Rotary Club of Calcutta, RID 3291, in association with the Howrah ­Municipal ­Corporation (HMC), has set up the district’s first blood centre — the HMC Rotary Blood Centre — at Howrah, ­Kolkata. The facility was inaugurated in February by Arup Roy, state minister-in-charge for urban development.

A multipurpose mega service project titled ­Create Hope reached out to over 800 beneficiaries from diverse fields at the Ayana ­Convention Hall, Vijayawada, on the sidelines of the two-day ­district conference of RID 3020 named Sneham (friendship) in January. RC ­Vijayawada Midtown hosted the ­Discon in which 1,200 Rotarians from around 90 clubs took part in the sessions and other events.

On World Diabetes Day (Nov 14) last year, RC SPIC Nagar, RID 3212, in collaboration with Dr Arul’s ­Diabetes Centre in Thoothukudi, organised a ­diabetes awareness camp in the port city. A range of medical examinations including testing blood sugar, blood pressure, cholesterol, HBA1c (test to diagnose type 2 ­diabetes), ­biothesiometry (to detect neuropathy), dental and eye checkup were conducted. Over 500 people availed the services at the camp.

Over 500 individuals with a deformity of their upper limb were fitted with LN4 prosthetic hand at a special camp organised by RC Mangalagiri, RID 3150, at Mangalagiri, Andhra Pradesh.

For 27 years now, Rotary Club of Uklana Mandi, RID 3090, has been funding the weddings of young women from disadvantaged families in the district. The Rotarians also shower the newly-weds with gifts such as utensils, mattresses, clothes, furniture and other household ­articles essential to start a home. The weddings are conducted on ­January 14 every year, commemorating Makara Sankaranti, says club secretary Sugan Chand Goyal.

On a unique and happy Sunday morning in December, RC Bharuch, RI District 3060, and R K Hospital, in partnership with several organisations in this Gujarat city, organised a walkathon for a group of 300 people. The title of the march was Chalo saath kadam badhae (Let’s walk together).

A delegation of six Rotarians from RI district 5610, USA, made a two-day visit to ­Gorakhpur in Oct 2023

In the past seven years RC Delhi South, RID 3011, a 55-year-old club with 79 members, has empowered nearly 2,000 women with a new career in tailoring through its vocational training centre established in association with the NGO Nai Disha Educational and Cultural Society on the NGO’s campus. The club has equipped the centre with 20 sewing machines. Presently, 40 women from less privileged families are undergoing the course.

RC Bangalore Yelahanka, RID 3192, and the Rotary Action Group for  ­Community and Economic Development (RAGCED) organised a Women’s Entrepreneurship Festival in Bengaluru. Rakesh Babuji, chair of the RAGCED-India chapter, said the objective was to showcase the importance of innovation and inspire women from humble background to start their businesses with confidence.

To celebrate its silver jubilee in 1985, Rotary Club of Sirsi, RID 3170, set up a small charitable hospital. Today that has blossomed into a multi-­specialty 65-bed hospital, offering medical services to the people of three revenue districts of Karnataka — Uttara Kannada, Haveri and Shimoga.

It has always been my dream to visit Pakistan and Bangladesh — the two countries which were part of India before 1947. I could visit Bangladesh twice on business trips in 2019. But my desire to visit Pakistan remained a dream till recently when I got an invitation from my batchmate TRF trustee Aziz Memon to attend his son Sinan’s wedding in Karachi.