IN THIS ISSUE

1. LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT

2. THE EDITOR’S EYE

3. CLUB SERVICES

• Joint meeting with the Rotary Club of Nakshatra

• Weekly meeting with Mr. Hrishikesh Datar

4. COMMUNITY SERVICES, HEALTH

• Inauguration of Project Orange Aravind Vision Centre

• Inauguration of Dialysis Centre

• Distribution of 65 Smart Vision Device – Project Drishti

5. VOCATIONAL SERVICES

• Flag hoisting at Bheemanapet Community College

6. YOUTH SERVICES

• Wings2Fly

7. RAMZONIA

8.CHAN-FLIX AND CHILL

LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT

THE EDITOR’S EYE

CLUB SERVICES

Joint meeting with the Rotary Club of Nakshatra

11.01.2023

The special guest speaker at on 11.01.2023, Mr. Raja Krishnamoorthy, delivered an eloquent and substantive address. He was the embodiment of simplicity and gentleness. A Human Encyclopaedia held everyone’s attention by focusing on insights into everyday life. Originally an actor by profession, Mr.Krishnamoorthy has worked in the Tamil film industry with a few films in Telugu, Malayalam, and Hindi cinema. He is also a well known Indian director and screenwriter. Later, he even co-authored a book, Rajini’s Punchtantra.

This meeting was a joint meeting with the Rotary Club of Chennai Nakshatras and gave both the clubs a great opportunity to meet. We look forward to more such weekly meetings in the future with great speakers and charming company.

Rtn. Sujitha Arvind

Director – Club Service

Weekly meeting with Mr. Hrishikesh Datar

04.01.2023

4th Jan weekly meeting was all about ringing in the much needed change that every new year month holds. Hrishikesh is the founder and CEO of vakilsearch.com, India’s largest and among Asia’s fastest growing legal technology platforms.

During his student years at the National Law School of India University, Bangalore, he had the opportunity to work with an interesting cross-section of practice areas, ranging from personal matters to corporate consulting and policy formulation stints with Arun Jaitley [then leader of opposition in the Rajya Sabha].

After graduating, he founded vakilsearch.com with the vision of making legal simple for millions of Indian citizens and businesses.

Through a relentless focus on customer satisfaction, vakilsearch today has the honour of serving 65,000 businesses across 100,000+ annual transactions, and is the largest platform of its kind in India.

Hrishikesh has been recognized as one among the 30 leading entrepreneurs in Asia by Forbes Magazine in its 30 under 30 list, 2017. Except this time , Hrishikesh didn’t just make promises, he showed us that things could be different , with the existing legal systems as we know. Ushering in technology to complement the legal system today would remarkably improve it from perspective of the judiciary and the litigant. He then provided examples of how an automated system could possibly process redundant cases if they did not fit within the criteria. The talk was an eye opener and all of us went home promising to make changes and accept changes.

COMMUNITY SERVICES, HEALTH

Project Orange

21st December, 2022

The seventh of eight vision centres under Project Orange, in association with The Aravind Eye Hospital , was inaugurated on 21.12.2022 in the presence of District Governor. Dr.Rtn. Nandhakumar. The eight facilities will impact a staggering half a million patients in the suburbs who currently do not have access to preventable blindness.

Rtn. Sujatha

Director – Community Service – Health

Inauguration of Dialysis Centre

​20th January, 2023

​Project Dial is an ambitious Rotary Global Grant project that is a collaboration among the Rotary Club of Madras East, The Greater Chennai Corporation, the Tanker Foundation and Rotary Dist 3232. The 12 bedded Dialysis Centre has commenced at the cost of Rs 1.2 Crores, and is located at the Primary Health Centre in Elango Nagar, Vysarpadi Chennai, Tamil Nadu. The centre will provide over 6000 free dialysis treatments to the underprivileged every year. The centre will be run by the Tanker foundation and supported by the TNCMHIS

The inauguration happened on 20/01/23 and was inaugurated by the Honourable minister for Municipal Administration, Urban and Water supply of Tamilnadu Thiru. K N Nehru , Honourable Mayor of Chennai Ms. Priya Rajan, and, IAS – Commissioner Greater Chennai Corporation Mr.Gagandeep Singh Bedi and MP and MLA’s from North Chennai.

We applaud the painstaking efforts taken by the 2021-22 team of RCME, consisting of Rtn. Sowmya Skandan, Rtn. Radhika Sathyanarayana and Rtn. Sudharsan and the current RCME team.

