The Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam Award, named after the 11th President of India and aerospace scientist A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, is awarded by the

Government of Tamil Nadu Government of Tamil Nadu is the subnational government for the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It is seated at Fort St George, Chennai. The legislature of Tamil Nadu was bicameral until 1986, when it was replaced by a unicameral legislature, l ...

in recognition of contributions on scientific development, humanities and students' welfare.

Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam Award Announcement

On 31 July 2015, Then

Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu The chief minister of Tamil Nadu is the head of government, chief executive of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. In accordance with the Constitution of India, the Governors of states of India, governor is a state's ''de jure'' head, bu ...

J. Jayalalithaa announced after the death of Kalam (27 July 2015) that an award will be given annually in his name. The award prize will be five hundred thousand

Indian rupee The Indian rupee ( symbol: ₹; code: INR) is the official currency in the republic of India. The rupee is subdivided into 100 ''paise'' (singular: ''paisa''), though as of 2022, coins of denomination of 1 rupee are the lowest value in use w ...

s (about US$7,700), a certificate and a gold medal weighing eight grams. The Chief Minister stated "Vibrant India; Prosperous Tamil Nadu. To strengthen this, I have ordered to institute an award in memory of Dr A. P. J. Abdul Kalam. The award will be given away every year during Independence Day. It will carry a cash prize of 5 lakh, a gold medal weighing eight gram and a certificate." In addition, the Government of Tamil Nadu would commemorate his birthday each year as "Youth Awakening Day", on 15 October. He was born in

Rameswaram Rameswaram (; also transliterated as Ramesvaram, Rameshwaram) is a municipality in the Ramanathapuram district of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It is on Pamban Island separated from mainland India by the Pamban channel and is about 40 kil ...

, Tamil Nadu on 15 October 1931. The award was scheduled to be given out every year on Independence Day in India (15 August) starting with 2015. The first award was given to the Program Director of the Microwave Remote Sensing Program and scientist at the Indian Space Research Organisation, N. Valarmathi, on the 69th Independence Day of India, 15 August 2015. Since 2008, the National Innovation Foundation, a body of the Department of Science and Technology celebrates Children's Creativity and Innovation Day each year with "Dr APJ Abdul Kalam IGNITE awards" in his name. * 2014 – Ananya Jain, founder of FullCircle (USA), Georgia Institute of Technology's "Genius" Awardee for Research; Government of Switzerland, ETH Zurich researcher in Chemistry. * 2015 – N. Valarmathi, scientist of the Indian Space Research Organisation, contributed to India's first home-developed radar imaging satellite

RISAT-1 Radar Imaging Satellite 1 or RISAT-1, was an Indian remote sensing satellite built by the Indian Space Research Organisation and operated by National Technical Research Organisation . The second RISAT satellite to be launched, it used a C-b ...

. * 2016 – P. Shanmugam, Central Leather Research Institute's Principal Scientist, contributed services in the Higher Education Department of Tamil Nadu. * 2017 – S. P. Thyagarajan, an eminent scientist, academic and former vice-chancellor of University of Madras. * 2018 – K. Senthil Kumar (Director of Centre for Aerospace Research, Anna University), S. Thamaraiselvi, C. U. Hari and A. Mohammed Rasheed, contributed to avionics and research on UAV. * 2019 – K. Sivan, an eminent scientist and the chairman of Indian Space Research Organisation. * 2019 – National Innovation Foundation – India confers students with Dr APJ Abdul Kalam IGNITE Awards 2019

References

{{Reflist A. P. J. Abdul Kalam Tamil Nadu awards

Award An award, sometimes called a distinction, is something given to a recipient as a token of recognition of excellence in a certain field. When the token is a medal, ribbon or other item designed for wearing, it is known as a decoration. An awar ...