I am going to meet APJ Kalam today

Former President of the Republic of India, Dr APJ Kalam is in Ahmedabad right now. He's turned lecturer and co-faculty for one of the electives of the second year for IIM Ahmedabad students. He's going to be sharing his ideas and most importantly ways as to how to implement those ideas to make India a developed country by 2020.

I love this man. He's someone who is so so respectable. One with zero arrogance.. and so much humility. On Thursday, i met Prof Anil Gupta, the co-faculty who has designed this course GRIT. He was saying that many educationist stop teaching when they reach the highest post. "They forget that they are considered good teachers and that students would love to share their ideas and wisdom with someone of such a calibre. A teacher is promoted to the post of principal, vice chancellor because of their teaching expertise. Its a sad thing that they stop teaching. Dr. Kalam has always been a teacher. And in my conversations with him, i put this idea across to him that lets start a course that will look at changing India." Thats what Prof Gupta told me.

Thats how GRIT came into being... its quite an interesting course. GRIT stands for Globalising a Resurgent India through Innovative Transformation. Its based on APJ Kalam's vision for India 2020. And quite interestingly, they will not restrict themselves to analysizing the policies. Infact at the end of the course in November, they will actually make suggestions and recommendations to the policies in the area of Water Conservation, Issues related to Women and Children, How to make our leaders more accountable, Security threat perception and solutions, Managing natural and human resources, disaster management... and so much.

Its like teaching students - how to run India? How to make sure that India one day becomes the destination for the best talent in the world - be it scientists, researchers, doctors, management graduates. Kalam wants to see India as one of the best places to explore and learn and to make it a superpower in real sense.

He's scheduled to meet the press today at 5pm. I will be right there... with my camera. I would love to meet the man. A person who has been the People's President. I will update my conversations with him once i am back. Till then... aavjo.