The Hindu : National : Kalam shares Mumbai's pain

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Jul 19, 2006

National

National

Kalam shares Mumbai's pain

Special Correspondent

"Help provide medicare to victims"

MUMBAI: An anguished and maimed Mumbai got solace from President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, on a two-day visit here.

Mr. Kalam visited the Mahim station, one of the blast sites, on Tuesday and led the nation in observing a two-minute silence at 6.24 p.m. as the police buglers sounded "The Last Post" to pay homage to the 200 victims of the July 11 serial blasts.

At the KEM Hospital here, he found that the blasts had rendered some of the injured deaf. When the doctors told him that many of them would be able to hear with cochlear implants, Mr. Kalam agreed to meet the cost for three persons from Rashtrapati Bhavan funds.

Cochlear implant is an electronic device designed to provide sound information to persons with nerve damage in both ears and who show no ability to understand speech through hearing aids.

Mr. Kalam expressed his anguish for the injured, at the inauguration of the centenary celebrations of the Indian Merchants' Chamber. After unfolding his blueprint for making India a developed country by 2020 and emphasising how creative business leadership could bring about the nation's economic development, the President described his visit to the hospital and called upon the captains of industry gathered to provide the injured costly treatment and implements needed so that they could live a quality life.

Paper on terrorism

The President, who had called upon the nation to uproot terrorism by all means, said he had done a paper evolving the National Campaign to Eradicate Terrorism, a mission-oriented management approach involving people's participation.

He said the blasts indicated that evil minds worked with a definite plan having umbilical connectivity to masterminds on foreign soil. This evil design could be challenged with knowledge and excellence. The programme would use various agencies and modern technology. "How can you tolerate this, how do we handle this?"

Mr. Kalam inaugurated the 150-year celebrations of the University of Mumbai. "Choose development politics as a career option but first excel in education," he advised a questioner. He called upon political parties to be more active in developmental politics than power politics.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

National