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50 free APJ Abdul Kalam trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Dr A. P. J. Abdul Kalam went from a ferryman's son in a pilgrim town off Tamil Nadu to India's rocket and missile programmes and finally to Rashtrapati Bhavan. Few lives pack in as many turning points, and he wrote most of them down himself. These 50 questions follow that arc: his schooling and near-miss as a fighter pilot, the ISRO and DRDO decades, the 2002 election, his books, the honours that came from home and abroad, the lines he was known for, and the places, creatures and campuses that now carry his name. Built for students, teachers, quiz nights and anyone who grew up on his speeches. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you learn something even when you miss.
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Q 01Kalam missed becoming an Air Force fighter pilot by finishing in which place when only eight slots were open?
Ninth
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.
Q 02Kalam's SLV-3 rocket orbited which satellite in July 1980, India's first successful satellite launch from its own soil?
Rohini
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.
Q 03With cardiologist Bhupathiraju Somaraju, Kalam lent his name in 1998 to a low-cost version of which medical device?
A coronary stent
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.
Q 04In the 2012 Greatest Indian poll run by Outlook and CNN-IBN, Kalam finished second behind which figure?
B. R. Ambedkar
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.
Q 05In 2017 scientists named a bacterium Solibacillus kalamii after Kalam, having found it on air filters from where?
International Space Station
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.
Q 06The entrance statue at Kalam's memorial in Rameswaram shows him playing which instrument, a lifelong hobby of his?
The veena
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.
Q 07Kalam, the first scientist to become President of India, was also the first holder of the office never to have what?
Been married
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.
Q 08Kalam's 1999 autobiography, translated into 14 languages including a Chinese edition called Huo Yi, carries which title?
Wings of Fire
Wings of Fire runs from Kalam's boyhood in Rameswaram to the rocket years, in sections titled Orientation, Creation, Propitiation and Contemplation.
Q 09Kalam's birthday is observed across India as World Students' Day; on which date does it fall?
15 October
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.
Q 10What job did the schoolboy Kalam take on in Rameswaram to boost his family's meagre income?
Delivering newspapers
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.
Q 11Kalam's imam father Jainulabdeen ferried Hindu pilgrims by boat from Rameswaram to which town at the island's tip?
Dhanushkodi
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.
Q 12Kalam's family ferry business failed after which 1914 structure first linked his home island to mainland India?
Pamban Bridge
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.
Q 13Kalam graduated in physics in 1954 from St. Joseph's College, located in which Tamil Nadu city?
Tiruchirappalli
Q 21Which defence minister, later President of India, told Kalam to develop a 'quiver' of missiles all at once?
R. Venkataraman
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.
Q 22Kalam studied aerospace engineering at the Madras Institute of Technology, today a constituent college of which body?
Anna University
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.
Q 23At the Pokhran-II tests of May 1998, Kalam served as chief project coordinator alongside which atomic scientist?
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.
Q 14At the Madras Institute of Technology, a dean gave Kalam how long to finish a stalled project or lose his scholarship?
Three days
Three days proved enough, and the dean admitted afterwards that he had deliberately put Kalam under stress with the deadline.
Q 15In 1960, Kalam's first defence posting had him designing which small craft, a job he doubted he should have taken?
A hovercraft
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.
Q 16Kalam moved into space work at the Indian National Committee for Space Research under which physicist?
Vikram Sarabhai
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.
Q 17In 1963-64 Kalam trained at the Langley, Goddard and Wallops Island facilities of which organisation?
NASA
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.
Q 18Kalam was hired into ISRO by which scientist, the first director of the Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launching Station?
H. G. S. Murthy
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.
Q 19Kalam's SLV-3 failed on its maiden flight in August 1979 before succeeding a year later from which launch site?
Sriharikota
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.
Q 20Which prime minister paid for Kalam's 1970s Project Devil and Project Valiant despite the cabinet's disapproval?
Indira Gandhi
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.
Rajagopala Chidambaram
Rajagopala Chidambaram shared the coordinator's role, and the media coverage that followed made Kalam the country's best-known nuclear scientist.
Q 24In November 1999 Kalam became the first holder of which newly created government post, which he kept until 2001?
Principal Scientific Adviser
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.
Q 25Which freedom fighter, ex-commander of the Indian National Army's Rani of Jhansi Regiment, ran against Kalam in 2002?
Lakshmi Sahgal
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.
Q 26Which sitting president decided not to seek re-election in 2002 once Kalam's candidacy drew support across party lines?
K. R. Narayanan
K. R. Narayanan stepped aside after the Samajwadi Party and the Nationalist Congress Party joined the ruling alliance in backing Kalam.
Q 27In 2011 Kalam vouched for the safety of a nuclear power plant at which Tamil Nadu site, despite hostile local protest?
Koodankulam
Koodankulam's plant drew public assurances from Kalam about its safety, but some locals stayed unconvinced and were hostile to his visit.
Q 28During his 2002-07 term in Rashtrapati Bhavan, Kalam was affectionately known by which nickname?
People's President
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.
Q 29In 2007 Kalam became the first chancellor of the Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology, based in which city?
Trivandrum
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.
Q 30After leaving office, Kalam twice visited China at its government's invitation to teach sessions at which university?
Peking
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.