Dr. AVUL PAKIR JAINULABDEEN ABDUL KALAM ( Dr APJ ABDUL KALAM ) lovingly called “People’s President” was the 11th President of the Republic of India from 2002 to 2007. What was remarkable was that he never indulged in Politics and yet was elected the President of India with the support of all political parties – a rarity in India. He devoted his life to the pursuit of knowledge in the field of Science and Technology.
He spent a major part of his life guiding and steering DRDO ( Defence Research and Development Organisation ) and ISRO ( Indian Space Research Organisation ) and was mainly responsible for the successful development of India’s civilian space programme and indigenous military missile development programme. It was due to his vast knowledge, tireless efforts and brilliant execution capabilities that India is counted amongst the select countries who are foremost in the field of ballistic missile and launch vehicles technology.
India has been successfully launching satellites and putting them in orbit even for highly advanced countries such as U.K., France and others. On account of all these invaluable contributions, very rightly he came to be known as “Missile man of India”.
India’s highly successful missiles “AGNI” and “PRITHVI” were developed under his stewardship. INTERESTINGLY the founding and current Director of VISWALAB Dr. Vis was closely associated with the development of fabrication and quality control procedures of AGNI NOSE CONE which comes under severe stresses during the flight. Dr. Kalam and Dr. Vis were intensely engaged in consultations during this activity.
I had the good fortune of meeting Dr. Kalam in 2006 when he was the President of India. I , as President of the Institution of marine Engineers ( India ), requested for an appointment with him which he very graciously granted and spent nearly 40 minutes with me, discussing and educating me on the history of Industrial Revolution including the contribution made by Thomas Newcomen who made use of steam to operate water pump and of course James Watt who is well known for his work in development of the highly successful steam reciprocating engine and others.
It was a treat to listen to him and I hung on to his every sentence which was full of knowledge and each words which were pearls of wisdom.
During one of his interactions with Children, he advised them “DARE TO DREAM” and work hard to make the dream come true and only then will India realise its full potential and become a great country that it deserves to be.
In his death, we have lost a worthy son of India.
HE WAS TRULY A BHARAT RATNA.
MAY THE LORD GRANT US A FEW MORE LIKE HIM.
Raghuvir C Bhavnani,
Vice-President,
Viswa lab.
We thank Mr. R.C. Bhavnani for sharing his cherished moments with the elite MFAME community through us. Would you like to share such moments with the community?
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Dear Mr. Bhavnani,
Great “Missile Man” became a “People’s President” is a story of great man who rose from small village to be great educationist as well. He focused on children making the dreams come true. Being a Muslim, he had the courage to denounce the madrassa, that is root of fundamentalism seeds in young minds while getting inappropriate grants from vote hungry politicians.
We congratulate for your work in Marine fields and promoting Marine Engineers. We will remember your unpolluted contributions to our industry. Bodh
Mr. Bhavnani,
Many thanks for sharing those wonderful moments that you shared with this great person, who has been loved and respected by every single persons in India. We are proud of him. As you very well said, let us be blessed with more such great personalities.
Muralidharan