Mr Kalam sets an example of equality

Belgaum, Feb 25 (UNI) President A P J Abdul Kalam, who always moved like a live wire, today set an example of equality.

As soon as he arrived at the venue of Sixth Annual Convocation of Visvesvaraya Technological University (VTU) here to deliver Convocation address, he asked the organisers to remove the special chair kept for him and replace it with chair similar to other dignatories on the dias even before one could understand what the President was doing.

Mr Kalam, who arrived at the venue about 30 minutes behind schedule, was brought to the dias in the Convocation march. He was accompanied by Karnataka Minister for Higher Education D H Shankarmurthy, who is also the Pro-Chancellor of the Universities, former Defence Secretary Dr V S Arunchalam, renowned Scientist Dr Narasimhaiah Sheshagiri and VTU Vice Chancellor Dr Balaveer Reddy among others.

On the dias, when gold medals were presented to meritoriuos and Rank students, Mr Kalam called the highest gold medal winner P Prasannakumar and talked to him for a few seconds. The students were earlier instructed not to go for handshake with the President.

Accordingly Prasannakumar started to leave the dias after accepting gold medals from Mr Shankarmurty, but Mr Kalam called him and whispered something in his (Mr Prasannakumar) ears.

UNI