says the dreamer from India,the great Missile Man and Honorable ex-President of India Mr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam,whose golden words of wisdom are to be sown in the billions of minds. To propagate the waves of his visions to inspire and build a healthy India, he started a website
http://www.abdulkalam.com/
and an e-paper called BillionBeats
We wish him all success towards his 2020 Visions and let us all join hands and be a part of this drive.
JAIHIND
Who was the Missile Man?
Dr. Avul Pakir Jainulabdeen Abdul Kalam was born in 1931 in the temple town of Rameswaram, Tamil Nadu, the son of a boat owner, and rose from selling newspapers as a boy to become India's most beloved scientist. At ISRO he led the project that put India's first satellite launch vehicle, the SLV-3, into the sky; at DRDO he fathered the Agni and Prithvi missile programmes that earned him the name "Missile Man of India"; and in 1998 he was the scientific face of the Pokhran-II nuclear tests. India awarded him the Bharat Ratna, its highest civilian honour, in 1997.
The People's President
From 2002 to 2007 he served as the eleventh President of India — and redefined the office. He answered schoolchildren's letters personally, filled Rashtrapati Bhavan with students, and became known simply as the People's President. His books — Wings of Fire, Ignited Minds, India 2020 — sold millions of copies and are still pressed into young hands by teachers across India.
Billion Beats and Vision 2020
Billion Beats was his e-paper: a free digital newsletter meant to carry inspiration to "the billion" — stories of ordinary Indians doing extraordinary things, science explained for the young, and his roadmap for India to become a developed nation by 2020. The vision was characteristically practical: agriculture, education, healthcare, information technology and self-reliance in critical technologies, all pulling together.
The legacy (a note added later)
This post was written in 2008, when Dr. Kalam was travelling the country speaking to students almost daily. He continued doing exactly that until his final moment — he collapsed on 27 July 2015 while delivering a lecture at IIM Shillong, and India mourned him as it has mourned few leaders. He often told students that a dream is not what you see in sleep, but the thing that will not let you sleep. By that definition, his dream is still awake: every Indian classroom that reaches a little higher carries a beat of it.
More on India in this journal: Incredible India and The entire world is looking at us.
