Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam
Former President of India
Here's a time line of Dr. Kalam's life:
- 1931 - Born in Rameshwaram, Tamil Nadu , India
- 1958 - Kalam earned a degree in aeronautical engineering from the Madras Institute of Technology and joined the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO)
- 1969 - He moved to the Indian Space Research Organisation, where he was project director of the SLV-III, the first satellite launch vehicle that was both designed and produced in India.
- 1982 - Kalam planned the program that produced a number of successful missiles, which helped earn him the nickname “Missile Man.”
- 1989 - Among those successes was Agni, India’s first intermediate-range ballistic missile, which incorporated aspects of the SLV-III and was launched
- 1997 - Kalam received India's highest civilian honour, the Bharat Ratna, for his contribution to the scientific research and modernisation of defence technology in India.
- 1998 - He also played a pivotal organisational, technical, and political role in India's Pokhran-II nuclear tests in 1998, the first since the original nuclear test by India in 1974.
- 2002-2007 - He served as the 11th President of India
- 2015 - dies at the age of 83.
"Tributes to our former President Dr APJ Abdul Kalam. He is greatly admired for his contribution to our national as a scientist and as a President who struck a cord with every section ofsociety "
-- Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi