News Analysis India

Tag: APJ Abdul Kalam

  • In a first, RBI considers using images of Rabindranath Tagore, APJ Abdul Kalam on banknotes

    Express News Service

    NEW DELHI: One of Bengal’s greatest icons, Rabindranath Tagore, and India’s 11th President, APJ Abdul Kalam, also known as the Missile Man, are reportedly in the race to make it to the country’s banknotes alongside M K Gandhi.The Father of the Nation’s watermark figure occupies the pride of place on all denominations of Indian currency notes. However, the Finance Ministry and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) are also reportedly considering using the watermark figures of Tagore and Kalam on a new series of banknotes of some denominations.

    This is the first time that RBI is considering using the images of famous personalities other than Mahatma Gandhi on the banknotes.The RBI and the Security Printing and Minting Corporation of India (SPMCIL), which is under the Finance Ministry, are learnt to have sent two separate sets of samples of Gandhi, Tagore and Kalam watermarks to IIT-Delhi Emeritus Professor Dilip T Shahani, who has been told to choose from the two sets and present them for final consideration by the government. 

    Government sources said that a final decision on picking one or all the three images will be taken at the “highest levels of the government”.  According to sources, the designing the three watermark samples had official sanction. No firm decision has yet been taken, but the move is afoot to explore possibilities of including watermarks of multiples figures on currency notes. 

    There is global precedence: different denominations of US dollars carry portraits of some of the Founding Fathers such as George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, Alexander Hamilton and a few 19th century presidents, including Abraham Lincoln.Professor Shahani, who is examining the watermarks, specialises in Electromagnetic Instrumentation. He was conferred with the Padma Shri by the Modi government in January this year. 

    Top government sources revealed that sometime in 2017, one of nine RBI internal committees, which were formed to recommend new security features for a fresh series of banknotes, submitted its report in 2020, proposing that besides Gandhi the watermark figures of Tagore and Kalam should also be developed for inclusion in all currency notes barring the `2,000 note whose printing had already stopped. 

    In 2021, the RBI issued instructions to its Mysore-based Bharatiya Reserve Bank Note Mudran Pvt Ltd and the SPMCIL’s Security Paper Mill at Hoshangabad to design their own sets of the watermark samples. Subsequently, the RBI and SPMCIL sent their samples to Shahani for him to examine them. Shahani has had several rounds of discussions with officials on the “finer aspects” of the samples.

  • APJ Abdul Kalam will always remain a source of inspiration for countrymen: PM Modi on his birth anniversary

    By ANI

    NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday remembered former President APJ Abdul Kalam on his 90th birth anniversary and said that the Missile Man dedicated his life to make India strong, prosperous and capable.

    The Prime Minister further said that Kalam will always remain an inspiration for countrymen.

    “Tributes to former President of the country, known as Missile Man, Dr APJ Abdul Kalam Ji on his birth anniversary. He dedicated his life in making India strong, prosperous and capable. He will always remain a source of inspiration for the countrymen,” he tweeted.

    From being the people’s President to spearheading the development of the most significant Indian missiles, late President Dr APJ Abdul Kalam has contributed to the development of the country in different spheres.

    As an aerospace scientist, Kalam worked with India’s two major research organisations – Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).

    For his work in the fields of science and politics, the 11th President was also awarded India’s highest civilian honour, the Bharat Ratna. He also earned the sobriquet ‘Missile Man of India’ for his role in the development of India’s missile programmes.

    Kalam breathed his last on July 27, 2015, while delivering a lecture at the Indian Institute of Management Shillong when he collapsed and died from a cardiac arrest.

    Five years after his demise, his contributions are still remembered as some of the best scientific and technological developments in the country. 

  • ‘Muslims in top echelons of country can’t be pro-India’: Priest calls Abdul Kalam ‘jihadi’

    By PTI
    GHAZIABAD: The priest of a Ghaziabad temple, where a Muslim boy was thrashed for drinking water on its premises, targeted former president APJ Abdul Kalam on Tuesday over his religion, calling him a “jihadi”.

    “Any Muslim in the top echelons of the country cannot be pro-India and Kalam was a jihadi,” Dasna Devi Temple’s Yati Narsinghanad Saraswati told reporters in Aligarh.

    Levelling allegations without substance, he accused late Kalam of supplying the formula of the “atom bomb to Pakistan as DRDO chief”.

    “Kalam had formed a cell in the Rashtrapati Bhawan where any Muslim could file his grievance,” the priest claimed.

    In the thrashing incident, a man identified as Shirangi Nanad Yadav was arrested by police earlier.

    In a video, Yadav was seen asking the boy his name, who said he was Asif.

    Yadav was then seen brutally thrashing him.

  • India’s demographic dividend needs to be fully leveraged: Vice-president M Venkaiah Naidu

    By PTI
    CHENNAI: India’s biggest strength is its ‘demographic dividend’ and people need to fully leverage it to fast-track the country’s progress in various sectors, Vice-President M Venkaiah Naidu said here on Sunday.

