Dr Kalam drops by to pick up his bachelor’s degree, 48 years late

And this Kalam story is about how he became an aeronautical engineer, received doctoral degrees and is on the threshold of becoming the next...

And this Kalam story is about how he became an aeronautical engineer, received doctoral degrees and is on the threshold of becoming the next president, all before he received his BSc degree certificate.

Just a week before his name was floated as the NDA’s candidate for the post, Kalam got in hand his BSc certificate, which said he was ‘‘placed in the second class in Part II of the Examination comprising Physics as Main and Mathematics and Chemistry as Subsidiary Subjects held in March 1954’’.

After passing out from St Joseph’s College in Tiruchi, Kalam got admission into the Madras Institute of Technology with his BSc marks certificate. Along the way, as he jumped from one post to the other, finally landing up as principal scientific advisor to the prime minister, he appears to have forgotten to pick up his certificate.

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Kalam was to be honoured with a doctoral degree by the University of Madras on January 25, 1999. Unable to attend the function, he received it on May 22, 2002. The irony didn’t escape him: he reportedly told the University Registrar N Mani and Controller of Examination S Karunanidhi, who came to hand over the doctoral award, that he had missed his convocation and that he was yet to receive his degree certificate.

That sent officials scurrying to their archives to find out if the certificate had survived 48 years. It had. And on May 30, Kalam finally received his degree certificate.

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