Subsequently, when Prithvi had demonstrated successful performance, the army came up with another important requirement. The army wanted to have a confirmatory test, on a land range, to validate Circular Error Probability (CEP). Our efforts to conduct the test in our desert range could not take off due to range safety and geopolitical problems. To overcome this we were looking for an uninhabited island on the eastern coast. On the hydrographic map supplied by the navy, we saw a few islands in the Bay of Bengal off Dhamra (on the Odisha coast) indicating that there was some landmass there. Our range team consisting of Dr S.K. Salwan and Dr V.K. Saraswat hired a boat from Dhamra and went in search of the island. On the map these islands were marked as ‘Long Wheeler’, ‘Coconut Wheeler’ and ‘Small Wheeler’. The team carried a directional compass and proceeded on the journey. They lost their way and could not locate Wheeler Island. Fortunately, they came across a few fishing boats and asked them for the route. The fisherman did not know about Wheeler Island but they said there was an island called ‘Chandrachood’. They thought that this could be the one they were looking for. They gave the direction for proceeding to Chandrachood. With their guidance the team could reach Chandrachood Island, which was later confirmed as Small Wheeler Island and had adequate width and length required for range operations.
To get to the island, we had to go through the Odisha bureaucracy. The necessity arose for a political decision from the chief minister (in 1993). At that time, Biju Patnaik, who was a powerful national leader, was the chief minister. The indications from the chief minister’s office were that the island could not be parted with for several reasons. However, an appointment was arranged for meeting Patnaik to put in our request. When we reached his office, the file was in front of him. The CM said, ‘Kalam, I have decided to give all the five islands at no cost to you (DRDO), but I will sign the file of approval only when you give me a promise.’ He held my hand and said, ‘You must make a missile that can protect us from even distant threats.’ I said, ‘Sir, definitely we will work for it.’ I immediately informed our defence minister. The chief minister signed the file and we got Small Wheeler Island.
Readers, as you might be aware, ISRO successfully launched India’s first Radar Imaging Satellite (RISAT-1) on 26 April 2012. The satellite was on board the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C19) and launched from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota. Subsequent to the injection of the satellite into orbit, the solar panels and antenna panels of C-band Synthetic Aperture Radar of RISAT-1 were successfully deployed. Further, the satellite was successfully placed into polar sun-synchronous orbit through a series of four orbit-raising manoeuvres. High quality images, starting from Gangotri and passing through Bhopal and parts of north Karnataka were acquired and processed on 1 May 2012.
The mission illustrates some important technologies. I will mention some aspects in brief.
Unlike optical remote sensing satellites, the Synthetic Aperture Radar in RISAT-1 transmits its own radar pulses for imaging of the earth surface. This facilitates cloud penetration and imaging even without sunlight. Thus it can image an area irrespective of the weather and sunlight conditions. RISAT-1 has imaging capabilities in multiple modes and polarizations with imaging resolutions from 1 to 50 metres and swath coverage from 10 km to 223 km. Important applications of RISAT-1 include agricultural sector mapping of paddy crops during kharif season through identification, classification and acreage estimation and mapping of inundated areas during floods and cyclones as a part of disaster management, besides numerous other applications.
This is only to give a glimpse of our confidence and the range of our space activities. There are many other successes I could elaborate upon. For instance, the test flight of the naval variant of the Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) at Bengaluru on a partially cloudy day. With the successful maiden flight of the LCA’s naval variant, India joins an elite club of countries capable of designing, developing, manufacturing and testing the fourth generation carrier-borne fly-by-wire ‘ski take off but arrested recovery’ (Stobar) aircraft. The naval variant is the first attempt to provide a complete marine force multiplier that will give unique battle capability to the naval aviation arm of the twenty-first century Indian Navy. Its accomplishment represents success in overcoming a series of design challenges.
Information technology and communication technology have already converged leading to Information and Communication Technology. Information technology combined with biotechnology has led to bio-informatics. Similarly, photonics has emerged from the labs to converge with classical electronics and microelectronics and bring in new high-speed options in consumer products. Flexible and unbreakable displays using a thin layer of film on transparent polymers have emerged as new symbols of entertainment and media tools. Now, nanotechnology has come in. It is the field of the future that will replace microelectronics and many fields with tremendous application potential in the areas of medicine, electronics and material science.
When nanotechnology and ICT meet, integrated silicon electronics, photonics are born and it can be said that material convergence will happen. With material convergence and biotechnology linked, a new science called Intelligent Bioscience will be born which would lead to a disease-free society with longevity and high capabilities.
