Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Rotary Club of Madras celebrates a milestone

PHOTO: N. SRIDHARAN

COMMEMORATION: Indira Krishnakumar, Principal Chief Postmaster-General, releasing a special postalcover at the anniversary celebration of the Rotary Club of Madras in Chennai on Saturday. V. Shanta, Director, Cancer Institute, Adyar; A. Subramaniam, Rotary District Governor; N.Ram, Editor-in-Chief, The Hindu; and P.S. Govindachari, president of the Rotary Club, are in the picture.

CHENNAI: On May 10, 1929, president C.G. Armstrong called the first meeting of the Rotary Club of Madras at Hotel Connemara as a prelude to its charter a couple of months later on July 19.

Eighty years later, the city has changed its name, and the hotel, its owners. But the members of the club meet again to celebrate a milestone. This time, president P.S. Govindachari has called the meeting to order, and there are certainly more members present than at the first meeting.

Mr. Govindachari said the club, which was born in the pre-Independence era, was only two years younger than the Queen of England. It has weathered many changes but remained committed to its motive of service to humanity. In recognition of the club being part of the history of the city whose name it took, and its dedication to service over the past 80 years, a special postal cover on the Rotary Club of Madras was released on Saturday.

Doing the honours, Indira Krishnakumar, Principal Chief Postmaster-General, said much of the growth and glamour that the city had come to acquire was thanks to the Rotary. The special cover, a step away from the release of a special postal stamp, celebrates the history and achievements of a nation.

Paying tributes was Rotary District 3230 governor A. Subramaniam. He said there was hardly anything that this particular club had not done in the area of service. Illustrious Rotarians of the club had gone on to serve as district governors, and it had probably contributed the most number of district governors.

The occasion also saw the Rotary Club honouring one of its long serving members for the vast contribution he had made to the nation through the Rotary movement.

Rotarian Krish Chitale was given the Rotary International District 3230 Lifetime Service Award in recognition of his pioneering efforts at polio eradication in India and visionary approach to the rehabilitation of the polio-affected.

Cancer Institute director V. Shanta congratulated the club on its more recent achievements through the polio eradication and tsunami rehabilitation campaigns. She also thanked the Rotary Club for coming to the support of the institute on many occasions.

Going on to outline the challenges the charitable organisations face, she urged the Rotary Clubs to come together and support charitable institutions such as the Cancer Institute.

N. Ram, Editor-in-Chief, The Hindu, said Rotary has done a tremendous work in immunisation and education of children. He provided figures from the UNDP Human Development Report and the National Family Health Survey to underline the huge mass of deprivation in India that is constantly understated by officials. In infant mortality, under five mortality and maternal mortality, India’s performance was poor; sometimes it was outperformed by Bangladesh.

There was extreme unevenness in various development parameters even within the country. The primary reason was that the reach of the public health services was poor. In this context, he lauded the focus this year of the Rotary international president on ensuring health, education, water and sanitation for children worldwide, he said.

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