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'It was my dream come true to meet Kalam'

June 15, 2007 12:48 IST

I am from Bangalore, currently I am in US.  I had the previlege and luck to meet Mr. APJ Kalam in 1996 in Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore; in one of the Science Conferences.  I had the previlege to attend the conference chaired by Mr. APJ kalam, MR. prof YashPal and many others.

He was nice to stop by and talk to me when I requested an autograph from him. He was very down to earth; he said Good Luck with a heartful Smile which meant a lot to me since he was the leading Nuclear Scientists that I had ever met.
It was my Dream Come True.

I also had previlige to meet Mr.Professor YashPal (Host of Science Program :- Turning Point).

Dinesh Shet

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I would not say I met him personally but he had visited our office couple of years back and we had the privilege of Q&A session. We were amazed at his answers to our questions. They were simple but had great meaning in those words. One question was about the USP of India. His answer was simple and so very correct. He said that the USP of India was its people and explained how citizens of India had the ability to mould themselves into any area anywhere.

His insights into nanotechnology was great. He explained the complicated technology in simple terms.

I regret we could not use his enormous wealth of knowledge when he was the president. I have heard that he is going back to teaching after this. I personally feel that whoever his being taught by this great man will consider himself lucky.
 
Zaheer

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I have not been able to meet the President in person so far, but on a couple of occasions I did send him e-mails pointing out the gross injustice and partiality shown by the Government of Maharashtra against an 86+ year old Co-operative Bank in Mumbai.  The bank has had to face abrupt dislocation of service due to the total mismanagement by its Directors, resulting in huge accumulated losses and NPA's.

The President's office promitly forwarded my e-mail to RBI and the State Government. The result was that RBI at once spurred into action and filed criminal complaints against the erring directors and the chief executive. RBI also took the lead to appoint an independent administrator. The shrewed administrator collected more than50 per cent ofthe total NPA's and has successfully made out a case for take over of the bank by another stronger co-operative bank.The State Government treated the correspondence as rubbish and sent it cartwheeling to various departments in Chief Minister's office and the Ministry of Co-operation.  Ultimately those papers got dumped in the very same bank and that was the final destination.

But for the prompt action of the President, the bank would have died its natural death.  Since the State Government is still not in a mood to put its acts together, the 67000+ depositors are keeping their fingers crossed and praying for recovery of their hard earned money. Surprisingly the Union Finance Ministry has been totally irresponsible and unhelpful, due to which RBI too has been lax in the matter pursuing the criminal complaints seriously.

TP Viswanathan

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