Mother Teresa - Nobel Peace Prize

Mother Teresa (Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu, August 26, 1910 – September 5, 1997) was an Albanian Roman Catholic nun who founded the Missionaries of Charity and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 for her humanitarian work. For over forty years she ministered to the poor, sick, orphaned, and dying in Kolkata (Calcutta), India.

As the Missionaries of Charity grew under Mother Teresa's leadership, they expanded their ministry to other countries. By the 1970s she had become internationally famed as a humanitarian and advocate for the poor and helpless, due in part to a documentary, and book, Something Beautiful for God by Malcolm Muggeridge. Following her death she was beatified by Pope John Paul II and given the title Blessed Teresa of Calcutta.

Early life
Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu was born on 26 August 1910, in Skopje, which is now the capital of the Republic of Macedonia.[4] She was the youngest of the children of a family from Shkodër, Albania, born to Nikola and Drane Bojaxhiu. Nikola was involved in politics and devoted to the Albanian Cause. After a political meeting he fell ill and died when Agnes was about eight years old.[4] After her father's death, her mother raised her as a Roman Catholic. According to a biography by Joan Graff Clucas, in her early years Agnes was fascinated by stories of the lives of missionaries and their service, and by age 12 was convinced that she should commit herself to a religious life.[5] She left home at age 18 to join the Sisters of Loreto as a missionary. She never again saw her mother or sister.[6]

Agnes initially went to the Loreto Abbey in Rathfarnham, Ireland to learn English, the language the Sisters of Loreto used to teach school children in India.[7] She arrived in India in 1929, and began her novitiate in Darjeeling, near the Himalayan mountains.[8] She took her first religious vows as a nun on 24 May 1931. At that time she chose the name Teresa after Thérèse de Lisieux, the patron saint of missionaries.[9] She took her solemn vows on 14 May 1937, while serving as a teacher at the Loreto convent school in eastern Calcutta.[10][11]

Although Teresa enjoyed teaching at the school, she was increasingly disturbed by the poverty surrounding her in Calcutta.[12] A famine in 1943 brought misery and death to the city; and the outbreak of Hindu/Muslim violence in August 1946 plunged the city into despair and horror.[13]

Missionaries of Charity
On September 10, 1946, Teresa experienced what she later described as "the call within the call" while traveling to the Loreto convent in Darjeeling for her annual retreat. "I was to leave the convent and help the poor while living among them. It was an order. To fail would have been to break the faith."[14] She began her missionary work with the poor in 1948, replacing her traditional Loreto habit with a simple white cotton chira decorated with a blue border and then venturing out into the slums."[15] Initially she started a school in Motijhil; soon she started tending to the needs of the destitute and starving.[16] Her efforts quickly caught the attention of Indian officials, including the Prime Minister, who expressed his appreciation.[17]

Teresa wrote in her diary that her first year was fraught with difficulties. She had no income and had to resort to begging for food and supplies. Teresa experienced doubt, loneliness and the temptation to return to the comfort of convent life during these early months. She wrote in her diary:

“Our Lord wants me to be a free nun covered with the poverty of the cross. Today I learned a good lesson. The poverty of the poor must be so hard for them. While looking for a home I walked and walked till my arms and legs ached. I thought how much they must ache in body and soul, looking for a home, food and health. Then the comfort of Loreto [her former order] came to tempt me. 'You have only to say the word and all that will be yours again,' the Tempter kept on saying ... Of free choice, my God, and out of love for you, I desire to remain and do whatever be your Holy will in my regard. I did not let a single tear come.[18] ”

Teresa received Vatican permission on October 7, 1950 to start the diocesan congregation that would become the Missionaries of Charity.[19] Its mission was to care for, in her own words, "the hungry, the naked, the homeless, the crippled, the blind, the lepers, all those people who feel unwanted, unloved, uncared for throughout society, people that have become a burden to the society and are shunned by everyone." It began as a small order with 13 members in Calcutta; today it has more than 4,000 nuns running orphanages, AIDS hospices, and charity centers worldwide, and caring for refugees, the blind, disabled, aged, alcoholics, the poor and homeless, and victims of floods, epidemics, and famine.[20]

In 1952 Mother Teresa opened the first Home for the Dying in space made available by the City of Calcutta. With the help of Indian officials she converted an abandoned Hindu temple into the Kalighat Home for the Dying, a free hospice for the poor. She renamed it Kalighat, the Home of the Pure Heart (Nirmal Hriday).[21] Those brought to the home received medical attention and were afforded the opportunity to die with dignity, according to the rituals of their faith; Muslims were read the Quran, Hindus received water from the Ganges, and Catholics received the Last Rites.[22] "A beautiful death," she said, "is for people who lived like animals to die like angels — loved and wanted."[22] Mother Teresa soon opened a home for those suffering from Hansen's disease, commonly known as leprosy, and called the hospice Shanti Nagar (City of Peace).[23] The Missionaries of Charity also established several leprosy outreach clinics throughout Calcutta, providing medication, bandages and food.

As the Missionaries of Charity took in increasing numbers of lost children, Mother Teresa felt the need to create a home for them. In 1955 she opened the Nirmala Shishu Bhavan, the Children's Home of the Immaculate Heart, as a haven for orphans and homeless youth.[24]

The order soon began to attract both recruits and charitable donations, and by the 1960s had opened hospices, orphanages, and leper houses all over India. Mother Teresa then expanded the order throughout the globe. Its first house outside India opened in Venezuela in 1965 with five sisters.[25] Others followed in Rome, Tanzania, and Austria in 1968; during the 1970s the order opened houses and foundations in dozens of countries in Asia, Africa, Europe, and the United States.[26]

Her philosophy and implementation have faced some criticism. While noting how little evidence Mother Teresa's critics were able to find against her, David Scott wrote that Mother Teresa limited herself to keeping people alive rather than tackling poverty itself.[27] She has also been criticized for her view on suffering: according to an article in the Alberta Report, she felt that suffering would bring people closer to Jesus.[28] The quality of care offered to terminally ill patients in the Homes for the Dying has been criticised in the medical press, notably The Lancet and the British Medical Journal, which reported the reuse of hypodermic needles, poor living conditions, including the use of cold baths for all patients, and an anti-materialist approach that precluded the use of systematic diagnosis.[29]

International charity
In 1982, at the height of the Siege of Beirut, Mother Teresa rescued 37 children trapped in a front line hospital by brokering a temporary cease-fire between the Israeli army and Palestinian guerrillas.[30] Accompanied by Red Cross workers, she traveled through the war zone to the devastated hospital to evacuate the young patients.[31]

When the walls of Eastern Europe collapsed, she expanded her efforts to Communist countries that had previously rejected the Missionaries of Charity, embarking on dozens of projects. She was undeterred by criticism about her firm stand against abortion and divorce stating, "No matter who says what, you should accept it with a smile and do your own work."

Mother Teresa traveled to assist and minister to the hungry in Ethiopia, radiation victims at Chernobyl, and earthquake victims in Armenia.[32][33][34] In 1991, Mother Teresa returned for the first time to her homeland and opened a Missionaries of Charity Brothers home in Tirana, Albania.

