“Mr. President, you are an amazing man,” I could tell this thousands of times to our former President, Mr. Avul Pakir Jainulabdeen Abdul Kalam. Popularly known as Missile Man of India, Mr. Kalam was born on October 15, 1931. He served India proudly as a President from 2002 to 2007. What makes him an amazing man is he was a man of his words, and he always stood by his moral values to execute the welfare of the country.
Before he became the president, he spent 4 decades as a scientist. He worked with the Indian Space Research Organization, and he was closely involved in India’s civilian space program and military missile development efforts. He thus came to be known as the Missile Man of India for his work on the development of ballistic missile and launch vehicle technology.
What makes him stand different among the crowd is Himself. Keeping the victories of Missile man for his contribution for missile, His addons for the country and its betterment is vast and so, praisable.
He played a pivotal organizational, technical, and political role in India’s Pokhran-II nuclear tests in 1998, the first since the original nuclear test by India in 1974.
In 1998 Kalam put forward a countrywide plan called Technology Vision 2020, which he described as a road map for remodeling India from a less-developed to a developed society in 20 years. The program called for, among other measures, enhancing agricultural productivity, emphasizing technology as a vehicle for economic growth, and widening access to health care and education.
We have no clue If the Central government is working on it presently or actually working on it at present.
During his term as president, he was popularly known as the People’s President. Saying so as per the reports- On May 30, President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam showed that he was not a rubber stamp-like Constitutional head, and he proved it by refusing to approve the office-of-profit Bill. It was an unexpected response that sent tremors across the political establishment, especially the ruling Congress and its leftist allies.
In September 2003, in an interactive session in PGI Chandigarh, Kalam supported the need for the Uniform Civil Code in India, keeping in view the population of the country.
During the last times os his tenure, on 20 June 2007, Kalam expressed his willingness to consider a second term in office provided there was certainty about his victory in the 2007 presidential election.
Later on, Kalam declined to contest the 2012 presidential poll. He chose not to contest the Presidential election again, stating that he wanted to avoid involving Rashtrapati Bhavan from any political processes. He said of his decision not to do so:
Many, many citizens have also expressed the same wish. It only reflects their love and affection for me and the aspiration of the people. I am overwhelmed by this support. This being their wish, I respect it. I want to thank them for the trust they have in me.
After his tenure as a President, his sparkled his way, and he launched a programmer in May 2012 for the youth of India called the What Can I Give Movement, with a central theme of defeating corruption.
Not only this, APJ Abdul Kalam’s word of caution on ‘Make in India’
On Digital India, he felt it has the potential to activate the knowledge connectivity needed in villages and remote areas, and “we need to bridge the gaps of lower level of literacy, language, and customized content, though.“
These views are expressed in the soon-to-be-published “Advantage India: From Challenge to Opportunity,” one of the last books written by Kalam along with his aide Srijan Pal Singh.
According to Kalam, there is a distinct feeling that politics is fast evolving into a game of musical chairs where the same set of leaders or their favored few, occupy the seats of power with huge entry barriers for others.
“Where this set of leaders lacks integrity, the baton passes from one corrupt leader to another who is part of this set. Politics needs streamlined processes for the people to pluck out and permanently discard the corrupted and also a mechanism by which fresh talent and creative leaders can find their way into the system, using ethical means,” he wrote.
“Mr. President, you are an amazing man,” I could tell this thousands of times.
