Air India One (Tanjore), April 24
President A P J Abdul Kalam on Tuesday indirectly said that he was not averse to the idea of serving a second term should the opportunity arise.

Speaking onboard the presidential flight, Tanjore, in response to repeated queries from the media about his future plans, Kalam said “Don’t ask me now about this. Ask me later. My focus is on my visit to France and Greece. Ask me about it.”

In a manner of speech, he clearly appeared to be suggesting that if a second presidential term was in the offing, he was not averse to it.

When specifically asked whether he was in the running for a second term, he said: “Economic development and prosperity of the nation is my focus. In 2002, I was teaching in a classroom, I was writing on a blackboard how technology will take the nation ahead. Suddenly, I got a call to come to Delhi for an election.”

He went on to say that the only issue attracting his attention was development, and “whoever is in the office, man or woman, the nation is bigger than the individual, and work on nation-building is in the process, and will continue.”

Commenting on India’s relations with the European Union, Kalam said this region had a history of conflict, but “now it is a unified entity and a technical power, which I admire.”

“In times of conflict, the EU is an example of convergence of civilisation,” he said, adding that the birth of the EU was unique and the EU Parliament is both multi-cultural and multi-lingual.”

On his impending visit to Greece later in the week, Kalam said he was excited about the forthcoming visit, as Greece is “one of my favourite countries. Democracy was born there.” On the issue of reservation of seats in institutes of higher learning, which has been hogging the headlines in India for the last couple of weeks, he said he was in favour of increasing the number of seats.