A Leader with so many Titles!!!

Age couldn’t catch up with him, death had to sneak up and grab him from the workplace. Because this son of a boatman wouldn’t be caught resting, even after climbing the highest position a man can hold in our country.

Avul Pakir Jainulabdeen Abdul Kalam honoured every chair he held, and India honoured him with the best it could. Dr Kalam meditated, played the veena, taught children and adults, tended to plants and found enough time to write relentlessly to author some 20 books. He parted his hair in the middle, wore really simple clothes, but the child-like smile beat all the weapons he developed as a scientist. His demeanour could disarm the biggest enemies. He didn’t have many, anyway.

There are presidents and there are precedents. After the first three, the politicians adorned the chair. Kalam was an outsider, no-contest man. The tallest building on the Raisina Hill stood taller when this tall man was a resident.

When another tall leader Atal Bihari Vajpayee proposed his name as the President, there was little doubt he would win, even though his opponent was no less than Capt Lakshmi Sehgal. When he won, then Vajpayee’s Man Friday Pramod Mahajan asked him whether he would take oath at an auspicious time. Dr Kalam told him that as long as the solar system was in place, it’s auspicious all the time. He would have moved on to explain how the solar system worked, but Mahajan didn’t have time.

The passion to share knowledge was Dr Kalam's hallmark. During his presidential visits abroad, he would be talking to reporters about various international issues, but in case the plane experienced turbulence, he couldn’t help explaining them what turbulence is.

He was a scientist first, the President and everything else later. Scientists dream to fly, explore beyond horizons. His parents saw that dream in his eyes, and his barely-managing-to-make-both-ends-meet family made sure he chased the dream. The physics graduate from University of Madras missed his chance to become a fighter pilot by a whisker. But his interests led him to Defence Research and Development Organisation, where he would later be known as the Missile Man. His work with the ISRO in the PSLV project helped India become a leader in space and satellite technology. Later, he would play a key role in India’s nuclear programme. In as late as 1998, he continued developing technology. His work with cardiologist Soma Raju resulted in an inexpensive coronary stent, now known as the Kalam-Raju stent.

He was a busy man after he left the Rashtrapati Bhavan, following his passion to teach. IIM, Shillong, was one of the places he lectured at regularly. On Monday morning, he was all smiles as he arrived. In the evening, a cardiac arrest ended his journey. A journey unmatched in its width and heights. India lost one of the greatest Indians in recent times.

- from dailyo.in 

- author - Kamlesh Singh

Narasimha - The Forgotten Saviour !!!

He had a constant threat of imprisonment hanging over his head. His colleagues gossiped about his involvement in the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi.

In a speech to mark the 125th anniversary of the Congress, the party president Sonia Gandhi, praised contributions of all Congress prime ministers except PV Narasimha Rao.

All his contributions were either accredited to Rajiv Gandhi or Manmohan Singh.

When he died, there were no arrangements made to receive the body and place it atop a platform for public darshan. No flowers were provided by the congress government. There was no shamiana, there were no carpets. There was no one to control the mourning crowds. The congress president came for a couple of minutes and vanished.

And thus died, PV Narasimha Rao, the most underrated prime minister of India, a genius politician, a true statesman and the architect of modern India.

PV Narasimha Rao was the first and only right winger prime minister from the Congress clan. A nationalist to the core, he was born in the Hyderabad state of British India. Not many know that this astute politician and economist par excellence was also a trained Guerrilla fighter. He had ambushed the Nizam’s army along with his accomplices, many-a-times. His political prowess and planning genius was identified and nurtured under the guidance of Indira Gandhi. PV Narasimha Rao was fluent in 13 languages, was well versed with subjects related to economics, law, history, politics and arts. In the political circles, Rao was fondly addressed as the scholar amongst the politicians.

PV Narasimha Rao entered the prime minister office amongst the turmoil. He started working on a plan which was to be known as the liberalisation of the Indian economy later on. The reforms progressed furthest in the areas of opening up to foreign investment, reforming capital markets, deregulating domestic business, and reforming the trade regime. Public sector was privatized. And more money was pumped into infrastructure. India was opened to foreign trade thereby stabilizing the dwindling economy. After I.G. Patel (ex-governor of Reserve Bank of India) declined Rao’s offer of occupying the finance minister chair, Rao chose Manmohan Singh, a champion economist and a reformer at heart as the Finance minister of India. PV Narasimha Rao had an eye for talent and his disciple met all the expectation of his preceptor.

His reforms can be briefly summarized in the following bullet points:

• Abolishing the Controller of Capital Issues which decided the prices and number of shares that firms     could issue.
• Introducing the SEBI Act of 1992 and the Security Laws (Amendment) which gave SEBI the legal authority to register and regulate all security market intermediaries.
• Opening up in 1992 of India’s equity markets to investment by foreign institutional investors and permitting Indian firms to raise capital on international markets by issuing Global Depository Receipts (GDRs).
• Starting in 1994 of the National Stock Exchange as a computer-based trading system which served as an instrument to leverage reforms of India’s other stock exchanges. The NSE emerged as India’s largest exchange by 1996.
• Reducing tariffs from an average of 85 percent to 25 percent, and rolling back quantitative controls. (The rupee was made convertible on trade account.)
• Encouraging foreign direct investment by increasing the maximum limit on share of foreign capital in joint ventures from 40 to 51% with 100% foreign equity permitted in priority sectors.
• Streamlining procedures for FDI approvals, and in at least 35 industries, automatically approving projects within the limits for foreign participation.

It is a shame that the current generation (or at least the most of it) doesn’t really know PV Narasimha Rao and/or identify his contributions to this great nation of ours. The congress top brass has made every possible effort to make sure that this man goes down in History as a nobody. After all PV Narasimha Rao changed the name of the Congress Party from Congress (Indira) to Bhartiya Rashtriya Congress (Indian National Congress) and rejected the candidature of Sonia Gandhi as the Congress President with this golden quote of his “Congress Party should be treated like a train where the compartments have to be attached to an engine belonging to the Nehru-Gandhi family or were there other alternatives?”

But the nation of 1.25 billion will never forget its saviour, a genius, a legend and arguably one of the best prime minister of India.

(Source: http://thefrustratedindian.com/)