    Naidu also called upon the youth of the country to be at the forefront in accelerating progress and scripting the country’s growth story. “One of our biggest strengths today is our demographic dividend. We need to fully leverage this to fast-track progress in different sectors — from agriculture to manufacturing and ensuring a sustained growth rate in coming years”, he said, after releasing a biography on the former President APJ Abdul Kalam at the Raj Bhavan.

    The book — ‘Abdul Kalam-Ninaivugalukku Maranamillai’ (immortal memories) — has been penned by APJM Nazema Maraikayar, the niece of the late President and by noted space scientist YS Rajan. “This is the time for the youth of the country to be at the forefront in accelerating the progress and scripting India’s growth story”, Naidu said.

    Paying rich encomiums to Kalam, who was known as ‘people’s president’, Naidu urged the youth to take a leaf out of the book and believe in themselves. He said that they must aspire to become job creators rather than job seekers.

    Stating that Kalam would be remembered for his ‘indomitable spirit” and “never-say-die attitude”, Naidu said the former president “pursued and persisted with discipline, hard work and confidence”. “Along with the development of India’s indigenous satellite launch vehicles, he (Kalam) is also credited with the development of India’s integrated guided missile development programme (IGMDP),” the vice president said.

    Kalam can be credited with laying the strong foundation of ‘AtmaNirbharta’ in space and defence sectors on which scientists and engineers were building today, Naidu said.

    “The legacy of self-belief that Kalam left motivated us to develop our own vaccine today. I must compliment the government and scientists for their untiring efforts in bringing out the vaccine for COVID-19. My hearty congratulations for the historic vaccination drive that kicked off yesterday”, he said.

    Quoting Mahatma Gandhi’s comments ‘My life is my message’, Naidu said, “This (the comment) very well be applied to Dr Kalam too, who practiced what he preached.”

    Underlining the need to overhaul the country’s education system to make learning an enjoyable experience, right from primary education, Naidu said students must be encouraged to pose questions and think critically.

    He said the Centre’s new education policy is a great leap in this regard, as it does away with artificial segregation between curricular and extra-curricular activities and aims at the holistic development of the child.

    Referring to the book that he unveiled today, Naidu said the biography traces Kalam’s journey from his student days, including his family roots. “Many incidents are presented from the family’s point of view. I commend the authors for bringing out this book and enriching our understanding of Kalam”, Naidu said.

  • New book reveals it was Congress party which stopped Dr APJ Abdul Kalam from becoming India’s President for his second term

    The Congress party which has always attacked Prime Minister Modi Government for ill treating the minorities and not treating them equally has in fact no concern for them and has always used them as a placard for fulfilling their political motives.

    In a shocking revelation it has come to forefront that Congress and its allies didn’t supported former president APJ Abdul Kalam for presidential position in 2012.BJP and the Trinmool Congress backed him for the position but because of not getting support from Congress party he pulled himself out of the race, reveals new book penned down by historian Rajmohan Gandhi

    “After his presidency ended in 2007, Kalam’s enthusiasm for India’s classical culture, his liberal praise for leaders of some Hindu religious bodies, and his earlier work for India’s defence made him Hindu India’s favourite Muslim,” historian Rajmohan Gandhi writes in Modern South India: A History from the 17th Century to Our Times.

    “Some political parties, including the BJP and the Trinamool Congress, proposed a willing Kalam for a fresh presidential term in 2012, but the Congress and its allies did not take to the idea. Aware that he lacked the numbers, Kalam did not stand, and Pranab Mukherjee became president, he says

    Yet Congress claims to be a secular party.The real worry of Congress was that APJ Abdul Kalam was more popular than Sonia Gandhi so they didn’t want him again to be President.Any popular persons posing threat to the business of Gandhi family were not welcome in the past and the same attitude by this family continues to the present time. What happened to Gayatri Devi, Shastri and Abdul Kalam proves it.

    Congress party has always crushed the leader who has come in their path. It basically can’t be stated as the party of the different leaders but it is party of stooges and boot-lickers of Gandhi family. Those who work in accordance with Gandhi’s they are pampered in the party or I can say only those people get place in the party who work according to will of Gandhi’s. Because anybody who will raise the voice against Gandhi’s will be expelled from the party. Under the rule of Congress Government not only the party leaders but any powerful position will be acquired only by that person who will follow the rules and guidelines of Gandhi family or else he will be thrown out . Whatever tactics or strategies the party may have to adopt but the party will not let it happen.

    The same is the problem of Congress now. In 2014 people have shown the party its way out by choosing Narendra Modi as a Prime Minister.This hard fact is not being digested by Congress party till now that a Chaiwala has become the PM  who is honestly governing India, who has brought Congress party to its end. So they keep on putting false allegations on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Government.

    Folks,It’s again time to teach this party a lesson and not getting trapped in the false net laid by them. Let’s throw this family centric party out in 2019