Rtn. Sujatha

Director – Community Service – Health

Distribution of smart vision glasses- Project Drishti

​21st January, 2023

​RCME in association with Indian Oil Corporation Limited and Aravind Eye Hospital distributed 65 smart vision glasses to the beneficiaries under project Drishti in the presence of Chief guest Mr V Kumar, Deputy General Manager, IOCL on 21/01/23, at Aravind Eye Hospital, Poonamallee.

Rtn. Ramaswamy

Chairman- Project Drishti

Rtn. Sujatha

Director – Community Service – Health

VOCATIONAL SERVICES

Flag hoisting at Bheemanapet Community College

26th January, 2023

President Rtn. Ramakumar along with the Chief guest Rtn. N. S. Saravanan, Yenness Infotech (P) Ltd and Rtn. S. Saiseshan, President Rotary Club of Chennai Mitra hoisted the Nation Flag in the presence of the Students of the Tally course at the Bhemannapet Community College on 26/01/2023.

Ann. Renuka Mohan Rao

Chairperson – Bhemannapet Community College

Rtn. Vinod Kumar Subbaiah

Director – Vocational Service

Project Wings to Fly 2022-23 – 8th Edition

Topic – Entrepreneurial ability

Wings to Fly Synopsis

• Project initiated and conducted by Rotary Club of Madras East Trust since 2015
• In association with The Greater Chennai Corporation and its Education Department
• Supported by Foundation for Vocational Excellence ( that runs Winners Bakery), several Rotarians and other individuals/ organisations
• This year’s Knowledge Partner – The Indus Entrepreneurs- TiE, Chennai Chapter
• Beneficiaries this year: Students of Classes 8,9 and 11 of 70 Chennai High and Higher sec schools
• 8 winners after 4 rounds and they are taken to Dubai this year​

About the Project

Rotary Club of Madras East, in collaboration with the Greater Chennai Corporation, has been conducting a program for students of 70 Corporation schools, for the last 7 years and this year is the 8th edition of Project Wings to Fly. Every year a new topic is chosen but it’s all based on the common theme that ‘it is a big wide world, full of opportunities, which can be explored for a fulfilling future, by the school students.’

To achieve this, the Rotary Club of Madras East, over the past 8 years, has been holding competitions for these children starting with topic such as “Art of Public speaking” to last year’s topic on “Environmental consciousness” and taking the 8 winners from this competition to destinations abroad- Germany, Singapore, Malaysia, NASA in USA and UK last year, which widens their scope of knowledge and awareness.

The competition starts with around 8000 students at the school level and students are selected from each round through an assessment and after semi-finals, the top 8 winners emerge.

About Current Year

The 8th edition of Wings to Fly this year, is about Entrepreneurial skills – a topic that’s unique, creates awareness, seeds a thought and kindles them to think out of the box. Work shop was conducted for 3 full days for 478 students who were selected after the first round of an online test for 8000 students at the school level. 

A curriculum based workshop was conducted to help create awareness about the world of entrepreneurs. Business leaders were invited to give inspiring speeches giving the students a wholesome understanding about entrepreneurship. RCME has a proud partner in TiE, Chennai (The Indus Entrepreneurs, Chennai Chapter), who are experts in the field. They brought in the resource person to conduct the workshop, the speakers from the industry and coordinated with us at RCME to create a curriculum that will appeal to the target beneficiaries in the given time.

From the workshop, 64 were selected for semi-finals which also had a one on one interview session for students with panellists and 32 students were selected for the Finals. They were trained in the use of the Business Canvas and this was the base for the interviews.

The 32 finalists were divided into 8 teams so they could brainstorm, ideate and present their idea as a business plan to a panel of 7 Judges. As preparation for the finals, TiE Chennai brought in mentors as volunteers, to guide the students on their business ideas and to help them understand and structure their idea well. 

The 8 winners will be taken to Dubai this year in May 2023. Previously students have been taken to places like NASA in USA, Singapore, and Malaysia etc. and last year they were taken to London.

We thank the Mayor, the Commissioner and the Education department of GCC to enable this project and help us give this wonderful opportunity to the Chennai Schools students.

Take a peek into the project in this short video

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XVR26f2clxI2SJcyzVwfsu3eig3X02fq/view?usp=share_link

RCME’S STRENGTH ON BIG PROJECTS –  ITS VOLUNTEERS

While we thank all those who have chipped in when they visited the project on the many days, we would like to specially mention those who totally owned up to their responsibility however small or big and made a difference. 