The convergence of science is reciprocating. Let me give an example. Recently, I was at Harvard University where I visited the laboratories of many eminent professors from the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. I recall how Prof. Hongkun Park showed me his invention of nano needles, which can pierce and deliver content into individual targeted cells. That’s how nanoparticle science is shaping the biosciences. Then I met Prof. Vinod Manoharan, who showed on the other hand how bioscience is in turn shaping nanomaterial science as well. He is using DNA material to design self-assembling particles. When a particular type of DNA is applied on a particle at the atomic level, it is able to generate a prefixed behaviour and automatic assembly. This could be our answer to self-assembly of devices and colonies in deep space without human intervention as envisioned by Dr K. Eric Drexler. Thus, within a single research building, I saw how two different sciences are shaping each other. This reciprocal contribution of sciences to one another is going to shape our future and industry needs to be ready for it. We need to bring down the barriers existing between various technological groups that inhibit research.
Lastly, globally, the demand is shifting towards development of sustainable systems which are technologically superior. This is the new dimension of the twenty-first-century knowledge society, where science, technology and environment will have to work together. Thus, the new-age model would be a four-dimensional bio-nano-info-eco-based one holding exciting possibilities.
I would like to ask you, what would you like to be remembered for? You should write it down. It could be an important contribution, whether it is an invention, an innovation or a change that you bring about in society that the nation will remember you for.
8
THE CANDLE AND THE MOTH
The lamps are different
But the light is same.
Worldly joys you returned to the world,
You remain in my innermost soul.
The crash of the Airborne Surveillance Platform on 11 January 1999 left me devastated. It brought home a different facet of the scientific endeavour, a tragic one. My conversation with my friend Prof. Arun Tiwari brings out my feelings about this experiment that did not succeed as planned. It is also my tribute to the people who participated in it.
Arun Tiwari (AT): The essential issues of life tend to arise naturally during transitions and intense events. They can also be brought forth through introspection. They arise especially as the soul learns to penetrate and transcend its ego structure. Franz Kafka wrote in his celebrated masterpiece ‘Metamorphosis’ on this theme.
APJ: I can see that. The period that followed the failure of the first flight of SLV-3 and the pre-launch difficulties in Agni’s firs
t flight trial made me discover my real self in a very significant manner. But the Arakonam crash in 1999 was a devastating experience for me, also in terms of what it did to my ego structure.
AT: You have never discussed that. I could only see the tip of the iceberg of the enormous pain that you have always kept submerged in the ocean of your work. Would you like to share it?
APJ: More than the sharing aspect, I wish to express my gratitude to the eight young men who sacrificed their lives in a scientific endeavour. The nation must know about those unsung heroes. The pain their families suffered must be shared.
AT: Sir, are you talking about the Airborne Surveillance Platform (ASP) crash on 11 January 1999?
APJ: Yes. The ASP crashed into the dense forests near Arakonam.
AT: I spoke once with K. Ramchand about this incident. He was the systems engineer. He told me that the Avro aircraft, with airborne surveillance system mounted atop as a rotodome, took off around 1400 hrs, climbed up to 10,000 ft and set course towards the Chennai coast. The radar testing was carried out between the Arakonam-Chennai coastline. The target aircraft for the mission trial was an AN-32 aircraft, which took off 15 minutes before the Avro. The radar performance was checked with both sea and land clutter. The performance of the radar as reported by the onboard mission crew via VHF (very high frequency) communication was very good. After one and a half hours of flight testing, the target aircraft landed at Arakonam around 1600 hrs. Subsequently, the ASP aircraft set course from Chennai towards Arakonam and descended close to the airfield from 10,000 to 5,000 ft. When the aircraft was about five nautical miles away from the airfield at an altitude between 3,000 ft and 5,000 ft, the rotodome severed away. The aircraft became unstable and crashed killing all the eight occupants.
APJ: I was in a Defence Research Council meeting in my office in South Block when I was told about the crash. I rushed to Bangalore to be with the bereaved families. Air Chief Marshal A.Y. Tipnis was also there. It was a very difficult moment for me, seeing the young wives crying in desperation and parents standing shell-shocked. One lady thrust her infant into my lap, saying, ‘Who will look after this young life?’ Another lady cried. ‘Why did you do this to us, Mr Kalam?’
AT: Ramchand gave me the list of the officers who lost their lives. Sqn Ldr P. Venkataraman was piloting the aircraft. P. Ilango, instrumentation engineer, and K.P. Shaju, radar system engineer, were from the Centre for Airborne Systems (CABS); D. Narasimhaswamy, radar processing scientist, and I. Jayakumar, signal processing scientist, were from the Electronics Research and Development Establishment (LRDE); and Sqn Ldr N.V. Seshu, R. Bhatnagar and S. Ravi were the other air force officers.
APJ: There were hardly any remains. For the comfort of the families, the authorities made coffins and kept them in the community hall.
AT: O my God!
APJ: In my state of profound grief, I could barely mumble a few words in the farewell speech I had to make.
AT: It reminds me of the letter Abraham Lincoln wrote to a mother of five sons who had died gloriously in the civil war.
I feel how weak and fruitless must be any words of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering to you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save.
I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours, to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom.
