Memories Incredible Kalam

264 Pages·2016·11.68 MB·English

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Ministry of Defence
Defence Research & Development Organisation (DRDO)
Defence Scientific Information & Documentation Centre (DESIDOC)
(October 15, 1931 — July 27, 2015)

MEMORIES:
INCREDIBLE
KALAM
2016
Defence Scientific Information & Documentation Centre
Defence Research and Development Organisation
Ministry of Defence, New Delhi – 110 011
Editor: Gopal Bhushan
Director, DESIDOC
© 2015
Reprint in 2016
Defence Scientific Information & Documentation Centre
Defence Research & Development Organisation
New Delhi – 110 011.
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the Indian
Copyright Act 1957, no part of this publication may be reproduced,
distributed or transmitted, stored in a database or a retrieval
system, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written
permission of the Publisher.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in the book are those of authors only.
The Editors / or the Publisher do not assume responsibility for the
statements/opinions expressed by the authors.
Published by Director, DESIDOC, Metcalfe House, Delhi – 110 054
CONTENTS
Foreword VII
Preface XI
Contributions Page No.
Dr S Christopher 1–6
Dr G Satheesh Reddy 7-10
Dr KD Nayak 11-14
Sudhir Mishra 15-18
Dr Tessy Thomas 19-22
Dr Maya Kumari 23-24
SK Sinha 25-34
Dr VS Arunachalam 35-40
Dr VK Aatre 41-44
Dr VK Saraswat 45-58
Dr Avinash Chander 59-68
Dr KG Narayanan 69-74
VP Sandlas 75-98
RN Agarwal 99-114
Lt Gen (Dr) VJ Sundaram 115-120
Dr AS Pillai 121-128
Dr Prahlada 129-134
Dr W Selvamurthy 135-144
Dr V Siddhartha 145-146
Memories: Incredible Kalam
AK Chakrabarti 147-156
Dr SK Salwan 157-164
Dr SK Chaudhuri 165-180
Dr SS Murthy 181-186
AK Checker 187-190
Dr Brahma Singh 191-198
RAdm SR Mohan 199-204
Rajaram Nagappa 205-212
CR Sathya 213-228
B Dattaguru and HS Mukunda 229-234
Dr Srikanto Bandyopadhyay 235-240
Dr Dodda Jagan Mohan 241-244
Devyani Sinha 245-247

vi
Foreword
In the spirit of things, this work really needs no
foreword. It is an emotional and honest tribute by the
personnel of DRDO to one of the revered sons of India,
Dr APJ Abdul Kalam, who emerged from modest beginnings
to become Nation’s renowned scientist statesman.
Dr APJ Abdul Kalam gave the manthra, ‘strength respects
strength’ to the Nation and brought about a renaissance in
defence preparedness with his Integrated Guided Missile
Development Programme (IGMDP); the rest of the World
started looking up at India as an ‘Emerging Regional Super
Power’ soon after that. He demonstrated the power of Group
Dynamics in realising his ambitious missile programmes by
effectively networking the national resource-centres across
rigid corporate barriers and that set the trend for other
programmes to follow and ‘win by the collective wisdom’.
He took care of spin-off benefits from high-end technologies
to serve in the down-to-earth societal purposes.
Dr Kalam dreamt of a ‘Developed India’ by 2020 through
structured indigenous R&D together with appropriate
collaboration with advanced nations. He wanted India
to become economically strong, self-reliant in defence
technologies, and, stand tall among advanced countries of
the world. His devotion, dedication and hard work set a
new yardstick for ‘performance for results’ in whatever one
Memories: Incredible Kalam
was doing, and this ‘fever’ caught up every group that was
engaged in any national development activity subsequently.
His simplicity, humility and concern for young Indians
earned him the honour as the ‘People’s President’.
He staunchly believed that grooming of the young Indian
minds held the key for a brighter India of the future.
Personally, I was overawed by Dr Kalam’s keen eye
for details in R&D projects. He took extraordinary interest
in making sure how the Rajendra radar of LRDE was
married to the air defence missile, Akash, of DRDL to be
an effective operational system. Dr Kalam literally believed
and practised that he was on Nation’s duty all 24 hours of
the day! He arrived almost in the middle of the night of
December 19, 1997 to inaugurate the Automated Planar
Near-Field Measurement (APNFM) Facility at LRDE to the
jubilation of scientists, who were eagerly waiting for him.
The APNFM facility was to be extensively used to calibrate
and evaluate performance of Rajendra, the indigenous
radar for the Akash Missile system.
We remember with sorrow, the January 12, 1999, on
which day, four of our DRDO scientists together with four
of our IAF officers sacrificed their lives in an air accident
to the Airborne Surveillance Platform (ASP) prototype near
Arakkonam, while pursuing the final phase of flight trials
of their indigenous radar. Dr Kalam, the Secretary and DG,
DRDO, came rushing to Bangalore on that occasion, to be
with the grieving relatives and colleagues at the Community
Hall in the DRDO Township. The solemn words he spoke
on that day still reverberate in my ears: ‘The young scientists
laid down their precious lives in the pursuit of the Nation’s
scientific goals. We shall honour them by carrying on the
unfinished work and delivering the fruit of their labour to
the waiting Nation.’
viii
Foreword
I met him in his house on June 06, 2015 after I had
taken over the Secretary and DG, DRDO, a post which
he held a long time ago. The purpose of my visit was to
obtain his advice to run this organisation. He welcomed me
warmly and said, “Now you are the boss of the empire”
and I replied saying, “I am the caretaker now of the empire
created by you”. He gave a broad laugh and discussed about
my previous work. When I said that there is possibility for
export of AEW&C system, he was happy but stated that our
need should not take any back seat. Then both of us recalled
the ASP crash at Arakkonam in 1999. He presented me the
book, written by him, in which he has brought out these
events. At that time I never knew that was going to be my
last meeting with him.
This compilation of memories and recollections by
those who had personally and professionally interacted with
Dr Kalam will help readers capture the many dimensions of
his personality as a man, as a scientist and as a statesman.
Dr APJ Abdul Kalam, will continue to inspire every Indian
for a long, long time to come!
I take this opportunity to express my appreciation to
the Director, DESIDOC, and contributors of articles, for
their keenness and efforts to bring out this publication as a
token of their abundant love for Dr Abdul Kalam.
New Delhi Dr S Christopher
Secretary, Dept of Defence R&D and
DG, DRDO
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