights to a dowry. So whos going to change the system? What does a system consist of? Very conveniently for us it consists of our neighbors, other households, other cities, other communities and the government. But definitely not me and YOU. When it comes to us actually making a positive contribution to the system we lock ourselves along with our families into a safe cocoon and look into the distance at countries far away and wait for a Mr. Clean to come along work miracles for us with a majestic sweep of his hand. Or we leave the country and run away. Like lazy cowards hounded by our fears we run to America to bask in their glory and praise their system. When New York becomes insecure we run to England. When England experiences unemployment, we take the next flight out to the Gulf. When the Gulf is war struck, we demand to be rescued and brought home by the Indian government. Everybody is out to abuse and rape the country. Nobody thinks of feeding the system. Our conscience is mortgaged to money. Dear Indians, The article is highly thought inductive, calls for a great deal of introspection and pricks ones conscience too. I am echoing J. F. Kennedys words to his fellow Americans to relate to Indians.. ASK WHAT WE CAN DO FOR INDIA AND DO WHAT HAS TO BE DONE TO MAKE INDIA WHAT AMERICA AND OTHER WESTERN COUNTRIES ARE TODAY Lets do what India needs from us.