A.P.J Abdul Kalam

Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam (1931–2015) was born in Rameswaram to a boat-owning family, sold newspapers as a boy, and became the aerospace engineer behind India’s SLV-3 satellite launch vehicle and its guided-missile programme — the work that earned him the name Missile Man. He was scientific adviser during the Pokhran-II tests in 1998 and served as India’s eleventh President from 2002 to 2007, when he was widely called the People’s President. He died as he would have chosen, collapsing while lecturing to students at IIM Shillong. His books — Wings of Fire, Ignited Minds — are the reliable source for his words; several viral “Kalam quotes” cannot be traced to them, and we say so.