By 1996, she was operating 517 missions in more than 100 countries.[35] Over the years, Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity grew from twelve to thousands serving the "poorest of the poor" in 450 centers around the world. The first Missionaries of Charity home in the United States was established in the South Bronx, New York; by 1984 the order operated 19 establishments throughout the country.[36]

The spending of the charity money received has been criticized by some. Christopher Hitchens and the Stern have said that money that was donated with the intention of it being spent on the keeping of the poor was spent on other projects instead. [37]

Deteriorating health and death
Mother Teresa suffered a heart attack in Rome in 1983, while visiting Pope John Paul II. After a second attack in 1989, she received an artificial pacemaker. In 1991, after a battle with pneumonia while in Mexico, she suffered further heart problems. She offered to resign her position as head of the Missionaries of Charity. But the nuns of the order, in a secret ballot, voted for her to stay. Mother Teresa agreed to continue her work as head of the order.

In April 1996, Mother Teresa fell and broke her collar bone. In August she suffered from malaria and failure of the left heart ventricle. She had heart surgery, but it was clear that her health was declining. On March 13, 1997, she stepped down from the head of Missionaries of Charity and died on September 5, 1997, nine days after her 87th birthday.

The Archbishop of Calcutta, Henry Sebastian D'Souza, said he ordered a priest to perform an exorcism on Mother Teresa with her permission when she was first hospitalized with cardiac problems because he thought she may be under attack by the devil.[38]

At the time of her death, Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity had over 4,000 sisters, an associated brotherhood of 300 members, and over 100,000 lay volunteers, operating 610 missions in 123 countries. These included hospices and homes for people with HIV/AIDS, leprosy and tuberculosis, soup kitchens, children's and family counseling programs, orphanages, and schools.

Reception in India and Asia
Mother Teresa was granted a state funeral by the Indian Government in gratitude for her services to the poor of all religions in India.[39] In tribute, Nawaz Sharif, the Prime Minister of Pakistan said that she was "a rare and unique individual who lived long for higher purposes. Her life-long devotion to the care of the poor, the sick, and the disadvantaged was one of the highest examples of service to our humanity."[40] Mother Teresa had first been officially recognised in the region long before her death. In 1962, she was awarded the Padma Shri by the Indian government. That same year she received the Philippines-based Ramon Magsaysay Award for International Understanding, given for work in South or East Asia. The citation said that "the Board of Trustees recognizes her merciful cognizance of the abject poor of a foreign land, in whose service she has led a new congregation".[41] She continued to receive major Indian rewards in successive decades including, in 1972, the Jawaharlal Nehru Award for International Understanding and, in 1980, India's highest civilian award, the Bharat Ratna.[42]

Indian views on Mother Teresa were not uniformly favourable. Her critic Aroup Chatterjee, who was born and bred in Calcutta but lived in London, reports that "she was not a significant entity in Calcutta in her lifetime". Chatterjee blames Mother Teresa for promoting a negative image of his home city.[43] Her presence and profile grated in parts of the Indian political world, as she often opposed the Hindu Right. The Bharatiya Janata Party clashed with her over the Christian Dalits, but praised her in death, sending a representative to her funeral. The Vishwa Hindu Parishad, on the other hand, opposed the Government's decision to grant her a state funeral. Its secretary Giriraj Kishore said that "her first duty was to the Church and social service was incidental" and accused her of favouring Christians and conducting "secret baptisms" of the dying. But Parvathi Menon, writing the front page tribute for the Indian fortnightly Frontline, dismissed these charges as "patently false" and said that they had "made no impact on the public perception of her work, especially in Calcutta". Although praising her "selfless caring", energy and bravery, Menon was critical of Mother Teresa's public campaigning against abortion and that she claimed to be non-political when doing so.[42] More recently, the Indian daily The Telegraph referred to her as "the Saint of the Gutters", also mentioning calls for "Rome to investigate whether she did anything to alleviate the condition of the poor or just took care of the sick and dying and needed them to further a sentimentally-moral cause".[44]

President Ronald Reagan presents Mother Teresa with the Presidential Medal of Freedom at a White House ceremony, 1985.
By the early 1970s, Mother Teresa had become an international celebrity. Her fame can be in large part attributed to the 1969 documentary Something Beautiful for God, which was filmed by Malcolm Muggeridge and his 1971 book of the same title. Muggeridge was undergoing a spiritual journey of his own at the time.[45] During the filming of the documentary, footage taken in poor lighting conditions, particularly the Home for the Dying, was thought unlikely to be of usable quality by the crew. After returning from India, however, the footage was found to be extremely well lit. Muggeridge claimed this was a miracle of "divine light" from Mother Teresa herself.[46] Others in the crew thought it was due to a new type of ultra-sensitive Kodak film.[47] Muggeridge later converted to Catholicism.

Around this time, the Catholic world began to honor Mother Teresa publicly. In 1971, Paul VI awarded her the first Pope John XXIII Peace Prize, commending her for her work with the poor, display of Christian charity and efforts for peace.[48] She later received the Pacem in Terris Award (1976).[49] Since her death, Mother Teresa has progressed rapidly along the steps towards sainthood, currently having reached the stage of having been beatified.

Mother Teresa was honored by both governments and civilian organizations. The United Kingdom and the United States each repeatedly granted awards, culminating in the Order of Merit in 1983, and honorary citizenship of the United States received on November 16, 1996. Mother Teresa's Albanian homeland granted her the Golden Honor of the Nation in 1994.[42] Her acceptance of this and another honour granted by the Haitian government proved controversial. Mother Teresa attracted criticism, particularly from the left, for implicitly giving support to the Duvaliers, to corrupt businessmen such as Charles Keating and Robert Maxwell, and to politicians on the right of Western politics, such as U.K. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and United States President Ronald Reagan. In Keating's case she wrote to the judge of his trial asking for clemency to be shown.[29][42]

Universities in both the West and in India granted her honorary degrees.[42] Other civilian awards include the Balzan Prize for promoting humanity, peace and brotherhood among peoples (1978),[50] and the Albert Schweitzer International Prize (1975).[51]

In 1979, Mother Teresa was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, "for work undertaken in the struggle to overcome poverty and distress, which also constitute a threat to peace." She refused the conventional ceremonial banquet given to laureates, and asked that the $192,000 funds be given to the poor in India,[52] stating that earthly rewards were important only if they helped her help the world's needy. When Mother Teresa received the prize, she was asked, "What can we do to promote world peace?" She answered "Go home and love your family." Building on this theme in her Nobel Lecture, she said: "Around the world, not only in the poor countries, but I found the poverty of the West so much more difficult to remove. When I pick up a person from the street, hungry, I give him a plate of rice, a piece of bread, I have satisfied. I have removed that hunger. But a person that is shut out, that feels unwanted, unloved, terrified, the person that has been thrown out from society - that poverty is so hurtable [sic] and so much, and I find that very difficult." More specifically, she singled out abortion as 'the greatest destroyer of peace in the world'. [53]

Her death was mourned in both secular and religious communities. The former U.N. Secretary-General Javier Pérez de Cuéllar, for example, said: "She is the United Nations. She is peace in the world."[40] During her lifetime and after her death, Mother Teresa was consistently found by Gallup to be the single most widely admired person in the US, and in 1999 was ranked as the "most admired person of the 20th century" by a poll in the US. She out-polled all other volunteered answers by a wide margin, and was in first place in all major demographic categories except the very young.

