1.India 2020:Avision for the New Millennium
The book examines India's weaknesses and strengths in-depth and offers a vision of how India can emerge among the world's top four economic powers by 2020. The Vision is dedicated to a ten-year-old girl whom Kalam met during one of his talks and asked her about her ambitions, to which the young girl replied, "I want to live in a developed India."
In his book India 2020, Kalam strongly advocates an action plan to develop India into a strong nation by the year 2020. He regards his nation as a knowledge superpower and developed nation. The book describes the present and future scenarios in India and developing countries. It compares the various statistical data and explains how India can improve it. Kalam explains the importance of science and technology. For the development of India.
In chapter 1 of the book, the authors stress the importance of a vision for India, using nations like the US, China, Malaysia and as examples. However, they also point out that this vision should be original rather than imitating other nations.
In the book, Kalam had also said that it should be the dream of all the citizens to see India as a developed country.
2.Wings of fire
This is the
story of Kalam’s rise from obscurity and his personal and professional struggles, as well as the story of Agni, Prithvi, Akash, Trishul, and Nag - missiles that have become household names in India and that have raised the nation to the level of a missile power of international reckoning. As chief of the country’s defense research and development program, Kalam demonstrated the great potential for dynamism and innovation in seemingly moribund research establishments. At the same time, as he has helped create India’s awesome weaponry, Kalam has maintained the ascetic rigor. With characteristic modesty, Kalam ascribes the greatness of his achievement to the influence of his teachers and mentors. He describes the struggles of his boyhood and youth, bringing alive everyday life in a small town in South India, and the inspirational role of educators. He describes the role of visionary Indian.
Scientists, such as Dr. Vikram Sarabhai, and creating a coordinated network of research institutions. This is also the saga of independent India’s struggle for technological self-sufficiency and defensive autonomy – a story as much about politics, domestic and international, as it is about science. Arun Tiwari worked under Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam for over a decade in the Defence Research and Development Laboratory (DRDL), Hyderabad. He is currently Director, Cardiovascular Technology Institute, Hyderabad, where he is pursuing Dr. Kalam’s vision of developing cost-effective medical devices using indigenous defense technology. Dr. Kalamis now India’s President. He was elected to India’s office by a huge majority in 2002.
3.Turning Points: A Journey through Challenges
In his latest book, “Turning Points – A Journey Through Challenges, “Kalam gives us insight into why he chose to become the President of India in 2002, and the same motivation might have crept into his mind in 2012 for his initial inclination for running for the post again.
He chose to say yes when Vajpayee asked him to become president to realize his ‘India 2020’ dream by putting forward his vision before the nation and the Parliament. Vision 2020 – that grand vision for India to make it a developed nation by 2020 – is what Kalam breathes and tries to inspire youth to strive towards achieving this goal.
Unfortunately, in this sequel to his earlier book ‘Wings Of Fire‘, which covered his life until 1992, there is a heavy dose of ‘India 2020 vision’ but less personal anecdotes. Because it is said to be his ‘autobiography,’ one would certainly have high expectations about the life of this great personality who had the opportunity to participate and witness some of the momentous events in India in recent times.
From 1992 to 2012, Kalam served the nation in various capacities – he was an adviser to the defense minister, head of some of defense research institutes, national scientific adviser to the Prime Minister, and then the President of India – during which he witnessed India grow from strength to strength from 1992 ignominy of begging IMF to become one of the fastest-growing economies in the world.
Surely, he had more interesting stories to share from his personal point of view, but he consciously chooses to avoid sharing such events in this book. He also reveals that he declined to be a cabinet minister in Vajpayee’s government in 1998 – which makes it clear that he had unparalleled access to important government functionaries at the time.
He was still a scientist at that time, and it is rare for Prime Ministers to ask someone outside of politics to become part of the government.
Instead, ‘Turning Points’ is more of a blueprint for making India a developed country by suggesting measures to make the Judiciary, Parliament, and Executive more efficient in their functioning. Quite annoyingly, all suggestions are in ‘points’ like in textbooks.
For example, there are: ‘ten’ pillars of development; ‘five’ causes of delay in delivering justice by courts and ‘nine’ suggestions to make them efficient; ‘four’ points on meaning of the development of villages; and some ‘seventeen’ points for making our Parliament ‘functional.
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4. Failure to Success: Legendary Lives
Failure is the state or condition of not meeting a desirable or intended objective and may be viewed as the opposite of success. The criteria for failure depends on the context and maybe relative to a particular observer or belief system. One person might consider a failure what another person considers a success, particularly in cases of direct competition or a zero-sum game. Similarly, distinct observers or participants may view the degree of success or failure in a situation differently. In a situation that one considers a failure, another might consider a successful, a qualified success, or a neutral situation.
It may also be difficult or impossible to ascertain whether a situation meets the criteria for failure or success due to ambiguous or ill-defined definitions of those criteria. Finding useful and effective criteria, or heuristics, to judge the success or failure of a situation may itself be a significant task.
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