APJ Abdul Kalam Trivia
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49 free APJ Abdul Kalam trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Dr A. P. J. Abdul Kalam went from a ferryman's son in a pilgrim town off Tamil Nadu to India's rocket and missile programmes and finally to Rashtrapati Bhavan. Few lives pack in as many turning points, and he wrote most of them down himself. These 49 questions follow that arc: his schooling and near-miss as a fighter pilot, the ISRO and DRDO decades, the 2002 election, his books, the honours that came from home and abroad, the lines he was known for, and the places, creatures and campuses that now carry his name. Built for students, teachers, quiz nights and anyone who grew up on his speeches. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you learn something even when you miss.
30 of 49 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Kalam placed ninth before a selection board with only eight openings, narrowly missing his dream of becoming what?
Fighter pilot
A fighter pilot was his 'dearest dream': he came ninth of 25 candidates before the Indian Air Force board at Dehradun, where eight were taken, and went into defence research instead.
Q 02Kalam's SLV-3 rocket orbited which satellite in July 1980, India's first successful satellite launch from its own soil?
Rohini
Rohini's launch put India among the few nations able to orbit their own satellites; just a year earlier the same rocket had failed on its maiden flight.
Q 03With cardiologist Bhupathiraju Somaraju, Kalam lent his name in 1998 to a low-cost version of which medical device?
A coronary stent
A coronary stent called the Kalam-Raju stent came out of the pairing, and in 2012 the same duo designed a Kalam-Raju tablet computer for rural health workers.
Q 04In the 2012 Greatest Indian poll run by Outlook and CNN-IBN, Kalam finished second behind which figure?
B. R. Ambedkar
B. R. Ambedkar topped the poll, which deliberately left out the Mahatma because organisers felt nobody could come close to the Father of the Nation.
Q 05In 2017 scientists named a bacterium Solibacillus kalamii after Kalam, having found it on air filters from where?
International Space Station
International Space Station filters that had spent 40 months aloft yielded the bug, though its discoverer was sure it was no alien: he reckoned it had hitch-hiked up on cargo from Earth.
Q 06The entrance statue at Kalam's memorial in Rameswaram shows him playing which instrument, a lifelong hobby of his?
The veena
The veena was one of the surprises of the man: a devout Muslim rocket scientist who played a classical South Indian instrument, recited Tamil poetry and listened to Carnatic devotional music every day.
Q 07Kalam, the first scientist to become President of India, was also the first holder of the office never to have what?
Been married
Kalam had never been married, but the bachelor president kept his family close: dozens of relatives travelled from Rameswaram to Delhi to watch him sworn in.
Q 08Which title did Kalam give his 1999 autobiography, running from his Rameswaram boyhood to India's missile launches?
Wings of Fire
Wings of Fire echoes a line Kalam wrote in the book itself: 'We are all born with a divine fire in us. Our efforts should be to give wings to this fire.'
Q 09Kalam's birthday, 15 October, is observed in India under which name?
World Students' Day
World Students' Day honours a president who gave his retirement to teaching and who died while addressing students.
Q 10What job did the schoolboy Kalam take on in Rameswaram to boost his family's meagre income?
Delivering newspapers
Delivering newspapers began with the war, Kalam recalled: when trains stopped halting at Rameswaram, the bundles were thrown from the moving carriages and his cousin, the town's news agent, hired him to catch them.
Q 11Kalam's imam father Jainulabdeen ferried Hindu pilgrims by boat from Rameswaram to which town at the island's tip?
Dhanushkodi
Dhanushkodi was drowned by the cyclone of December 1964 and has stood abandoned ever since; a cyclone, Kalam wrote, also carried away his father's pilgrim boat.
Q 12Kalam's family ferry business failed after which 1914 structure first linked his home island to mainland India?
Pamban Bridge
Pamban Bridge, India's first sea bridge, finished off the boat trade, and by the 1920s the once-wealthy family kept only its ancestral home.
Q 13Kalam graduated in physics in 1954 from St. Joseph's College, located in which Tamil Nadu city?
Tiruchirappalli
Q 21Which defence minister of the early 1980s told Kalam to develop a whole 'quiver' of missiles at once?
R. Venkataraman
R. Venkataraman, later President of India himself, overruled Kalam's plan to build the missiles one after another, then won cabinet approval for an unprecedented Rs 388 crore to do it.
Q 22Kalam studied aerospace engineering at the Madras Institute of Technology, today a constituent college of which body?
Anna University
Anna University took Kalam back as a professor in December 2001, and it was from that campus post that he was called to the presidency seven months later.