Towards the end of her life, Mother Teresa attracted some negative attention in the Western media. The author Christopher Hitchens has been one of her most active critics in both the United Kingdom and the United States. He was commissioned to co-write and narrate the documentary Hell's Angel about her for Channel 4 after Aroup Chatterjee encouraged the making of such a program, although Chatterjee was unhappy with the "sensationalist approach" of the final product.[43] Hitchens expanded his criticism in a 1995 book, The Missionary Position.[54]

Chatterjee writes that while she was alive Mother Teresa and her official biographers refused to collaborate with his own investigations and that she failed to defend herself against critical coverage in the Western press. He gives as examples a report in The Guardian in Britain whose "stringent (and quite detailed) attack on conditions in her orphanages ... [include] charges of gross neglect and physical and emotional abuse", and another documentary Mother Teresa: Time for Change? broadcast in several European countries.[43] Both Chatterjee and Hitchens have themselves been subject to criticism for their stance.

The German magazine Stern published a hostile article on the first anniversary of Mother Teresa's death. The medical press has also published criticism of her, arising from very different outlooks and priorities on patients' needs.[29] Other critics include Tariq Ali, a member of the editorial committee of the New Left Review, and the Irish-born investigative journalist Donal MacIntyre.[54]

Spiritual life
Analyzing her deeds and achievements, John Paul II asked: "Where did Mother Teresa find the strength and perseverance to place herself completely at the service of others? She found it in prayer and in the silent contemplation of Jesus Christ, his Holy Face, his Sacred Heart."[55]

In his first encyclical Deus Caritas Est, Benedict XVI mentioned Teresa of Calcutta three times and he also used her life to clarify one of his main points of the encyclical. "In the example of Blessed Teresa of Calcutta we have a clear illustration of the fact that time devoted to God in prayer not only does not detract from effective and loving service to our neighbour but is in fact the inexhaustible source of that service."[56] Mother Teresa specified that "It is only by mental prayer and spiritual reading that we can cultivate the gift of prayer."[57]

Although there was no direct connection between Mother Teresa's order and the Franciscan orders, she was known as a great admirer of St. Francis of Assisi.[58] Accordingly, her influence and life show influences of Franciscan spirituality. The Sisters of Charity recite the peace prayer of St. Francis every morning during thanksgiving after Communion and many of the vows and emphasis of her ministry are similar.[58] St. Francis emphasized poverty, chastity, obedience and submission to Christ. He also devoted much of his own life to service of the poor, especially lepers in the area where he lived.

Mother Teresa wrote numerous letters to her confessors and superiors over a 66-year period. She had asked that her letters be destroyed, concerned that "people will think more of me -- less of Jesus."[59] However, despite this request, the correspondences have been compiled in Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light (Doubleday).[60][45] In one publicly released letter to a spiritual confidant, the Rev. Michael van der Peet, she wrote, "Jesus has a very special love for you. [But] as for me, the silence and the emptiness is so great, that I look and do not see, — Listen and do not hear — the tongue moves [in prayer] but does not speak ... I want you to pray for me — that I let Him have [a] free hand."

Many news outlets have referred to Mother Teresa's writings as an indication of a "crisis of faith." [61] However, others have drawn comparisons to the 16th century mystic St. John of the Cross, who coined the term the "dark night" of the soul to describe a particular stage in the growth of some spiritual masters.[45] The Vatican has indicated that the letters would not affect her path to sainthood. [62] In fact, the book is edited by the Rev. Brian Kolodiejchuk, her postulator, the official responsible for gathering the evidence for her sanctification.[45]

Influence in the world
The Missionaries of Charity Brothers was founded in 1963, and a contemplative branch of the Sisters followed in 1976. Lay Catholics and non-Catholics were enrolled in the Co-Workers of Mother Teresa, the Sick and Suffering Co-Workers, and the Lay Missionaries of Charity. In answer to the requests of many priests, in 1981 Mother Teresa also began the Corpus Christi Movement for Priests,[63] and in 1984 founded with Fr. Joseph Langford the Missionaries of Charity Fathers[64] to combine the beauty of the vocation of the Missionaries of Charity with the resources of the ministerial priesthood. Today, over one million workers worldwide volunteer for the Missionaries of Charity.[citation needed]

Miracle and beatification
Following Mother Teresa's death in 1997, the Holy See began the process of beatification, the second step towards possible canonization. This process requires the documentation of a miracle performed from the intercession of Mother Teresa. In 2002, the Vatican recognized as a miracle the healing of a tumor in the abdomen of an Indian woman, Monica Besra, following the application of a locket containing Mother Teresa's picture. Monica Besra said that a beam of light emanated from the picture, curing the cancerous tumor. Some of Besra's medical staff and, initially, Besra's husband insist that conventional medical treatment eradicated the tumor.[65] Unless dispensed by the Pope, a second miracle is required for her to proceed to canonization.

Christopher Hitchens, a British-born American author, journalist and literary critic, was the only witness called by the Vatican to give evidence against Mother Teresa's beatification and canonization process, as the Vatican had abolished the traditional "devil's advocate" role that filled a similar purpose.[66] Hitchens has written that Mother Teresa's own words on poverty proved that "her intention was not to help people", and he alleged that she lied to donors about the use of their contributions. “It was by talking to her that I discovered, and she assured me, that she wasn't working to alleviate poverty,” says Hitchens. “She was working to expand the number of Catholics. She said, ‘I'm not a social worker. I don't do it for this reason. I do it for Christ. I do it for the church.’"[67] In the process of examining Teresa's suitability for beatification and canonization, the Roman Curia (the Vatican) pored over a great deal of documentation of published and unpublished criticisms against her life and work. Vatican officials say Hitchens' allegations have been investigated by the agency charged with such matters, the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, and they found no obstacle to Mother Teresa's beatification. Due to the attacks she has received, some Catholic writers have called her a sign of contradiction.

Al Gore - 2007 Nobel Peace Prize

Albert Arnold "Al" Gore, Jr.born March 31, 1948 was the forty-fifth Vice President of the United States, serving from 1993 to 2001 under President Bill Clinton. Before that, Vice President Gore served in the U. S. House of Representatives (1977–85) and the U. S. Senate (1985–93), representing Tennessee. A prominent environmental activist, he shares the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change "for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change."

Gore was the Democratic nominee for president in the 2000 election in which he won the popular vote by a plurality. A legal controversy over the Florida election recount, ultimately settled in favor of George W. Bush by the Supreme Court, made the election one of the most controversial in American history.

Today, Gore is president of the American television channel Current TV, chairman of Generation Investment Management, a director on the board of Apple Inc., an unofficial advisor to Google's senior management, and chairman of the Alliance for Climate Protection. He recently joined venture capital firm, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, to head that firm's climate change solutions group.

As an environmental activist, Gore lectures widely on the topic of global warming, which he calls "the climate crisis."[4] In 2006, he starred in the Academy Award-winning documentary film, An Inconvenient Truth, discussing global warming and the environment. Under his leadership, one of Gore's organizations, Save Our Selves, organized the July 7, 2007 benefit concert Live Earth in an effort to raise awareness about climate change.

While Gore has frequently stated that "I'm not planning to be a candidate again,"there are continuing effortsto convince him to run for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination.

Early life
Albert A. Gore, Jr. was born in Washington, D.C., to Albert Arnold Gore, Sr., a U.S. Representative (1939–1944, 1945–1953) and Senator (1953–1971) from Tennessee and Pauline LaFon Gore, one of the first women to graduate from Vanderbilt University Law School. He divided his childhood between Washington, and Carthage, Tennessee:as a boy, during the school year, the family lived in a hotel in Washington and during summer vacations, Gore worked on the family farm in Carthage, where the Gores grew hay and tobacco and raised cattle.

