BENGALURU: From his long association with former President A P J Abdul Kalam, Kota Harinarayana, who is considered the Father of India’s Tejas fighter jet programme, said Kalam will always remain his guru. He was addressing engineering students at New Horizon College of Engineering on the 85th birth anniversary of Kalam.
“Kalam always felt energetic when the young were around him. It’s only fair that the first Guru Kalam Memorial Lecture is being organised in an engineering college. He always remained my guru. He wanted his country to be counted among the top countries in the world in science. He was an intense nationalist,” Harinarayana said during the lecture titled ‘Strength Respects Strength’.
Kota Harinarayana was the president of the Aeronautical Society of India. He was the Programme Director and Chief Designer of India’s Light Combat Aircraft Tejas programme.
Tejas is a light fighter designed by the Aeronautical Development Agency and Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd for the Indian Air Force and Navy.
“He had great interest in India’s first indegeniously built Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) project which I headed. During my association with him, Kalam supported me in every way,” he said.
Taking off from Kalam’s life-long message to students to focus on research and innovation, Harinarayana said, “Only with technological innovation will the world respect us. Europe became strong because of industrial revolution. They invented the steam engine. The sun never set on the British Empire. The second industrial revolution was brought about when electricity was discovered. Edison discovered it in the US. The third industrial revolution was brought about with electronics. India missed all the three industrial revolutions,” he said.
“Internet of Things, software, censors and intelligence form software superpower. The fourth industrial revolution is based on this. There’s an great opportunity for us to lead in this. We can revolutionise this,” he added.
“If somebody has to respect India, it has to be strong. But what is strength? What gives strength? People think if a country is rich, it is strong, but it is not quite so. Saudi Arabia has the highest per capita income in the world but it is not the strongest country because every little thing it wants, it imports, including the people who work there,” he said.