A.P.J. Abdul Kalam
Great Indian scientist and
politician who played a leading
role in the development of India’s
missile and nuclear weapons
programs.
About the Legend
☛ A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, in full
Avul Pakir Jainulabdeen Abdul Kalam,
was born on October 15, 1931, in
Rameswaram, Tamil Nadu, India.
☛ He served as the 11th President
of India from 2002 to 2007.
☛ Kalam earned a degree in
aeronautical engineering from the
Madras Institute of Technology and in
1958 joined the Defence Research and
Development Organisation (DRDO).
☛ In 1969, he moved to the Indian
Space Research Organisation, where he
was project director of the SLV-III, the
first satellite launch vehicle that was
both designed and produced in India.
☛ Rejoining DRDO in 1982,
Kalam planned the program that produced
a number of successful missiles, which
helped earn him the nickname
“Missile Man.”
☛ Among those successes
was Agni, India’s first intermediate-range
ballistic missile, which incorporated
aspects of the SLV-III and was launched
in 1989.
☛ He also played a
pivotal organisational, technical,
and political role in India's Pokhran-II
nuclear tests in 1998, the first since
the original nuclear test by India in 1974.
☛ From 1992 to 1997 Kalam
was scientific adviser to the defense
minister, and he later served as principal
scientific adviser (1999–2001) to the
government with the rank of cabinet minister.
☛ His prominent role in
the country’s 1998 nuclear weapons tests
solidified India as a nuclear power and
established Kalam as a national hero,
although the tests caused great concern
in the international community.
☛ In 1998 Kalam put
forward a countrywide plan called
Technology Vision 2020, which he described
as a road map for transforming India from
a less-developed to a developed society
in 20 years. The plan called for, among
other measures, increasing agricultural
productivity, emphasizing technology as
a vehicle for economic growth, and
widening access to health care and
education.
☛ Kalam received 7
honorary doctorates from 40
universities. The Government of India
honoured him with the Padma Bhushan
in 1981 and the Padma Vibhushan
in 1990 for his work with ISRO and
DRDO and his role as a scientific advisor
to the Government.
☛ In 1997, Kalam received
India's highest civilian honour, the
Bharat Ratna, for his contribution to
the scientific research and modernisation
of defence technology in India.
☛ In 2013, he was the
recipient of the Von Braun Award from
the National Space Society "to recognize
excellence in the management and leadership
of a space-related project".
☛ While delivering a
lecture at the Indian Institute of
Management Shillong, Kalam collapsed and
died from an apparent cardiac arrest on
27 July 2015, aged 83.
☛ Wheeler Island, a
national missile test site in Odisha, was
renamed Kalam Island in September
2015.
☛ A prominent road in
New Delhi was renamed from Aurangzeb
Road to Dr APJ Abdul Kalam Road
in August 2015.
☛ In February 2018,
scientists from the Botanical Survey
of India named a newly found plant
species as Drypetes kalamii, in his
honour.
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