President leads nation in paying tributes to Kalam; funeral on Thursday
Updated
New Delhi, Jul 28 (IANS): President Pranab Mukherjee and Prime Minister Narendra Modi led the nation on Tuesday in paying tributes to former president A.P.J. Abdul Kalam.
Thousands of people visited the 'Missile Man's' official residence here to pay their last respects to the "people's president" who collapsed while delivering a lecture at the Indian Institute of Management in Shillong on Monday evening.
The two houses of Parliament were adjourned for two days as a mark of respect to Kalam as political parties gratefully recalled his contributions to the nation.
The union cabinet met in the morning to formally pay tributes to Kalam who rose from humble beginnings to become one of India's leading scientists and later a popular president.
Kalam's body, wrapped in the Tricolour, arrived on Tuesday at the Palam technical area of Indira Gandhi International Airport at around 12.30 p.m. in a special Indian Air Force plane.
After a ceremonial guard of honour at the airport in the presence of the three service chiefs, Kalam's mortal remains were brought in an army vehicle to his official residence at 10, Rajaji Marg in central Delhi.
Thousands of people visited his residence to pay homage as cries of "Abdul Kalam amar rahe" and "Long live Abdul Kalam" rent the air.
The prime minister and the president went to the airport to pay tributes to the late leader. Other dignitaries present at the airport included Vice President Hamid Ansari, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar, Delhi Lt. Governor Najeeb Jung and Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal.
While the central government declared a seven-day mourning on Monday, the Goa government declared a seven-day mourning on Tuesday. Kejriwal announced that the Delhi government will name its scheme providing educational loan up to Rs.10 lakh after Kalam.
Modi, who addressed a meeting of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) parliamentary party on Tuesday, paid glowing tributes to Kalam and said India had lost a "ratna (jewel)".
Kalam was president from 2002-2007 and assumed the highest office when BJP-led National Democratic Alliance was in power.
Modi said Kalam was "rashtra ratna" (country's jewel) and his "personality was special".
"His life inspires us; it inspires the youth," Modi said.
The former president died on Monday evening in a private hospital in Shillong after he collapsed while delivering a lecture on 'Liveable Planet' to students of the Indian Institute of Managment, Shillong.
Kalam will be accorded a state funeral with full military honours at 11 a.m. on Thursday at Rameswaram in Tamil Nadu. His family had wished that his last rites be performed in his hometown.
After the Lok Sabha met on Tuesday morning, Speaker Sumitra Mahajan read out a condolence message and said Kalam was a "real gem" of the country and a "sagacious statesman".
The members stood in silence for two minutes to pay their respects.
In the Rajya Sabha, Chairman Hamid Ansari said the country had lost a true son. "His contributions to the nation as a man of technology, a teacher and a leader will be deeply cherished by a grateful nation," he said.
Both houses will now have their next sitting on July 30.
The union cabinet, which met on Tuesday to pay its condolences to Kalam, said the country lost a visionary scientist, a true nationalist and a great son.
"Kalam made significant contribution in developing India's first indigenous satellite launch vehicle and made India an exclusive member of space club," the resolution said, adding that strategic missile systems were developed and the Pokhran-II nuclear tests were conducted during Kalam's term as scientific advisor to the defence minister.
It said Kalam was responsible for evolving policies, strategies and missions for many development applications and piloted India Millennium Mission 2020.
Born on October 15, 1931 at Rameswaram in Tamil Nadu, Kalam specialised in aeronautical engineering from Madras Institute of Technology.
He was the recipient of many national and international awards, including honorary doctorates from 48 universities from India and abroad. He received the country's highest civilian award, Bharat Ratna, in 1997.
Tributes continued to pour in for Kalam with political leaders from the BJP, CPI-M and the Congress recalling his decades of dedicated service to the country in various fields.
Dr APJ Abdul Kalam at IIM-Shillong delivering his last lecture
Earlier Updates: July 27
Shillong, Jul 27 (IANS): A P J Abdul Kalam, who rose from humble beginnings to become one of India's leading scientists and later a hugely popular president, died here on Monday evening after collapsing during a lecture at the IIM-Shillong, plunging the entire country in mourning.
Kalam, who occupied Rashtrapati Bhavan in 2002-07 as India's 11th president, breathed his last at 7.45 p.m. at the Bethany Hospital where he was rushed to from the IIM where he was delivering a lecture on "liveable planet", officials at the premier institute told IANS.
