Review safety at nuclear plants, urges APJ Abdul Kalam

Former president, APJ Abdul Kalam, called for a safety review at all nuclear power stations in the country, especially those by the seaside, in the backdrop of the nuclear crisis at Fukushima in Japan.

Kalam, who spoke briefly to mediapersons on the sidelines of the fifth convocation ceremony of the Defence Institute of Advanced Technology (DIAT) at Girinagar near Pune on Friday, stressed on the need for Indian scientists to study the Japanese disaster.

“India has never experienced a combination of an earthquake and a tsunami. There is, therefore, a need for our scientists to study the same. The safety of our nuclear power installations and the people living around them is of prime importance,” he said.

Kalam stressed on the urgent need for a specialised course in disaster management at the undergraduate, postgraduate and doctoral level in the country.

He said, “I urge the faculty and management of DIAT to start a detailed programme on disaster management, which could be replicated across the country. It is crucial that people are trained  to protect the fellow Indians and critical establishments in the event of a natural disaster.”   

Shifting his attention to defence research, the former president exhorted VK Saraswat, head of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), to earmark 30% of their budget for research and designing products for the year 2030.

Kalam said, “The wars of 2030 would be very different from today and we would need products like unmanned reusable hypersonic missiles, cyber warfare systems and nuclear submarines with hypersonic missiles. It is important that we start working on them well in advance.”

Kalam asked passing out postgraduates from DIAT to seek inspiration from inventors like Wright brothers, Thomas Alva Edison and Alexander Graham Bell to keep the fire of creativity burning within them. He said, “The world tries very hard to make you somebody else, but you need to retain the ‘unique you’ in yourself.”