Gore attended St. Albans School where he ranked 25th (of 51) in his senior class.In preparation for his college applications, Gore scored a 1355 on his SAT (625 in verbal and 730 in math). Al Gore's IQ scores, from tests administered at St. Alban's School in 1961 and 1964 (his freshman and senior years) respectively, have been recorded as 133 and 134.

In 1965, Gore enrolled at Harvard College, the only university to which he applied. He scored in the lower fifth of the class for two years in a row[10] and, after finding himself bored with his classes in his declared English major, Gore switched majors and found a passion for government and graduated with honors from Harvard in June 1969 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in government. After returning from the military he took religious studies courses at Vanderbilt and then entered the university's law school. He left Vanderbilt without a degree to run for an open seat in Tennessee's 3rd Congressional District in 1976.

Gore opposed the Vietnam War and could have avoided serving overseas by accepting a spot in the National Guard that a friend of his family had reserved for him, or by other means of avoiding the draft. Gore has stated that his sense of civic duty compelled him to serve in some capacity. He enlisted in the United States Army on August 7, 1969. After basic training at Fort Dix, Gore was assigned as a military journalist writing for The Army Flier, the base newspaper at Fort Rucker. With seven months remaining in his enlistment, Gore was shipped to Vietnam, arriving on January 2, 1971. He served for four months with the 20th Engineer Brigade in Bien Hoa and for another month at the Army Engineer Command in Long Binh.

Gore said in 1988 that his experience in Vietnam:
"didn't change my conclusions about the war being a terrible mistake, but it struck me that opponents to the war, including myself, really did not take into account the fact that there were an awful lot of South Vietnamese who desperately wanted to hang on to what they called freedom. Coming face to face with those sentiments expressed by people who did the laundry and ran the restaurants and worked in the fields was something I was naively unprepared for."

As his unit was standing down, he applied for and received a non-essential personnel honorable discharge two months early in order to attend divinity school at Vanderbilt University. Gore left Vanderbilt after completing the required one-year Rockefeller Foundation scholarship for students returning to secular work. In 1970, Gore married Mary Elizabeth Aitcheson (known as Tipper), whom he had first met at his high school senior prom in Washington, D.C.

Gore then spent five years as a reporter for The Tennessean, a newspaper in Nashville, Tennessee. His investigations of possible corruption among members of Nashville's Metro Council resulted in the arrest and prosecution of two councilmen for separate offenses. Gore then took a leave of absence from the paper to try law school. Before he could finish, he learned that his local congressman planned to retire in 1976.[citation needed]

Political career (1976–2000)
When Congressman Joe L. Evins announced his retirement after 30 years, Gore quit law school in March 1976 to run for the United States House of Representatives, in Tennessee's fourth district. Gore defeated Stanley Rogers in the Democratic primary, then ran unopposed in the general election and was elected to his first Congressional post. He was re-elected three times, in 1978, 1980, and 1982. In 1984, Gore successfully ran for a seat in the United States Senate, which had been vacated by Republican Majority Leader Howard Baker. Gore served as a Senator from Tennessee until 1993, when he became Vice President.

While in Congress, Gore was a member of the following committees: Armed Services (Defense Industry and Technology Projection Forces and Regional Defense; Strategic Forces and Nuclear Deterrence); Commerce, Science and Transportation (Communications; Consumer; Science, Technology and Space — chairman 1992; Surface Transportation; National Ocean Policy Study); Joint Committee on Printing; Joint Economic Committee; and Rules and Administration.

On March 19, 1979, Gore became the first person to appear on C-SPAN, making a speech in the House chambers. In the late 1980s, Gore introduced the Gore Bill, which was later passed as the High Performance Computing and Communication Act of 1991. The bill was one of the most important pieces of legislation directly affecting the expansion of the Internet.[citation needed]

Opposition to U.S. government support of Saddam Hussein
While Senator, Gore twice attempted to get the U.S. government to pull the plug on support to Saddam Hussein, citing Hussein's use of poison gas, support of terrorism, and his burgeoning nuclear program, but was opposed both times by the Reagan and Bush administrations. In the wake of the Al-Anfal Campaign, during which Hussein staged deadly mustard and nerve gas attacks on Kurdish Iraqis, Gore cosponsored the Prevention of Genocide Act of 1988, which would have cut all assistance to Iraq. The bill was defeated in part due to intense lobbying of Congress by the Reagan-Bush White House and a veto threat from President Reagan. Gore's positions as a Senator with regard to Iraq would later become an issue in his 1992 campaign for Vice President.

Al Gore presidential campaign, 1988
Gore ran for President in the 1988 United States presidential election, but failed to obtain the Democratic nomination, which went to Michael Dukakis. During the campaign, Gore's strategy involved skipping the Iowa caucus and putting little emphasis on the New Hampshire Primary in order to concentrate his efforts on the South. He won Arkansas, Kentucky, North Carolina, Oklahoma and Tennessee in the Super Tuesday primaries but dropped out of the presidential race in April after a poor showing in the New York primary.

On April 3, 1989, Gore's six-year-old son Albert was nearly killed in an automobile accident while leaving the Baltimore Orioles' opening day game. Because of the resulting lengthy healing process, his father chose to stay near him during the recovery instead of laying the foundation for a 1992 presidential primary campaign. Gore started writing Earth in the Balance, his book on environmental conservation, during his son's recovery. It became the first book written by a sitting Senator to make The New York Times bestseller list since John F. Kennedy's Profiles in Courage.

Vice PresidencyVice President Gore talking with President Clinton as the two pass through the Colonnade at the White House.

Bill Clinton chose Gore to be his running mate for the 1992 United States presidential election on July 9, 1992. Gore was inaugurated as the 45th Vice President of the United States on January 20, 1993. Clinton and Gore were re-elected to a second term in the 1996 election.

According to the U.S. government, the U.S. economy expanded for all eight years of the Clinton/Gore administration.[19] One factor [citation needed] was the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993, for which Gore cast the tie-breaking vote. The Administration worked closely with the Republican-led House to slow federal spending and eventually balance the federal budget. One of Gore's major works as Vice President was the National Performance Review, which pointed out waste, fraud, and other abuse in the federal government and stressed the need for cutting the size of the bureaucracy and the number of regulations. Gore stated that the National Performance Review later helped guide President Clinton when he down-sized the federal government.

In 1993, Gore debated Ross Perot on CNN's Larry King Live on the issue of free trade, with Gore arguing for free trade and the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), and Perot arguing against it. Public opinion polls taken after the debate showed that a majority of Americans thought Gore won the debate and now supported NAFTA. The bill subsequently passed 234–200 in the House of Representatives.

In 1998, Gore began promoting a NASA satellite that would provide a constant view of Earth, marking the first time such an image would have been made since The Blue Marble photo from the 1972 Apollo 17 mission. The "Triana" satellite would have been permanently mounted in the L1 Lagrangian Point, 1.5 million km away.[25]

Also in 1998, Gore became associated with Digital Earth.
In 1999, Gore became the subject of criticism by AIDS activists. According to a June 18, 1999 article in the Washington Post the activists said that "Gore, in talks with South African President Thabo Mbeki, has threatened trade sanctions if South Africa permits the widespread sale of cheaper, generic drugs that would cut into U.S. companies' sales." Gore responded by stating, "I love this country. I love the First Amendment [...] Let me say in response to those who may have chosen an inappropriate way to make their point, that actually the crisis of AIDS in Africa is one that should command the attention of people in the United States and around the world."

