50 Fun Facts About APJ Abdul Kalam

Kalam missed becoming an Air Force fighter pilot by finishing in which place when only eight slots were open?

Ninth place, one short of the eight Indian Air Force vacancies, pushed Kalam toward rockets instead of cockpits. He had just finished aerospace engineering at the Madras Institute of Technology.

Kalam's SLV-3 rocket orbited which satellite in July 1980, India's first successful satellite launch from its own soil?

Rohini RS-1 weighed just 35 kg and was the first satellite ever orbited by an Indian-built launch vehicle. A year earlier the same rocket had failed on its maiden flight.

With cardiologist Bhupathiraju Somaraju, Kalam lent his name in 1998 to a low-cost version of which medical device?

A coronary stent called the Kalam-Raju stent came out of the pairing, and in 2012 the same duo designed a Kalam-Raju tablet computer for rural health workers.

In the 2012 Greatest Indian poll run by Outlook and CNN-IBN, Kalam finished second behind which figure?

B. R. Ambedkar topped the poll, which deliberately left out the Mahatma because organisers felt nobody could come close to the Father of the Nation.

In 2017 scientists named a bacterium Solibacillus kalamii after Kalam, having found it on air filters from where?

International Space Station HEPA filters that had run for 40 months yielded the bug, which was analysed at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. A plant and a footballfish have since taken his name too.

The entrance statue at Kalam's memorial in Rameswaram shows him playing which instrument, a lifelong hobby of his?

The veena Kalam played is now displayed at the Rashtrapati Bhavan museum in Delhi; he also wrote Tamil poetry and listened to Carnatic devotional music every day.

Kalam, the first scientist to become President of India, was also the first holder of the office never to have what?

Kalam had never been married, staying a lifelong bachelor who sent small sums of money to his elder siblings and left no will when he died in 2015.

Kalam's 1999 autobiography, translated into 14 languages including a Chinese edition called Huo Yi, carries which title?

Wings of Fire runs from Kalam's boyhood in Rameswaram to the rocket years, in sections titled Orientation, Creation, Propitiation and Contemplation.

Kalam's birthday is observed across India as World Students' Day; on which date does it fall?

15 October is marked only in India despite the day's grand name; the United Nations has confirmed it never designated a World Students' Day, a common misconception.

What job did the schoolboy Kalam take on in Rameswaram to boost his family's meagre income?

Delivering newspapers was the boy's contribution after his ancestors' trading fortune, built on ferrying goods and passengers to Sri Lanka, was lost by the 1920s.

Kalam's imam father Jainulabdeen ferried Hindu pilgrims by boat from Rameswaram to which town at the island's tip?

Dhanushkodi was the pilgrims' destination, and the ferryman imam raised his son on evenings of interfaith tea with a temple priest and a church priest.

Kalam's family ferry business failed after which 1914 structure first linked his home island to mainland India?

Pamban Bridge, India's first sea bridge, finished off the boat trade, and by the 1920s the once-wealthy family kept only its ancestral home.

Kalam graduated in physics in 1954 from St. Joseph's College, located in which Tamil Nadu city?

Tiruchirappalli's St. Joseph's gave Kalam his physics degree; his teachers had rated him an average-grade but hard-working pupil who spent hours on mathematics.

At the Madras Institute of Technology, a dean gave Kalam how long to finish a stalled project or lose his scholarship?

Three days proved enough, and the dean admitted afterwards that he had deliberately put Kalam under stress with the deadline.

In 1960, Kalam's first defence posting had him designing which small craft, a job he doubted he should have taken?

A hovercraft was the unlikely first assignment at the Aeronautical Development Establishment, and Kalam stayed unconvinced by the posting until he moved into space research.

Kalam moved into space work at the Indian National Committee for Space Research under which physicist?

Vikram Sarabhai's committee was the seed of ISRO, to which Kalam formally transferred in 1969 after starting an expandable rocket project on his own at DRDO in 1965.

In 1963-64 Kalam trained at the Langley, Goddard and Wallops Island facilities of which organisation?