Q 23At the Pokhran-II tests of May 1998, Kalam served as chief project coordinator alongside which atomic scientist?
Tiruchirappalli's St. Joseph's gave Kalam a physics degree, but he wanted engineering; to pay his way into the Madras Institute of Technology, he recalled, his sister Zohara mortgaged her gold bangles and chain.
Q 14At the Madras Institute of Technology, a professor gave Kalam three days to finish a stalled design or lose what?
His scholarship
His scholarship was his lifeline, Kalam wrote, so he skipped dinner and worked at the drawing board all weekend; the professor then admitted he had set the deadline to put him under stress.
Q 15At the Aeronautical Development Establishment in Bangalore, Kalam was asked to lead a team building which small craft?
A hovercraft
A hovercraft named Nandi, after Shiva's bull, was the result. Kalam recalled taking the defence minister, Krishna Menon, for a ride in it, only for the project to be shelved.
Q 16Kalam moved into space work at the Indian National Committee for Space Research under which physicist?
Vikram Sarabhai
Vikram Sarabhai interviewed the young engineer himself, and Kalam recalled that his questions 'did not probe my existing knowledge' but explored what he might become; the committee later grew into ISRO.
Q 17In 1963-64 Kalam trained at the Langley, Goddard and Wallops Island facilities of which organisation?
NASA
NASA's Wallops Island lobby held a surprise, Kalam wrote: a painting of Tipu Sultan's troops firing rockets at the British, a feat he found forgotten at home but honoured on the other side of the planet.
Q 18At Thumba, where Kalam began his rocket work, which kind of building became the space centre's first home?
A church
A church: St. Mary Magdalene's, handed over by the local bishop. Kalam recalled that the prayer room was his first laboratory and the bishop's room his design and drawing office.
Q 19Kalam's SLV-3 failed on its maiden flight in August 1979 before succeeding a year later from which launch site?
Sriharikota
Sriharikota watched the first SLV-3 veer out of control and splash into the sea 317 seconds after lift-off, Kalam recalled; eleven months later the same range launched the rocket into history.
Q 20After the 1980 satellite launch, Kalam worried he had only casual clothes and slippers for a meeting with which prime minister?
Indira Gandhi
Indira Gandhi was waiting in Delhi to congratulate the team. When Kalam fretted about his dress, he recalled, ISRO chief Satish Dhawan told him: 'You are beautifully clothed in your success.'
Rajagopala Chidambaram
Rajagopala Chidambaram, head of the Atomic Energy Commission, and Kalam were the two men the new prime minister called in within days of taking office in March 1998; the bombs went off seven weeks later.
Q 24In November 1999 Kalam became the first holder of which newly created government post, which he kept until 2001?
Principal Scientific Adviser
Principal Scientific Adviser carried the rank of a cabinet minister, yet Kalam gave it up after two years to go back to a university classroom as a professor.
Q 25Which veteran freedom fighter did the Left parties field against Kalam in the 2002 presidential election?
Lakshmi Sahgal
Lakshmi Sahgal, who had commanded the Indian National Army's Rani of Jhansi Regiment, took on the contest at the age of 87 and lost heavily: Kalam won almost nine-tenths of the electoral vote.
Q 26Which sitting president stepped aside in 2002 once Kalam's candidacy drew support across party lines?
K. R. Narayanan
K. R. Narayanan gave up thoughts of a second term once the Samajwadi Party and the Nationalist Congress Party lined up behind Kalam, which left only the Left parties to put up a rival.
Q 27In 2011 Kalam vouched for the safety of a nuclear power plant at which Tamil Nadu site, despite hostile local protest?
Koodankulam
Koodankulam got Kalam's all-clear after he inspected the plant, tsunami risk included, but he said he had not come to mediate, and the protesters stayed unconvinced.
Q 28During his 2002-07 term in Rashtrapati Bhavan, Kalam was affectionately known by which nickname?
People's President
People's President stuck to a head of state who later declined a second term in 2007, saying he wanted to keep Rashtrapati Bhavan out of political processes.
Q 29Kalam became the first chancellor of the Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology, founded in 2007 in which city?
Trivandrum
Trivandrum, or Thiruvananthapuram, was familiar ground: Kalam had led India's first satellite-launcher project at the space centre there, and came back in 2008 as chancellor of ISRO's new university.
Q 30After leaving office, Kalam twice visited China at its government's invitation to teach sessions at which university?
Peking
Peking University made the former missile chief a visiting professor, free to teach subjects of his choice; he reportedly used the classroom to urge Indian and Chinese scientists to work together in space.