Ahmedabad: Reducing the urban-rural divide, energy security and water conservation - these are some of the themes former president A.P.J. Abdul Kalam will be teaching at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A).

And students and faculty are eagerly waiting for his special classes to start.

'The process has already started and 70 students have been admitted to the course 'Globalising a Resurgent India through Innovative Transformation' (GRIT) which Kalam will begin teaching from September 12,' said IIM-A professor Anil K. Gupta.

The special course, which is in tune with Kalam's vision for India-2020, is for second year students of the post graduate programme for executives, the post graduate programme in agri-business management and for foreign students.

The course has been designed by Gupta and Kalam. And the former president has already written to students about the programme.

"Kalam has already written to the students on 10 themes a student would have to primarily build upon," Gupta told sources on Sunday.

"The themes are highly motivating. For instance, one of them is on reducing the urban-rural divided, the second is about energy security, third is about water conservation and the fourth is about governance with discrimination. The 10 issues are all basic issues relating to governance and policy-making, synergy between agriculture, industry and the service sectors," Gupta said.

Kalam will guide the students individually as well as in groups.

After the initial lectures, students will be required to submit project proposals for creating scenarios based on multiple options for specific policy and institutional changes.

"The outcome of the course is also likely to be shared with the parliamentary standing committee as well, which in turn could take it up with the respective bodies to initiate any changes they feel plausible," Gupta said.

Students who have received letters from Kalam will pick one area of their interest and think about implementation methodologies of Kalam's 2020 vision.

"This would indeed be useful for many students and in case they step into politics, their priority could be development, which is not the case with contemporary politicians guided mostly by their political priorities" Gupta added.

Kalam's last two sessions will be held on November 26-27.

The IIM-A has earlier also devised courses where students across disciplines were given the opportunity to work with parliamentarians on constituency management.

This year the MPs who have been roped in include Sitaram Yechuri of the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M), Bharatiya Janata Party's Harin Pathak (Ahmedabad) and Madhusudan Mistry of the Congress.

Students of the institute will study and prepare roadmaps and blueprints for effectively managing their constituencies. IANS