NASA's Langley Research Center in Virginia hosted Kalam while ISRO was still a committee; the trip is recalled in the 'Creation' chapters of his autobiography.

Kalam was hired into ISRO by which scientist, the first director of the Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launching Station?

H. G. S. Murthy ran Thumba, the Kerala launch site from which India's first sounding rockets flew in the 1960s, when he recruited the young engineer.

Kalam's SLV-3 failed on its maiden flight in August 1979 before succeeding a year later from which launch site?

Sriharikota hosted all four SLV flights, two experimental and two developmental, the last in April 1983; the rocket was never meant for a long service life.

Which prime minister paid for Kalam's 1970s Project Devil and Project Valiant despite the cabinet's disapproval?

Indira Gandhi used her discretionary powers to pay for the two projects, which aimed to turn technology from the satellite launcher programme into ballistic missiles.

Which defence minister, later President of India, told Kalam to develop a 'quiver' of missiles all at once?

R. Venkataraman also won cabinet approval for the 3.88 billion rupees behind the Integrated Guided Missile Development Programme, which named Kalam its chief executive.

Kalam studied aerospace engineering at the Madras Institute of Technology, today a constituent college of which body?

Anna University later made Kalam an honorary professor; the institute's aerospace department, founded in 1949, was the first in India to offer an undergraduate aeronautical course.

At the Pokhran-II tests of May 1998, Kalam served as chief project coordinator alongside which atomic scientist?

Rajagopala Chidambaram shared the coordinator's role, and the media coverage that followed made Kalam the country's best-known nuclear scientist.

In November 1999 Kalam became the first holder of which newly created government post, which he kept until 2001?

Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government of India was created for him after seven years as chief scientific adviser to the prime minister and secretary of DRDO.

Which freedom fighter, ex-commander of the Indian National Army's Rani of Jhansi Regiment, ran against Kalam in 2002?

Lakshmi Sahgal was the Left Front's candidate and took 107,366 electoral votes to Kalam's 922,884 when the count was declared on 18 July 2002.

Which sitting president decided not to seek re-election in 2002 once Kalam's candidacy drew support across party lines?

K. R. Narayanan stepped aside after the Samajwadi Party and the Nationalist Congress Party joined the ruling alliance in backing Kalam.

In 2011 Kalam vouched for the safety of a nuclear power plant at which Tamil Nadu site, despite hostile local protest?

Koodankulam's plant drew public assurances from Kalam about its safety, but some locals stayed unconvinced and were hostile to his visit.

During his 2002-07 term in Rashtrapati Bhavan, Kalam was affectionately known by which nickname?

People's President stuck to a head of state who later declined a second term in 2007, saying he wanted to keep Rashtrapati Bhavan out of political processes.

In 2007 Kalam became the first chancellor of the Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology, based in which city?

Trivandrum, or Thiruvananthapuram, hosts an institute billed as Asia's first space university, set up by ISRO in 2007 and opened by its then chairman G. Madhavan Nair.

After leaving office, Kalam twice visited China at its government's invitation to teach sessions at which university?

Peking University's sessions were part of a return to teaching that also made Kalam an honorary fellow of the Indian Institute of Science in Bengaluru.

Kalam's 2012 'What Can I Give Movement', aimed at the young people of India, set out to defeat which social ill?

Corruption was the target, chosen by a former head of state who had contested his own election as an independent backed by the ruling alliance.

Kalam collapsed and died on 27 July 2015, five minutes into a lecture at which institute in Meghalaya?

IIM Shillong had invited him to speak on 'Creating a Livable Planet Earth'; he was rushed to Bethany Hospital but was confirmed dead of cardiac arrest at 7:45 p.m.

After Kalam's death in 2015, the Government of India declared a period of state mourning of what length?

Seven days of state mourning followed; his body lay in state at 10 Rajaji Marg in New Delhi before being flown south for burial in Rameswaram.

Which defence minister laid the foundation stone of Kalam's memorial in July 2016, a year after his death?

Manohar Parrikar's ceremony opened a one-year build by 500 workers; the finished memorial mixes Mughal and Indian styles, with a main doorway modelled on India Gate.