2000 Presidential election
After two terms as Vice President, Gore ran for President again in the 2000 United States Presidential election, selecting Senator Joe Lieberman to be his vice-presidential running mate. The election was one of the closest and most controversial presidential elections in the history of the United States.

Gore's daughter, Karenna Gore Schiff, worked on her father's campaign during the election as Youth Outreach Chair. Together with her father's former Harvard roommate Tommy Lee Jones, Schiff officially nominated Gore as the presidential candidate during the 2000 Democratic Convention in Los Angeles. She also introduced her father during the launching of his campaign.

During the entire campaign, Gore was neck-and-neck in the polls with Republican Governor of Texas George W. Bush. On Election Day, the results were so close that the outcome of the race took over a month to resolve, highlighted by the premature declaration of a winner on election night, and an extremely close result in the state of Florida. On election night, news networks first called Florida for Gore, later retracted the projection, and then called Florida for Bush, before finally retracting that projection as well.

The race was ultimately decided by a margin of only 537 votes in Florida. Florida's 25 electoral votes were awarded to Bush only after numerous court challenges. Gore publicly conceded the election after the Supreme Court of the United States in Bush v. Gore ruled that the Florida recount was unconstitutional and that no constitutionally valid recount could be completed by the December 12 deadline, effectively ending the recounts. Gore strongly disagreed with the Court's decision, but decided "for the sake of our unity as a people and the strength of our democracy, I offer my concession."

Gore became the fourth candidate in American history to win the popular vote (by half a million more votes than his opponent) but lose the electoral vote. Gore ultimately received 267 electoral votes to Bush's 271.

Running mate Joe Lieberman later criticized Gore for adopting a populist theme during their 2000 campaign, and stated he had objected to Gore's "people vs. the powerful" message, believing it was not the best strategy for Democrats to use to win the election.

In the introduction to his global warming presentation, Gore has jokingly introduced himself as "the former next President of the United States".

During his 2000 campaign for the presidency, Gore himself attributed positive economic results to his and Clinton's policies — more than 22 million new jobs, the highest homeownership in American history (up to that time), the lowest unemployment in 30 years, the paying off of $360 billion of the national debt, the lowest poverty rate in 20 years, higher incomes at all levels, the conversion of the hitherto largest budget deficit in American history into the largest surplus, the lowest government spending in three decades, the lowest federal income tax burden in 35 years, and more families owning stocks than had up to that point. However, Gore later placed a large share of the blame for his election loss on the economic downturn and NASDAQ crash of March 2000 in an interview with National Public Radio's Bob Edwards.

Post Vice-presidency-2004 election activities
As the first major speaker at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, Gore presented himself as a living reminder that every vote counts. "Let's make sure not only that the Supreme Court does not pick the next president, but also that this president is not the one who picks the next Supreme Court," said Gore. Gore directed remarks to those who had abandoned the Democratic Party four years ago to support third-party presidential candidate Ralph Nader, asking them, "Do you still believe that there was no difference between the candidates?"

Initially, Al Gore was touted as a logical opponent of George W. Bush in the 2004 Presidential Election. "Re-elect Gore!" was a common slogan among many Democrats who felt he had been cheated out of the presidency, on the grounds of his winning the popular vote and the Florida voting controversies. On December 16, 2002, however, Gore announced that he would not run in 2004, saying that it was time for "fresh faces" and "new ideas" to emerge from the Democrats. When he appeared on a 60 Minutes interview, Gore said that he felt if he had run, the focus of the election would be the rematch rather than the issues. Gore's former running mate, Joe Lieberman quickly announced his own candidacy for the presidency, which he had vowed he would not do if Gore ran.

Despite Gore taking himself out of the race, a handful of his supporters formed a national campaign to "draft" him into running. However, that effort largely came to an end when Gore publicly endorsed Governor of Vermont Howard Dean (over his former running mate Lieberman) weeks before the first primary of the election cycle. There was still some effort to encourage write-in votes for Gore in the primaries by Patriots for Al Gore who were separate from the draft movement. Although Gore did receive a small number of votes in New Hampshire and New Mexico, that effort was halted when John Kerry pulled into the lead for the nomination.

On February 9, 2004, on the eve of the Tennessee primary, Gore gave what some consider his harshest criticism of the president yet when he accused George W. Bush of betraying the country by using the 9/11 attacks as a justification for the invasion of Iraq. Gore also urged all Democrats to unite behind their eventual nominee proclaiming, "Any one of these candidates is far better than George W. Bush." In March 2004 Gore, along with former Presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, united behind Kerry as the presumptive Democratic nominee.

On April 28, 2004, Gore announced that he would be donating $6 million to various Democratic Party groups. Drawing from his funds left over from his 2000 campaign, Gore pledged to donate $4 million to the Democratic National Committee. The party's Senate and House committees would each get $1 million, and the party from Gore's home state of Tennessee would receive $250,000. In addition, Gore announced that all of the surplus funds in his "Recount Fund" from the 2000 election controversy that resulted in the Supreme Court halting the counting of the ballots, a total of $240,000, will be donated to the Florida Democratic Party. Gore stressed the importance of voting and having every vote counted, foreshadowing the 2004 United States election voting controversies.

2008 Presidential election plans
Gore has not stated that he will participate as a candidate in the 2008 presidential election. However, as he has not rejected the possibility outright, the prospect of a Gore candidacy remains a topic of public speculation. Some of Gore's supporters have publicly encouraged him to join the race. An April 2007 Quinnipiac University poll of 504 registered Democrats in New Jersey showed Gore receiving 12% of the votes in a hypothetical Democratic primary, in third place behind Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

Gore and his family have commented on whether Gore will run in the 2008 presidential election. In December 2006, Gore stated on NBC's Today: "I am not planning to run for president again. I haven't completely ruled it out." His son, Albert Gore III, followed with a comment in a December 14, 2006 article: "I know that [my father] has no plans to run in 2008. Well, I guess I have to add his addendum. I think the way he always says it is, "I don't see any circumstances under which I would run for president."

The release of An Inconvenient Truth in 2006 increased Gore's popularity among progressives.[43] A CNN telephone poll conducted by the Opinion Research Corporation of registered or independent leaning Democrats in November 2006 had Gore with 14% support in a theoretical multi-candidate Democratic primary election.

Donna Brazile, Gore's campaign chairwoman from the 2000 campaign made cryptic comments during a speech on January 31, 2007, at Moravian College in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania stating, "Wait till Oscar night, I tell people: 'I'm dating. I haven't fallen in love yet. On Oscar night, if Al Gore has slimmed down 25 or 30 pounds, Lord knows.'" The meaning of these remarks became clearer when on award night, while in attendance and acting as a presenter for an award, Gore began a speech that seemed to be leading up to an announcement that he would run for president. However, background music drowned him out and he was escorted offstage, implying it was a rehearsed gag.

