INTERLINKING OF MAJOR INDIAN RIVERS WAS KALAM’S DREAM
Wednesday, 29 July 2015 | Kumar Chellappan
Much before the game of Twenty20 cricket became a household name, APJ Abdul Kalam and “India 2020” had become popular all over India. “India 2020, a Vision for the New Millennium” is a book Kalam co-authored with YS Rajan, his former colleague in the ISRO. It was an action plan for the all-round development of India prepared after many brainstorming sessions lasting many years with engineers, scientists, development experts spread across the country.
The contents of the 324- page book had solutions for almost all the problems faced by India. Had the authorities implemented at least half of the suggestions mooted by Kalam, the book would have ended up as a game changer and India woud have figured as one of the economic superpowers of the world.
Water scarcity faced by most of the States in the country was rated as the severest of the problems by Kalam. He wanted the major rivers in India, from Brahmaputra in the North to Vaigai in Madurai to be interlinked through a network of canals. He was the first President of the country who embellished the President’s messages to the nation on the eves of Republic and Independence Days with the feasibility and possibilities of the interlinking of rivers.
“He could recite the facts and figures arrived at by the engineers of the National Water Authority without even a piece of paper. We only briefed him about India being endowed with world’s greatest water reservoir, the Himalayas. According to Kalam, a National Water Grid Authority could make water reach 24x7 to every farm and every home in the 6.2 lakh villages in India. We need not usurp anybody’s water. The flood water being dumped into the Bay of Bengal and Arabian Sea could be used for this,” said S Kalyanaraman, former banker with Asian Development Bank who has studied the possibilities of interlinking of rivers for more than three decades.
Kalyanaraman and Vijay Mohan Kumar Puri, ace glaciologist were the ones who routinely briefed Kalam about the National Water Grid. Though Kalam mentioned about the ILR in all his speeches to the nation, the Government of the day (2004 to 2014) did nothing to launch the mission. When the UPA Government’s de facto Prime Minister declared that the ILR would lead to ecological disaster, Kalam gave up his dream with a broken heart. Since then he was silent about the project. “This project would have made nine crore acres of additional land arable which in turn would have made nine crore landless people land owners,” pointed out Puri.
Another of his unfulfilled dreams was India commissioning its own Thorium reactor. “The vast beaches of Rameswaram, Kanyakumari and Manavalakurichi are home to the world’s largest Thorium reserve. This could be used as a fuel in Thorium reactors which are safe and generate only non-radio active materials,” he had declared many times. Even the first 500 MWe Fast Breeder Reactor, works for which began in 2005 remain incomplete due to a host of reasons.
He had proposed Provision of Urban facilities in Rural Areas (PURA) for all round development of India’s rural areas and to put a stop to the massive flow of people from villages to cities. It was not a trillion dollar project and hence policy makers didn’t see any charm in the indigenous solution offered by Kalam.
Kalam was not a great scientist in the mould of Albert Einstein or CV Raman. But what made him dear to the people was his mission to make the world a better place to live, a mission which would touch everybody’s life. He was the one and only President who spoke of inclusivity. During Kalam’s tenure as President the common man felt that the inmate of Rashtrapathi Bhavan was his representative.
A true tribute to Kalam would be the implementation of interlinking of Indian rivers on a war footing scale, feel Kalyanaraman and Dr ML Raja, another long-time associate of Kalam.
http://www.dailypioneer.com/nation/interlinking-of-major-indian-rivers-was-kalams-dream.html
KALAM'S LAST TRYST WITH HOMETOWN RAMESWARAM
Wednesday, 29 July 2015 | Kumar Chellappan | CHENNAI
The last rites of APJ Abdul Kalam would be held on Thursday morning in Rameswaram, the hometown of the late President. K Nandhakumar, District Collector, Ramanathapuram, told reporters on Tuesday that the mortal remains of the late President would be brought home from New Delhi by Wednesday afternoon. The body would be taken to Kalam’s ancestral house where he was born and grew up.
After the close family members of Kalam pay their last respects, the body would be shifted to the city centre for the public to pay homage. Three sites have been shortlisted as the last resting place of the son of the soil. The family members of the late President, including his elder brother APJM Maraikar, will choose the place where the funeral would be held.
According to officials in special branch and State Intelligence, security in and around Rameswaram has been beefed up following reports that a galaxy of VVIPs, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa, may make it to the town to bid adieu to Kalam.
In a touching move, hundreds of students from the Panchayat Union School at Mandapam, the alma mater of Kalam, took out a candlelight procession from the school to the House of Kalam and paid floral tributes to the late President. Eminent people of Ramanathapuram made a beeline for Kalam’ house, as a mark of respect to the “people’s President.”
Meanwhile, a pall of gloom descended over Tamil Nadu and all roads and thoroughfares in Chennai and other towns sported giant size pictures of Kalam. Though all shops and business establishments were open and functioning, the grief of the people was palpable.
The faculty and students of Anna University where Kalam was a professor paid glowing tributes to their mentor. The Madras Institute of Technology (since renamed Anna University of Technology) from where Kalam graduated with a Bachelor's degree in Aeronautical Engineering, too offered floral tributes to him.
In an unprecedented show of solidarity, leaders of all political parties and cultural organisations expressed their sorrow and shock over the passing away of the former President. While Chief Minister Jayalalithaa, who enjoyed a special rapport with Kalam described him as a "youth icon and a great nationalist", senior RSS leader ML Raja called him a "great patriot whose appeal to the youth of the country for national reconstruction generated huge enthusiasm among them".
http://www.dailypioneer.com/todays-newspaper/kalams-last-tryst-with-hometown-rameswaram.html