Young Kalam saw his imam father take evening tea with a church priest and the head priest of which Rameswaram temple?

Ramanathaswamy's head priest Pakshi Lakshmana Sastry joined those tea-time talks, which convinced Kalam that 'dialogue and cooperation' among faiths could solve India's problems.

Kalam said that for great men religion is a way of making friends, while small people make religion into what?

A fighting tool was how Kalam, a practising Sunni Muslim who kept daily namaz and the Ramadan fast, described the way small people use religion.

Kalam, a practising Muslim who learnt Sanskrit, was also known for reading which Hindu scripture?

Bhagavad Gita readings sat alongside the Quran in Kalam's life; in an early speech to Parliament as president he spoke of working for unity among India's many faiths.

Kalam left no will; his few possessions, among them books, clothing, a CD player and a laptop, passed to whom?

His eldest brother, Mohammed Lebbai, inherited everything and outlived Kalam by nearly six years, dying in 2021 at the age of 104.

Kalam's 1998 book with Y. S. Rajan, urging the nation to become a 'knowledge superpower', has what title?

India 2020: A Vision for the New Millennium got a sequel in 2014, A Manifesto for Change, written with V. Ponraj, the year before Kalam died.

Which 2002 book did Kalam dedicate to a schoolchild whose answer to 'who is our enemy?' was 'poverty'?

Ignited Minds: Unleashing the Power Within India came out in the year Kalam entered Rashtrapati Bhavan; the pupil, Snehal Thakkar, gave the answer the whole class agreed on.

Which co-author of Kalam's 1999 autobiography went on to write the 2015 biography A.P.J. Abdul Kalam: A Life?

Arun Tiwari also co-wrote Guiding Souls, You Are Born To Blossom and Kalam's final book on his spiritual life, published the year Kalam died.

Kalam's 2015 book Transcendence records his spiritual experiences with which guru?

Pramukh Swami, head of the BAPS Swaminarayan organisation, is the 'Swamiji' of the book's full title, which HarperCollins published in the year of Kalam's death.

Which honour did Kalam receive in 1997, five years before his presidency, for modernising India's defence technology?

Bharat Ratna, the country's highest civilian honour, completed a sweep for Kalam, who had already collected the Padma Bhushan in 1981 and the Padma Vibhushan in 1990.

Which American engineering prize, first awarded to a sitting US president in 1930, went to Kalam for 2008?

Hoover Medal winners are engineers honoured for 'outstanding extra-career services to humanity'; Dwight Eisenhower and Jimmy Carter received it before Kalam.

In 2007 Kalam received the King Charles II Medal from which British scientific institution, founded in 1660?

The Royal Society's medal was one of a run of foreign honours: Carnegie Mellon and Wolverhampton doctorates the same year, and a 2014 Doctor of Science from Edinburgh.

In August 2015 New Delhi renamed a road after Kalam that had carried the name of which Mughal emperor?

Aurangzeb Road became Dr APJ Abdul Kalam Road weeks after his death; a missile test island off Odisha and a 6,180-metre Himalayan peak took his name the same year.

Which island off Odisha, originally named for an English commandant, was renamed for Kalam in September 2015?

Wheeler Island, where Kalam himself was the first director of the Integrated Test Range in 1982, was handed to the missile programme free of charge by Odisha's chief minister Biju Patnaik.

The 2011 film I Am Kalam follows Chhotu, a poor boy who renames himself after the president, in which Indian state?

Rajasthan's Bikaner was the shooting location, and Kalam watched a special screening at his Delhi home a week before the film's release.

Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam Technical University, with some 800 affiliated colleges, sits in which state capital?

Lucknow's university was plain Uttar Pradesh Technical University until the 2015 renaming, and it once kept a regional office in Noida as well.

A bacterium, a plant and a fish carry Kalam's name; which microscopic animal became Batillipes kalami in 2023?

A tardigrade, the near-indestructible 'water bear', joined the plant Drypetes kalamii (2018) and the footballfish Himantolophus kalami (2022) on the list of namesakes.