Others have expressed an interest in seeing Gore run in 2008. According to the February 6, 2007 issue of The Santa Barbara Independent, when Gore received The Sir David Attenborough Award for Excellence in Nature Filmmaking at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival on February 2, director James Cameron (who presented him with the award) stated: "[I] beseech Mr. Gore to step up to the plate one more time!"[46] Furthermore, the February 8, 2007 edition of The Washington Post notes in the article Supporters Push Gore to Run in 2008, "Veterans of Al Gore's past are quietly assembling a campaign to draft the former vice president into the 2008 presidential race — despite his repeated statements that he's not running [...] In 2002, Gore asked [Dylan] Malone, to stop a draft effort he had begun; Malone did. Malone started up again and, so far, Gore hasn't waved him off."

The question of whether or not Gore will run was the cover story of the May 28, 2007 issue of TIME magazine, The Last Temptation of Al Gore.

A 29 June 2007 article in the The Guardian cited a poll conducted "in New Hampshire by 7News and Suffolk University" that found that if Gore "were to seek the Democratic nomination, 29% of Mrs. Clinton's backers would switch their support to him. When defections from other candidates are factored in, the man who controversially lost to Mr. Bush in the 2000 election takes command of the field, with 32% support."

Education
Gore has been involved in education on a number of levels. He taught at four universities in 2001 as a visiting professor (Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, Fisk University Middle Tennessee State University, and UCLA.) He was also elected an honorary Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in April 2007. He will be inducted in a ceremony in October 2007 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Finally, Concordia University awarded Gore an honorary doctorate on March 22 during the Youth Action Montreal's Youth Summit on Climate Change in Quebec, Canada.

Private citizen
On September 23, 2002, in a speech before the Commonwealth Club, Gore gave what many consider to be one of the strongest speeches by any public figure criticizing President George W. Bush and Congress for their rush to war prior to the outbreak of hostilities in Iraq.[56] In it, Gore warned of the great expense the war was sure to incur, the risk to America's reputation in the world, and the questionable legality of the Bush Doctrine of preemptive war.

In September 2005, Gore chartered two aircraft to evacuate 270 evacuees from New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. He was highly critical of the government and federal response in the days after the hurricane.

Gore's 2007 book, The Assault on Reason (which received the 2007 Quill Award for history/current events/politics) is an analysis of what he calls the "emptying out of the marketplace of ideas" in civic discourse, which, according to Gore, is due to the influence of electronic media, especially television, and which endangers American democracy; but he also expresses the belief that the Internet can revitalize and ultimately "redeem the integrity of representative democracy."

Promoting environmental awareness
According to The Concord Monitor, "Gore was one of the first politicians to grasp the seriousness of climate change and to call for a reduction in emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouses gases. He held the first congressional hearings on the subject in the late 1970s." During his tenure in Congress, Gore co-sponsored hearings on toxic waste in 1978–79, and hearings on global warming in the 1980s. In 1989, while still a Senator, Gore published an editorial in the Washington Post, in which he argued, "Humankind has suddenly entered into a brand new relationship with the planet Earth. The world's forests are being destroyed; an enormous hole is opening in the ozone layer. Living species are dying at an unprecedented rate."

On Earth Day 1994, Gore launched the GLOBE program, an education and science activity that, according to Forbes magazine, "made extensive use of the Internet to increase student awareness of their environment".

In the late 1990s, Gore strongly pushed for the passage of the Kyoto Treaty, which called for reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. He was opposed by the Senate, which passed unanimously (95-0) the Byrd-Hagel Resolution.On November 12, 1998, Gore symbolically signed the protocol. Both Gore and Senator Joseph Lieberman indicated that the protocol would not be acted upon in the Senate until there was participation by the developing nations. The Clinton Administration never submitted the protocol to the Senate for ratification.

In 2004, he launched Generation Investment Management. This firm, which he chairs, seeks out companies which take a responsible view on global issues such as climate change. It was created to assist the growing demand for an investment style that can bring returns by blending traditional equity research with a focus on more intangible non-financial factors such as social and environmental responsibility and corporate governance.

An Inconvenient Truth
Gore starred in the documentary film An Inconvenient Truth, released on May 24, 2006The film documents the evidence for anthropogenic global warming and warns of the consequences of people not making immediate changes to their behavior. It is the fourth-highest-grossing documentary in U.S. history.

The film won the 2007 Academy Award for Documentary Feature. The Oscar was awarded to director Davis Guggenheim, who asked Gore to join him and other members of the crew on stage. Gore gave a brief speech, saying, "My fellow Americans, people all over the world, we need to solve the climate crisis. It's not a political issue; it's a moral issue. We have everything we need to get started, with the possible exception of the will to act. That's a renewable resource. Let's renew it."

Gore also published a book of the same title, which became a bestseller. In reference to the use of nuclear power to mitigate global warming, Gore has stated, "Nuclear energy is not the panacea for tackling global warming."

Recent activism
In recent years, Gore has remained busy traveling the world speaking and participating in events mainly aimed towards global warming awareness and prevention. His keynote presentation on global warming has received standing ovations, and he has presented it at least 1,000 times according to his monologue in An Inconvenient Truth. His speaking fee is $100,000.

Gore is a vocal proponent of carbon neutrality, buying a carbon offset each time he travels by aircraft. Gore and his family drive hybrid vehicles. In "An Inconvenient Truth" Gore calls for people to conserve energy. Critics contend that the Gore family mansion in Nashville consumes 12 to 20 times more energy than the average family home. Gore's supporters, however, counter that the Gore Family has done much to offset their carbon footprint and electrical usage, such as through the installation of solar panels. Also, the family's power comes entirely from renewable energy sources through the "Green Power Switch" program.

Interest in Al Gore's speeches reached such a point that a public lecture at University of Toronto on February 21, 2007, on the topic of global warming, led to a crash of the ticket sales website within minutes of opening. A few weeks later, he spoke at another event in the same city and, for the first time, made the argument that employers have a significant role to play in mobilizing their employees to take action on climate change.

During Global Warming Awareness Month, on February 9, 2007, Al Gore and Richard Branson announced the Virgin Earth Challenge, a competition offering a $25 million prize for the first person or organization to produce a viable design that results in the removal of atmospheric greenhouse gases.

On July 7, 2007, Live Earth benefit concerts were held around the world in an effort to raise awareness about climate change. The event was the brainchild of Gore and Kevin Wall of Save Our Selves. On July 21, 2007, Gore announced he was teaming with actress Cameron Diaz for a TV climate contest, 60 Seconds to Save the Earth, to gain people's support in solving the climate crisis.

2007 Nobel Peace Prize
Gore was awarded the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize, which was shared by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, headed by Rajendra K. Pachauri (Delhi, India).The award was given "for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change" on October 12, 2007.

Gore made the following statement after receiving the prize:
I am deeply honored to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. This award is even more meaningful because I have the honor of sharing it with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change—the world's pre-eminent scientific body devoted to improving our understanding of the climate crisis—a group whose members have worked tirelessly and selflessly for many years. We face a true planetary emergency. The climate crisis is not a political issue, it is a moral and spiritual challenge to all of humanity. It is also our greatest opportunity to lift global consciousness to a higher level. My wife, Tipper, and I will donate 100 percent of the proceeds of the award to the Alliance for Climate Protection, a bipartisan non-profit organization that is devoted to changing public opinion in the U.S. and around the world about the urgency of solving the climate crisis.