The 83-year-old Kalam, who had been lecturing at the IIM-Shillong since last year, reached the institute at 5.40 p.m. on Monday. According to its director Amitabha De, he was taken to the guest house where he rested for a while and came to the lecture hall at 6.40 p.m.
"Kalam must have barely spoken for five minutes when he suddenly collapsed," De said, recalling the tragedy. "We rushed him to the hospital by 7 p.m. where he passed away."
Meghalaya Governor V. Shanmuganathan said the doctors "made enormous efforts to save him but we lost a great leader". Meghalaya Chief Secretary P.B.O. Warjri broke the news to IANS: "Kalam is no more."
Doctors at the hospital said Kalam was brought "almost dead" after suffering a cardiac arrest. Hospital director John Sailo Ryntathiang said they did their best to revive him. But he could not be saved.
File photos of Dr Kalam's visit to Mangaluru in 2014
As the news spread in the city, thousands of tear-eyed people gathered at the Bethany hospital, shouting "Kalam Amar Rahe" and followed the army ambulance that took his body to the Military hospital where it will ke kept overnight.
Meghalaya Deputy Chief Minister Roytre Christopher Laloo, who was at the hospital with his colleagues, said Kalam's body will flown to New Delhi via Guwahati in an air force helicopter on Tuesday morning.
President Pranab Mukherjee, who is in Karnataka, led the nation in mourning Kalam. Saying he will "cherish" their long association, Mukherjee said: "Dr. Kalam will be long remembered for his passion for science and innovation...."
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, terming himself greatly upset, said "in this great shocking situation, I have no words to say". Vice President Hamid Ansari termed Kalam a "true son of India" and Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan saluted him as a "true patriot, world-renowned scientist and original thinker".
Former prime minister Manmohan Singh recalled he had worked very closely with Kalam and "greatly benefited from his advice".
Congress president Sonia Gandhi called Kalam "a scholar-statesman and one of the greatest scientific minds". L.K. Advani, who was deputy prime minister when Kalam became president, said he "served Mother India literally until the last breath".
Other leaders and scientists also mourned his death, while gloom spread in his hometown Rameshwaram, a Hindu pilgrim town in coastal Tamil Nadu, 600 km from Chennai.
One of India's most accomplished scientists, Kalam -- widely known as India's "Missile Man" -- was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 1981, Padma Vibhushan in 1990 and Bharat Ratna - the highest civilian honour - in 1997.
The Bharat Ratna came just a year before Kalam played a key role in India's nuclear test at Pokhran in Rajasthan in May 1998, soon after Atal Bihari Vajpayee became the prime minister.
Born on October 15, 1931, Kalam went on to become one of the most celebrated aerospace and defence scientists in the country.
Kalam's early years were, however, steeped in poverty when, as a mere eight-year-old, he hawked newspapers to supplement the income of a large family.
There were times when food was scarce in the family and his hard-pressed mother stretched every resource to the utmost to keep her five sons and daughters as well as her boat owner husband and his brother's families fed, clothed and in good health.
By his own admission, Kalam would wake up much before dawn to distribute newspapers in the town after collecting newspaper bundles at the Rameshwaram railway station. The tough routine lasted a year.
His sister pawned jewellery with a moneylender so that the studious Kalam could have Rs.600 to join the Madras Institute of Technology.
Kalam contributed to the development of India's first satellite launch vehicle and was the architect of the country's guided missile development programme.
He became the head of the Defence Research and Development Organisation in 1992. He became the principal scientific advisor to the Indian government in 1999 with the rank of a cabinet minister. He held the post till 2001.
A P J Abdul Kalam: India's missile man, an indomitable spirit
An enthusiast till the last for sharing ideas with students and youth, it was not surprising that former president A P J Abdul Kalam was delivering a lecture at the IIM-Shillong when he collapsed and died in a hospital shortly afterwards.
His last tweet on Monday sounded enthusiastic "Going to Shillong.. to take course on Livable Planet earth at IIM." His handle @APJAbdulKalam, described him as "Scientist, teacher, learner and writer. Served as the 11th President of India (2002-07). Working for an economically developed nation by 2020."
Popularly known as India's "Missile Man", Avul Pakir Jainulabdeen Abdul Kalam crowned a illustrious acientific career with a term as india's first citizen after the then Atal Bihari Vajpayee-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government put forward his name as K.R. Narayanan's successor. He was recipient of India's highest civilian honour - the Bharat Ratna - in 1997.
