By IANS
New Delhi/Chennai : Former president A.P.J. Abdul Kalam's newly designed website – with the motto "a site of inspiration and nation building" – became operational Thursday night, bringing joy to thousands of his fans.
Earlier in the day, hundreds of fans of Kalam, who demitted office Wednesday, were shocked to find all his inspiring speeches and comments absent from their favourite website www.presidentofindia.nic.in
The new-look site, www.abdulkalam.com, includes his major speeches – including those to students and faculty of the Anna University in Chennai Thursday – and his thanksgiving address to the nation Tuesday.
Re-launched at 7.30 p.m., the site recorded more than 7,400 visitors within a couple of hours.
Kalam's speeches, presentations and inspiring thoughts used to be hosted on the official website of the Indian president, www.presidentofindia.nic.in, which after the change of guard at Rashtrapati Bhavan Wednesday has been "under construction".
"The website is to be modified because Kalam has become the ex-president and all references to him have to be changed according to that. So it is under renovation for two-three days," said an official at Rashtrapati Bhavan.
For the last five years, the 'presidentofindia' site hosted e-mail to and from Kalam, chats, speeches and lectures, his books, poems, his biography and his vision.
It had a children's corner as well as a speech-enabled site for the visually challenged.
Every day, 250,000 visitors had visited the site and at times there were more than 500,000 hits on a single day. Sources said this month at least a 10 million people visited the website.
Kalam's personal website, www.abdulkalam.com, was originally launched on his 69th birthday, which he celebrated on Oct 15, 2001, before he became president. Infosys Technologies chief mentor N.R. Narayan Murthy launched it.
V. Ponraj, assistant project director of network services, Aeronautical Development Agency, Bangalore, maintains it. This site will be as interactive as the presidential site, Ponraj said.