THE AWESOME EXECUTION OF THE PROJECT BELONGS TO ALL OF YOU

Core Committee

Rtn Sai Siva Kumar – Director Youth Services

Rtn Divya Siddharth- Vice Chairman W2F

Rtn V A Ramash – Mentor

Rtn Balaraman J – TiE/Speaker/Mentor/Judges coordination

Rtn Magesh Pattabi – Social Media

P E Ramakrishnan – Chairman- Winners Bakery

Volunteers

Ann Sudha Raghuraman – Food and Beverages 

Ann Durga Narayanan – Students Registration and coordination

Rtn Manoj Babu – Venue coordination

Rtn Poonam Gaglani – Assessments

Rtn Jay Jaidev

First Lady Gayathri Ramakumar

Ann Madhuri Saisivakumar

Ann Madhuri Venu

Ann Bhargavi Sreedhar Reddy

Ann Minal Singh

Ann Deepa Nachiappan

Ann Devi Manian

Ann Divya Suresh

Ann Faridha Firoz

Ann Suman Srinivasan

Ann Renu Hiranand

Ann Yamini Rajendiran

Ann Latha Parameswaran

Annette Meghna Reddy

Annette Vishal babu

Annette Kaavya Rajendiran

Rtn Archana Ramakumar

Rtn Balaji Srinivasan

Rtn M Srinivasan

Rtn Raghu Ramakrishnan

Rtn Anitha Tiruvengadam

Panellists

Rtn Sudarsan

Rtn Sujatha

Rtn Nagalakshmi

Rtn Balaraman

Rtn Ravi Venkatramani

Rtn Bab

We thank our Partners

GREATER CHENNAI CORPORATION                                              KNOWLEDGE PARTNER

MAIN SPONSOR

AND THE MANY ROTARIANS WHO HAVE SPONSORED THROUGH MONEY AND KIND SO FAR ON THIS PROJECT.

You can also access the previous years’ project details and all years’ photos here:

Click here

Rtn Radhika Sathyanarayana

RAM-ZONIA

Grass is not always greener

If you consider yourself unlucky just hold your next bout of sigh. Remember Max Plank ? Yes the German physicist. He worked for a year to produce a theory on entropy just to discover it had already been done by a shy physicist by name Gibbs at Yale, Connecticut. So what did Plank do ? He started all over again and produced his theory on quantum physics ! Now consider this:
His beloved first wife died early, in 1909 and one of his two sons was killed in First World War. He also had twin daughters whom he adored. One of them died giving birth. The surviving twin daughter went over to look after the baby of her dead sister, but fell in love with the brother in law. They married and two years later she died in childbirth. In 1944 when Plank was 85, an allied bombing fell on his house and he lost everything – papers, diaries, a lifetime of accumulations. The following year his surviving son was arrested in the conspiracy to kill Adolf Hitler. He was shot dead. Clearly fate has been much more relenting to all of us than to Plank.

PP Rtn. PE Ramakrishnan

Chanflix and Chill

​“Dada,” starring Kavin, Aparna Das, and others. Direction: Ganesh K Babu

I can summarize my review in one word, “WOW,” and If I must say in two words, “Worth Watching,” and If I must stress in three words, “Don’t Miss it.”

After a long time, Happy to have watched an excellent entertainment exhibiting powerful narration of love, romance, clean Humor, friendship, family, responsibility, and dad-son bonding.

Manikandan(Kavin) and Sindhu(Aparna Das) are lovers, and Sindhu conceives before marriage. While Manikandan wants Sindhu to abort, Sindhu says No. When both families are against Manikandan and Sindhu’s wedding, the couple leaves their houses and lives together. All goes well until a misunderstanding erupts between the couple, and after delivering a baby, Sindhu leaves Manikandan. The rest of the story is about how Manikandan, as a single parent, raises the kid and does the couple rejoin.

Kavin, Aparna Das, VTK Ganesh, the Hero’s friend character, the kid, and all others gave a terrific performance. The Director’s style of storytelling, camerawork capturing the Chennai locales, and mild Humor during emotional scenes are highlights of the movie. In Moondram Pirai, Sridevi catches our hearts throughout the film, but Kamal scores high and overtakes the final stage. In Dada, Kavin performs very well throughout the movie, and Aparna Das overtakes him in the last scene.

Dada is a refreshing and clean entertainment after a long while in Kollywood.

“Dada, The Appa,” Walk into the theatre and wipe those tears in the corner of your eyes when you exit.

Rtn. K Ramachandran 

With best compliments from Dr.Radhi Malar