VK Saraswat | Vijay Kumar Saraswat

Meeting the needs of the present generation without compromising the quality of future generations to meet their  needs, can be described as the simplest way to define sustainability. We talked about this in the previous post; balancing economic development, social equity and environmental protection help organisations move towards a sustainable standing. What about sustainability on the global scale ? Sustainability and sustainable development are about striking a balance between environmental concerns of natural resources, techno-economic systems and their development and societal concerns of human capital, and social expectations. A melange of all these systems leads to meeting our present needs without compromising on the needs of the future. This definition forms the basis for defining all categories of sustainabilities in different areas of human activities. Now, environmental sustainability may be seen as the ability of an ecosystem to maintain and progress...

                                      A great man is always willing to be little. This quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson couldn’t hold truer in the case of Dr. Kalam.  It’s in the most unexpected of circumstances that the most unlikeliest character traits often manifest themselves. If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader. We all knew Dr. Kalam to be the strong visionary and impeccable leader that he was. Our interactions with him on a daily basis though, pleasantly let us in on the humble greatness of this legendary soul. An incident from the first launch of the Prithvi missile comes to mind… The reviews and safety considerations were planned from SHAR.  As was the norm, the range authorities had to clear the mission from safety considerations before the final check.  During a review by the SHAR team, some concerns...

All of us have good days and bad days. Some days things just don’t go as planned and we end up losing our cool and our temper. Professionally though, this is definitely going to be frowned upon. In the real work space, we are expected to be courteous, disciplined and polite, losing our temper is not something that goes well with our peers and our superiors. A true leader or manager then, is one who gets the best out of his team, without letting them feel any lesser about themselves. Dr. Kalam was regarded as a father figure by all.  His style was never confrontational and he had a vast reserve of patience.  He always worked towards building a consensus rather than ramming down decisions.  He rarely lost his cool.  If someone upset him, all he would say were terms like “Funny Guy” / “Who is the hero?”  and “ Get me that famous mechanic.” On the days that he did end up being displeased, his style of showing it was unique.  The Prithvi-03 flight h...

Almost every achiever is asked at least once who his/her inspiration or role model is. We often look up to someone for their admirable qualities and look to inculcate the same in our lives.   Dr. Kalam often told that he had three Gurus, namely, Dr. Vikram Sarabhai, Dr. Sateesh Dhawan and Dr. Brahm Prakash.   He always acknowledged their contribution in his growth.   I remember him saying he learnt the importance of having a vision from the Dynamic Dr.Sarabhai. From the no-nonsense Dhawan he fathomed how to convert a simple vision into a mission and evolve fail-safe systems.   And from the soft spoken Brahm Prakash, the first Director of VSSC, he learnt the art of converting the mission on hand into achievable goals. It just goes to say dreams aren’t enough; dreams that become goals are what matter. All these qualities made Dr. Kalam an outstanding manager of technology – a rare quality . But the most important quality his mentors taught him was, how to ha...

Success is never a one-step goal. It takes years of hard work, sleepless nights, earlier mornings than everyone else, it means rising up with the sun even though you need to keep working long after the sun has set. For those who believe in the glory of their goals though, the sun never sets. Today’s post features Dr.Kalam and Liquid Propulsion technology. While his reservations about liquid Propulsion technology were first witnessed by me during his visit to DRDL in 1973 as a member of the team lead by Prof. Satish Dhawan to review the  SAM-2 (Devil) project, I faced the same when he first reviewed the configuration of Prithvi Missile in 1983 after taking over as Director DRDL and Programme Director, IGMDP.  By this time, we had already static tested the Boiler Plate Version of Propulsion Stage of Prithvi.  Dr. Kalam felt that the LP System was too complex and less reliable, and suggested  that we switch over to Solid Propulsion.  I had explai...

This is the second part of my series on my days with Dr. Kalam. As someone who’s spent a huge chunk of my career working with him on various of India’s missile missions , I have been lucky to know him, work with him and see him in action. October 15th was the first posthumous birth anniversary of Dr. Kalam, it was a nostalgic time for those of us who worked with him. He would never ask for any showy gifts or ceremonies on his birthdays, I remember. To succeed in your mission, you must have single-minded devotion to your goal, He would always say. That takes me back to our time at SHAR where we worked in Dr. Kalam’s team and learned Range Safety in the development of missiles. In this post I speak about lessons in Range Safety. Range Safety is an integral part of missile testing and is a prerequisite to the development of missile. During 1972-79, I had participated in many flight tests of Devil (SAM-2) missiles as part of the indigenous development of SAM-2 but was never expos...

Ever since the news of his sad demise during a lecture in Sikkim came out, I immediately felt the magnitude of the loss that was upon us - upon science, upon a nation, upon leadership, upon children of an impressionable age and adults alike, upon time … Dr. Kalam hadn’t been keeping well for quite some time. Age had taken its toll on his unbreakable spirit, and though he succumbed, he never lost. As he collapsed in the middle of a lecture, he was taken in the midst of something he had devoted his life to - science, learning, innovation and development. Looking back today, I’m sure he wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. As someone who’s spent a huge chunk of my career working with him on various of India’s missile missions , I have been lucky to know him, work with him and see him in action. Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam was a true inspiration. He was a great scientist, an ideal citizen and a human being of impeccable character.  He made efforts to blossom young minds – full of ...