Introduction
Ignited Minds is the book for inspiring the young Indian minds rearing to take the country forward.
The book is written by 11th President of India, Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam, popularly known across the world as the Missile Man of India.
He was an aerospace scientist who helped India achieve new heights both in space and in defense technology.
About Apj Abdul Kalam
Apj Abdul Kalam was born and brought up in Rameswaram, Tamil Nadu. His father was an Imam of a local mosque.
He moved to Madras in 1955 to study aerospace engineering at Madras Institute of Technology as he dreamt of becoming a pilot.
He got 9th position on the merit list for joining the Indian Air Force but the number of vacancies was just 8.
Maybe he was born to design missiles and not to become a fighter pilot.
Content of the book
In the book Ignited minds, Dr. Apj Abdul Kalam has shared his experiences and has motivated millions of young Indians to take India forward.
According to him, India has not utilized yet, the resources that it has.
Through the book, he presents several examples to show how we sell raw materials to other countries very cheaply and then buy the finalized goods from them paying a very high price.
According to him, we need more industries that can process the raw materials to create the finalized goods to strengthen the economy of our country.
According to him, missions are always bigger than organizations, just as organizations are always bigger than the individuals who run them.
He also shared his experience of how coordination between different autonomous institutions helped him achieve his mission.
He presents his expectations from the youth and prompts them not to get settled easily in life. Dream big because there is a lot to do particularly in rural India.
He shares his experiences of seminars in which he was asked questions by students on various issues related to the country like politics, agriculture, and defense development of the nation.
He has discussed his meetings with various persons including spiritual leaders, technocrats, and founders of big corporations about how they want to contribute to the development of the country.
This book was written by him just after the new state of Jharkhand was formed.
He saw huge capabilities with the rich mineral resources in the state.
But was also dejected when he saw that due to the lack of coordination between the state and the central government, there were no industries that could convert steel sheets produced by the raw industries into finalized goods.
Whom should read
To all the young Indians, this book is for you to read and propel your dreams to achieve bigger and take your country forward because a country depends a lot on its youth.
With the introduction of information technology, the list of opportunities is endless but the problem-solving approach is required.
According to him, try to solve simple problems of your locality, state, or country.
With integrated efforts of its citizens, the county will definitely be on the cusp of being one of the developed nations of the world.
Kalam penned his vision for the future of India in this book India: 2020.
Reading ignited minds made me feel sorry for him because we, in 2020 are nowhere close to what he expected from us.
According to him, put aside your desire to just earn a living and dream big to make things happen because only then India will shift from developing to developed.
Yes, lack of quality education has debarred us from contributing to the development of our country, but with the increasing reach of the internet, we can study what we aspire to and can work effectively in that field. It’s much better than to just hold a degree and search for a job.
For students
As we all know that Apj Abdul Kalam loved interacting with children.
Even when he died from cardiac arrest, he was busy in a seminar at The Indian Institute of Management, Shillong.
So, as students, we owe a lot to him. It will be a great tribute to him if we try to know more about him.
Reading his books will always help to understand our country better and the technological advances it has made in the last few decades.