Al Gore's contributions to the Internet and technology
Al Gore was involved in the development and mainstreaming of the Internet as both Senator and Vice-President. Campbell-Kelly and Aspray note in Chapter 12 of their 1996 text, Computer: A History of the Information Machine, that up until the early 1990s, public usage of the Internet was limited. They continue to state that the "problem of giving ordinary Americans network access had exercised Senator Al Gore since the late 1970s" leading him to develop legislation that would alleviate this problem. Gore thus began to craft the High Performance Computing and Communication Act of 1991 which was passed on December 9, 1991 and led to the National Information Infrastructure (NII) which Gore referred to as the "information superhighway".

In 1999, various media outlets suggested that Gore claimed that he "invented the Internet" in reference to a CNN interview in which he said, "During my service in the United States Congress I took the initiative in creating the Internet. I took the initiative in moving forward a whole range of initiatives that have proven to be important to our country's economic growth and environmental protection, improvements in our educational system."

As the two people who designed the basic architecture and the core protocols that make the Internet work, we would like to acknowledge VP Gore's contributions as a Congressman, Senator and as Vice President. No other elected official, to our knowledge, has made a greater contribution over a longer period of time. Last year the Vice President made a straightforward statement on his role. He said: "During my service in the United States Congress I took the initiative in creating the Internet." We don't think, as some people have argued, that Gore intended to claim he "invented" the Internet. Moreover, there is no question in our minds that while serving as Senator, Gore's initiatives had a significant and beneficial effect on the still-evolving Internet. The fact of the matter is that Gore was talking about and promoting the Internet long before most people were listening. We feel it is timely to offer our perspective. As far back as the 1970s Congressman Gore promoted the idea of high speed telecommunications as an engine for both economic growth and the improvement of our educational system. He was the first elected official to grasp the potential of computer communications to have a broader impact than just improving the conduct of science and scholarship. Though easily forgotten, now, at the time this was an unproven and controversial concept.

Gore has been a member of the board of directors of Apple Inc. since 2003 and serves as a Senior Advisor to Google Inc.

On 6 June 2005, Gore was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award "for three decades of contributions to the Internet" at The Webby Awards. In giving him the award, Tiffany Shlain (the awards' founder and chairwoman) stated that she "wanted to set the record straight it's just one of those instances someone did amazing work for three decades as Congressman, Senator and Vice President. (limited to five words according to Webby Awards rules).

On May 4, 2004, INdTV Holdings, a company co-founded by Gore and Joel Hyatt, purchased cable news channel NewsWorld International from Vivendi Universal. The network was relaunched under the name Current TV on August 1, 2005. On September 16, 2007, Current TV won the Outstanding Creative Achievement in Interactive Television award at the 2007 Primetime Emmys[94] for its use of online technologies with television. In his acceptance speech, Gore stated, "we are trying to open up the television medium so that viewers can help to make television and join the conversation of democracy and reclaim American democracy by talking about the choices we have to make. More to come. Current.com. Next month."

Honors and awards
* 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change .
IPCC(environment)
* 2007 Outstanding Creative Achievement in Interactive Television for Current TV, Primetime Emmy Award (interactive technology)
* 2007 Quill Awards: History/current events/politics, The Assault on Reason
* 2007 Prince of Asturias Award in Spain (environment)
* 2007 The Sir David Attenborough Award for Excellence in Nature Filmmaking (environment)
* 2007 Honorary Fellow, American Academy of Arts and Sciences
* 2006 Quill Awards: History/current events/politics, An Inconvenient Truth
* 2005 Lifetime Achievement Award, Webby Awards (interactive technology)

Al Gore appearances in popular culture
Gore has made numerous appearances in popular culture related to environmentalism. Gore also appeared in two episodes of Matt Groening's cartoon sitcom Futurama as himself, and will reprise the role in the upcoming December 2007 film, Futurama: Bender's Big Score. In 2000 Gore had offered to appear in the 2000 season finale of Futurama, Anthology of Interest I. In this episode, Gore led his team of "Vice Presidential Action Rangers" in their goal to protect the space-time continuum. In 2002, Gore appeared in the episode Crimes of the Hot.

Gore's willingness to poke fun at himself on the show was later cited by pundits as an example of the way he re-invented the purportedly stiff and emotionless persona that he had displayed in public before his electoral loss in 2000. In a review of the episode, Washington Post writer Howard Kurtz called it a "groundbreaking role" and suggested that it was "post-election reemergence ... as carefully choreographed as a political campaign".

In 2006 Gore used a short clip from Futurama to explain how global warming works in his presentations and in An Inconvenient Truth.

* *Diwali* *

"Bharat Ratna" Dr.Abdul Kalam (People's President) अवुल पकिर जैनुलाअबदीन अब्दुल कलाम

Avul Pakir Jainulabdeen Abdul Kalam born October 15, 1931, Tamil Nadu, India, usually referred to as Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam was the 12th President of India, serving from 2002 to 2007. A notable scientist and engineer, he is often referred to as the Missile Man of India for his work and is considered a progressive mentor, innovator and visionary in India. He is also popularly known as the People's President. His term as president ended on July 25, 2007.

Honors
Kalam has received honorary doctorates from as many as thirty universities. The Government of India has honored him with the nation's highest civilian honors: the Padma Bhushan in 1981; the Padma Vibhushan in 1990; and the Bharat Ratna in 1997.

Kalam is the third President of India to have been honoured with a Bharat Ratna before being elected to the highest office, the other two being Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan and Zakir Hussain. He is also the first scientist and first bachelor to occupy Rashtrapati Bhavan.

Referred to as the "People's President", Kalam is often considered amongst India's greatest presidents, going on to win a poll conducted by news channel CNN-IBN for India's Best President.

In October 2007, Kalam will receive a Honorary Doctorate of Science from the University of Wolverhampton.

Political views
Kalam's probable views on certain issues have been espoused by him in his book "India 2020" where he strongly advocates an action plan to develop India into a knowledge superpower and into a developed nation by the year 2020. Kalam is credited with the view that India ought to take a more assertive stance in international relations; he regards his work on India's nuclear weapons program as a way to assert India's place as a future superpower.

Kalam continues to take an active interest in other developments in the field of science and technology as well. He has proposed a research programme for developing bio-implants. He is a supporter of Open source software over proprietary solutions and believes that the use of open source software on a large scale will bring more people the benefits of information technology.

Kalam's belief in the power of science to resolve society's problems and his views of these problems as a result of inefficient distribution of resources is modernistic. He also sees science and technology as ideology-free areas and emphasizes the cultivation of scientific temper and entrepreneurial drive. In this, he finds a lot of support among India's new business leaders like the founders of Infosys and Wipro, (leading Indian IT corporations) who began their careers as technology professionals much in the same way Kalam did.

Missile Program
Dr A.P.J. Abdul Kalam is the undisputed father of India's missile program. He has breathed life into ballistic missiles like the Agni and Prithvi, which put China and Pakistan well under India's missile range. It is too exhausting to track Dr Abdul Kalam's achievements to date. In the '60s and '70s he was a trail blazer in the space department. In the '80s he transformed the moribund Defence Research and Development Laboratory in Hyderabad into a highly motivated team. By the '90s Kalam emerged as the czar of Indian science and technology and was awarded the Bharat Ratna. His life and mission is a vindication of what a determined person can achieve against extraordinary odds. Even at 71, he is indefatigable and dreams of making India into a technological superpower. More importantly, he is still capable of acting on it.
In 1982, as Director of DRDO, Kalam was entrusted with the Integrated Guided Missile Development Programme(IGMDP), India's most successful military research task to date. The programme constituted of 5 major projects for meeting the requirements of the defence services and for establishing re-entry technology.

