APJ Abdul Kalam was born on 15th October 1931 in Rameswaram, Tamil Nadu. His Full Name is Avul Pakir Jainulabdeen. His mother name is Ashiamma and his father name Jainulabdeen, a boat owner and a big family with five sons and five daughters. Kalam’s father was uneducated so he wanted kalam to study. Abdul Kalam is an Indian Scientist, an administrator and an 11th president of India. He always says that he learnt leadership from three great teachers—Dr. Vikram Sarabhai, Prof. Satish Dhawan and Dr. Brahm Prakash.
Basically, he is from poor background. So at an early age he supported his family by working. After completing school he was distributing newspapers to increase his family income. In school he was an average rank holder but school teacher used to appreciate that he was a very bright and hardworking student. Teacher’s full support made him fearless. His father every so often quoted from the Quran to make his young Abdul Kalam see the world without fear . He is fond of studies especially mathematics and he had sturdy
desire to learn. He used wakeup at 4’O clock, take bathe, and go to teacher Swamiyar for maths tution. His teacher won’t allow students for tution without bathe it seems.
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He completed his school education at Rameshwaram Elementary school, college education in Saint Joseph’s College at Tiruchirappalli. Later he joined in the University of Madras where he completed his graduation in physics but he was not satisfied later he felt remorse in that four years studies. In 1955 he went to Madras to study aerospace engineering in Madras Institute of Technology (MIT).
After completing his graduation. In 1960 Kalam joined as a chief scientist in Aeronautical Development Establishment of Defense research and Development Organization (DRDO) where he started his career by designing a small helicopter for the Indian Army. But it was unimpressed with his job at DRDO. He was also part of INCOSPAR committee working beneath a famous space scientist Vikram Sarabhai. In
1969 he was transferred to Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO). Abdul Kalam was popularly known as the Missile Man of India for his work on the development of ballistic missile and launch vehicle technology. In ISRO he was project director of India’s first indigenous SLV-III (satellite Launch Vehicle) which successfully deployed the rohini satellite near earth orbit in 18th July 1980. He says that joining ISRO was one of his big achievements.
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Abdul Kalam became president of India in 2002. He was supported by major political parties of India Indian National Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party.
Books
APJ Abdul Kalam wrote autobiography wings of fire in 1999 and few more books called Ignited Minds in 2002, The Luminous Sparks in 2004, Mission India in 2005 etc. And in the book India 2020: A Vision for the New Millennium he wrote in depth about the weakness and the strength of India, as a nation, and proposals a vision of how India can arise to be among the world’s first four economic powers by 2020.
Awards
He won many awards Bharat Ratna in 1997, Padma bhushan in 1981, Padma vibushan in 1990, two awards as Doctor of Engineering award in 2008 from Nan yang Technological University, Singapore and in 2010 from University of waterloo etc.
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