APJ: The memory of wailing widows, immobilized parents, an innocent infant in my lap and the cremation of symbolic coffins haunts me sitting here in Rashtrapati Bhavan. Do the few around going through the motions of politics and protocol understand the pain and agony people suffer out there in the laboratories and fields?
AT: What is the message?
APJ: Don’t pretend to be a candle, be a moth. Know the power hidden in serving. We seem to have got stuck with external forms of politics and mistaking them to be nation-building. It is sacrifices, toil and valour that is seldom shown or seen that truly makes a nation.
The crash of the airborne surveillance platform was one of the most tragic events in my life. I have given this conversation to show how deeply I feel about it. As also to convey that it is a long, hard journey while undertaking complex missions. But such setbacks also serve to toughen us.
9
MY VISIT TO GUJARAT
Angel is free because of his knowledge,
The beast because of his ignorance,
Between the two remains the son of man to struggle.
—Rumi
One of the pillars of development that I have thought a lot about is that we have to create a nation where poverty has been totally eradicated and illiteracy removed. Alongside, we need to evolve a society where crimes against women and children are absent and none in the society feels alienated. These thoughts were prominent in my mind during my visit to Gujarat in August 2002, which I took up as my first major task immediately after becoming president. The state had been hit by riots a few months earlier, and their impact had left thousands of lives in disarray. It was an important and sensitive task, because it took place under unique circumstances, in a politically charged atmosphere. I decided that my mission was not to look at what had happened, not to look at what was happening, but to focus on what should be done. What had happened was already a point of discussion by the judiciary and the Parliament and continues to be discussed even now.
As no president had ever visited an area under such circumstances, many questioned the necessity of my visit to the state at this juncture. At the ministry and bureaucratic level, it was suggested that I should not venture into Gujarat at that point of time. One of the main reasons was political. However, I made up my mind that I would go and preparations were in full swing at Rashtrapati Bhavan for my first visit as president.
The prime minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, asked me only one question, ‘Do you consider going to Gujarat at this time essential?’ I told the PM, ‘I consider it an important duty so that I can be of some use to remove the pain, and also accelerate the relief activities, and bring about a unity of minds, which is my mission, as I stressed in my address during the swearing-in ceremony.’
Many apprehensions were expressed, among them that my visit might be boycotted by the chief minister, that I would receive a cold reception and that there would be protests from many sides. But, to my great surprise when I landed at Gandhinagar, not only the chief minister, but his entire Cabinet and a large number of legislators, officials and members of the public were present at the airport. I visited twelve areas – three relief camps and nine riot-hit locations where the losses had been high. Narendra Modi, the chief minister, was with me throughout the visit. In one way, this helped me, as wherever I went, I received petitions and complaints and as he was with me I was able to suggest to him that action be taken as quickly as possible.
I remember one scene, when I visited a relief camp. A six-year-old boy came up to me, held both my hands and said, ‘Rashtrapatiji, I want my mother and father.’ I was speechless. There itself, I held a quick meeting with the district collector. The chief minister also assured me that the boy’s education and welfare would be taken care of by the government.
While I was in Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar, people from all sections of society wished to talk to me and express their problems and views personally. In one such gathering, nearly 2,000 citizens of Ahmedabad surrounded me. The interaction was in Gujarati and a friend of mine translated. I was asked about fifty questions and received 150 petitions.
My visit to two important places in Ahmedabad was indeed significant, particularly in the light of the riots. I called on Pramukh Swamiji Maharaj at Akshardham where he welcomed me. I discussed with His Holiness the mission of achieving unity of minds and bringing a healing touch to Gujarat, which has given to the nation great human beings like Mahatma Gand
hi, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel and Vikram Sarabhai.
I also visited Sabarmati Ashram, where I met many ashramites and saw the agony writ large on their faces, even as they mechanically carried out their normal chores. I witnessed similar sentiments at Akshardham as well. As I was wondering why, I realized that both these institutions, by virtue of their inherent love and respect of human beings and their spiritual environment, work to bring happiness, peace and progress to society and could therefore not accept a situation of inflicting avoidable pain. I say this because in our land, with its heritage of a highly evolved civilization and where great men were born and stood tall as role models for the entire world, communal riots with their attendant tragedy are an aberration that should never happen.
All through my visit only one thought occupied my mind. We have many important tasks at hand to improve the lot of people and to accelerate the process of development. Should not development be our only agenda? Any citizen following any faith has the fundamental right to live happily. No one has the right to endanger the unity of minds, because unity of minds is the lifeline of our country, and makes our country truly unique. After all what is justice, what is democracy? Every citizen in the country has a right to live with dignity; every citizen has a right to aspire for distinction. To access the large number of opportunities, through just and fair means, in order to attain that dignity and distinction is what democracy is all about. That is what our Constitution is all about. And that is what makes life wholesome and worth living in a true and vibrant democracy, the essence of which is tolerance for people’s belief systems and lifestyles.