The 5 projects were scheduled to be completed in a time frame of only 10 years and consisted of:

(1) Nag - an anti-tank guided missile.
(2) Prithvi - a surface-to-surface battlefield missile.
(3) Akash - a swift, medium-range surface-to-air missile.
(4) Trishul - a quick-reaction surface-to-air missile with a shorter range.
(5) Agni - an intermediate range ballistic missile, the mightiest of them all.

From his SLV-3 experience, Kalam had learned the advantages of team work and of sharing the tasks with partners in private and public sector industries. In the new management structure of the missile program, Kalam, as the Chairman of the Programme Management Board, delegated almost all executive and financial powers to five carefully selected Project Directors and kept himself free to address the core technology issues. His task was to inspire and monitor over 20 institutions and partners outside - ranging from large public and private sector suppliers to small specialist firms that needed seed money to take up the precision tasks.

**The naval version of Trishul launched from INS Dronacharya**

The missiles went up more or less on schedule: Trishul in 1985, Prithvi in 1988, Agni in 1989 and the others in 1990. The development and successful flight test of Prithvi, Trishul, Akash, Nag, and Agni established the indigeneous capability towards self reliance in defence preparedness. The successful launching of 'Agni' surface-to-surface missile was a unique achievement which made India a member of an exclusive club of highly developed countries. The Trishul has the unique distinction of being capable of serving all three services.

The establishment of the Research Centre Imarat(RCI), a campus 8km from DRDL, in 1988 was perhaps the most satisfying achievement for Kalam during the missile years. He received generous funding from the Government to build the futuristic centre, which is totally geared for work in advanced missile technologies. Its state-of-the-art facilities are set in a unique ambience and the level of comfort accorded to the individual worker is matched by few R&D institutions. And Kalam's interest in the environment saw RCI emerge as an oasis in a rocky wasteland. It has a small farm that meets the food requirements of those who stay in the RCI quarters. Kalam was awarded the Padma Vibhushan in 1990.

After 10 years in DRDL, he went to New Delhi to take over from Arunachalam as Scientific Adviser to the Defence Minister - reluctantly, many in DRDL felt. But the system created by Kalam had taken a firm hold in that decade and the missile programme passed on smoothly into its final phase of production and induction.

In Delhi, Kalam as head of the DRDO had to deliver other prestigious projects, such as the Arjun MBT and the Light Combat Aircraft(LCA) projects. "Strength respects strength", this is Kalam's usual response to the question why India needs its own missiles or a battle tank or a combat aircraft. While management practices he adopted for the missile program have inevitably rubbed off on these projects, there are no miracles to be had in strategic development areas. There have been technical problems. Even in the missile program, work on the SAMs and the ATM is slower than anticipated. But Trishul's recent multiple test flights have demonstrated that the system Kalam put in place has inherent strengths.

Kalam is by no means a miracle man. As the head of a vast network of laboratories - whose products include avalanche-controlling structures in Kashmir, water desalination kits for the Thar desert, a world class sonar submarine finder for the latest warship - INS Delhi, and infra-red night vision goggles for the Indian Army - Kalam's attention is necessarily a bit diffused. His self-effacing persona cloaks a formidable catalyst who can make people work.

Kalam is happiest at the drawing board, in discussion with his scientists on how their dreams for the next millennium can be fulfilled. The projects envisaged include an air breathing hyperplane spacecraft that draws oxygen from the atmosphere rather than carry it all the way from the ground, reusable missiles and stealth technology. Kalam has shown that with adequate funding, freedom from procedural holdups and a people-oriented management, India can make products of internationally acceptable technical standards in a demanding arena like defence.

Science, according to Kalam, is a global phenomenon. He feels there are a few areas where India can develop its core competence. These areas are software engineering, computer products and design, agriculture and food, aviation, defence research and space technology and chemical engineering. "This will lead to a highly beneficial economic and social progress for the nation."

Kalam's advice to the youngsters of the nation is to "dream, dream and dream and convert these into thoughts and later into actions." Also to "think big". "We are a nation of a billion people and we must think like a nation of a billion people. Only then can we become big."

On 25th November 1999, Dr A.P.J. Abdul Kalam was appointed Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government of India and accorded the rank of a Cabinet Minister. His role was to advise on overall scientific development in the country on issues relating to scientific and technical policy in different sectors. Kalam also advised on matters relating to achieving technological self-reliance and foreign collaboration.

On December 8, 2000, the Deputy Chairman of Planning Commission, Shri K.C. Pant conferred the "Life-time Contribution Award in Engineering 2000" on Dr A.P.J. Abdul Kalam at the annual function of the Indian National Academy of Engineering in New Delhi. Speaking on the occasion, Kalam said that Engineering and technology should be used for the upliftment of the people living below the poverty line.

On November 10, 2001, Dr A.P.J. Abdul Kalam quit as principal scientific advisor to the government. Sources close to Kalam, said he quit because of "lack of executive authority". However Kalam had been for quite some time keen on pursuing academic interests and helping scientists across the country in developing their research capabilities. Thats why after quitting he took over the job as distinguished professor at Anna University.

Dr Kalam has spent the past few years developing the concept of "India Millennium Missions 2020" - a blueprint for transforming India into a developed nation. He calls it "the second vision of the nation" and says he wants to focus on the children of India to ignite in their minds a love for science and the nation's mission: a developed India.

On July 25, 2002, Dr A.P.J. Abdul Kalam was sworn in as the 11th President of India by Chief Justice of India B.N. Kirpal in the Central Hall of Parliament at an impressive function telecast live across the country. Kalam took the oath in the name of God as a 21-gun salute boomed in the background.

Personal life
APJ Abdul Kalam was born in 1931 in a middle-class family in Rameshwaram, a town well-known for its Hindu shrines. His father, a devout Muslim, owned boats which he rented out to local fishermen and was a good friend of Hindu religious leaders and the school teachers at Rameshwaram. APJ Abdul Kalam mentions in his biography that to support his studies, he started his career as a newspaper vendor. This was also told in the book, A Boy and His Dream: Three Stories from the Childhood of Abdul Kalam by Vinita Krishna. The house Kalam was born in can still be found on the Mosque street at Rameswaram, and his brother's curio shop abuts it. This has become a point-of-call for tourists who seek out the place. Kalam grew up in an intimate relationship with nature, and he says in Wings of Fire that he never could imagine that water could be so powerful a destroying force as that he witnessed when he was six. That was in 1964 when a cyclonic storm swept away the Pamban bridge and a trainload of passengers with it and also Kalam's native village, Dhanushkodi.

Kalam observes strict personal discipline, vegetarianism, teetotalism and celibacy.Kalam is a scholar of Thirukkural; in most of his speeches, he quotes at least one kural. Kalam has written several inspirational books, most notably his autobiography Wings of Fire, aimed at motivating Indian youth. Another of his books, Guiding Souls: Dialogues on the Purpose of Life reveals his spiritual side. He has written poems in Tamil as well. It has been reported that there is considerable demand in South Korea for translated versions of books authored by him.

Dr. Kalam visited the Carnegie Mellon campus on October 16th, 2007 where he spoke in front of numerous students and faculty regarding the role of science and the view of India in the future. He received a honorary doctorate from the university.