One of India's best known scientists, Kalam was full of ideas on how to solve India's problems - on bridging the rural-urban divide through his pet concept of PURA or "Providing Urban amenities in Rural Areasa - for empowering villages, and also to use solar power in a big way to tide over India's energy needs.
PURA, Kalam said, was about giving a cluster of villages physical, electronic and knowledge connectivity and he had in mind creating about 7,000 PURAs across the country.
"I believe that connectivity is the key to bridging the rural-urban divide. The core-competence of the village will enable the production of competitive products for national and international markets. This will lead to rural enterprises which will create jobs in villages and lead to a vibrant economy in India's hinterland. That is how prosperity will emerge in the rural environment," he said in an interview to Wharton in 2008.
He enumerated five traits that a leader, especially the president of India, must have. "The leader must have vision. Without vision, you cannot be a leader. Second, the leader must be able to travel into an unexplored path. Normally the tendency is for people to travel along well-laid out ways. Third, the leader must know how to manage success, and even more importantly, failure.
"The fourth trait is that the leader should have the courage to make decisions. Fifth, the leader should have nobility in management. Every action of the leader should be transparent. And finally, the leader should work with integrity and succeed with integrity," he said in the same interview.
Kalam had also drawn up an elaborate plan to power Rashtrapati Bhavan with solar power, but his term ended before he could implement it. He believed that besides solar, India should also go in for nuclear energy and also bio fuels from jatropha plant and algae.
Born on October 15, 1931 at the Hindu pilgrim town of Rameswaram in Tamil Nadu, Kalam specialized in aeronautical engineering from Madras Institute of Technology and in 1958, joined the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO).
He moved to the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), where he was project director of India's first indigenous Satellite Launch Vehicle (SLV-III), which successfully injected the Rohini satellite in the near earth orbit in July 1980 and made India a member of the exclusive Space Club.
In his two-decade stint in the space agency, he was responsible for the evolution of ISRO's launch vehicle programme, particularly the PSLV configuration.
He rejoined DRDO in 1982, and planned the programme that produced a number of successful missiles, earning him the "Missile Man" nickname. He took up the responsibility of developing indigenous weapons as the chief executive of the Integrated Guided Missile Development Programme (IGMDP). He was responsible for the development and operationalisation of Agni and Prithvi missiles.
From 1992 to 1997, Kalam was scientific adviser to the defence minister, and later served as principal scientific adviser (1999-2001) to the government with the rank of cabinet minister.
He played a prominent role in the country's 1998 nuclear weapons tests, Pokhran-II, which established Kalam as a national hero.
He also gave thrust to self-reliance in defence systems by progressing multiple development tasks and mission projects such as Light Combat Aircraft.
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, and called for, among other measures, increasing agricultural productivity, technology as a vehicle for economic growth, and widening access to health care and education.
From November 2001, Kalam was professor, technology and societal transformation at Anna University, Chennai.
He wrote four books - "Wings of Fire", "India 2020 - A Vision for the New Millennium", "My Journey" and "Ignited Minds - Unleashing the power within India".
One of the most distinguished scientists of India with the unique honour of receiving honorary doctorates from 30 universities and institutions, he was was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 1981, and Padma Vibhushan in 1990 before the Bharat Ratna.
Not many known that he was a poet too. His favourite poem was "The Vision", which he also recited in parliament.
"I climbed and climbed/Where is the peak, my Lord?
I ploughed and ploughed/Where is the knowledge treasure, my Lord?
I sailed and sailed/Where is the island of peace, my Lord?
Almighty, bless my nation/With vision and sweat resulting into happiness".
On July 22, Kalam tweeted: "An indomitable spirit stands on two feet.. vision and firm thought". It could serve as an apt description for him.
Seven day state mourning for Kalam
The government has announced a seven day state mourning as a mark of respect to former president A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, who passed away in Shillong on Monday.
"The government announces with profound sorrow the death of Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, former president of India at Bethany Hospital, Shillong at 1945 hours today (Monday). As a mark of respect to the departed dignitary, seven days state mourning will be observed throughout India from July 27, 2015 to August 2, 2015, both days inclusive," said a home ministry release.
It said that during this period, the national flag will fly at half mast on all buildings throughout India where it is flown regularly and there will be no official entertainment.
The date, time and venue of the state funeral will be intimated later.
Watch: Dr Abdul Kalam interacts with students in Mangaluru (2014)
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