He recalled that Pravasi Bharatiya Divas was being held on January 9 to commemorate the day Mahatma Gandhi returned to India from South Africa 90 years ago to lead the freedom struggle.

The President's unique style of speech, informal and interactive, kept the audiences rapt; sometimes he appealed to them, and sometimes challenged them.

Kalam requested the NRIs to set up an Overseas Indian Foundation with a seed capital of $100 million that will be dedicated to earthquake research.

Almost instantly he added a word of caution saying, 'Let me tell you that scientists will tell you it is impossible to predict earthquakes; they also tell you a bumblebee is too heavy, its wings are too small and so it cannot fly. Yet it defies science and flies. Similarly, we need to go out and find a way to predict earthquakes.'

This went down so well with the audience that many of them could be heard shouting out, pledging huge amounts to the proposed foundation.

Also See: Making a state-ment