Introducing Rotary International President 2011 – 2012- Kalyan Banerjee

 Introducing Rotary International President – Kalyan Banerjee
 
“We need to commit ourselves absolutely and fully and say, What I must do shall indeed be done.”
 

Vapi, Gujarat, India
President, Rotary International, 2011-12
Trustee, The Rotary Foundation, 2001-05
Chair, Rotarian Action Groups Committee, 2008-09
Director, Rotary International, 1995-97
District Governor, 1980-81

Theme – 2011- 2012 – “Reach Within to Embrace Humanity”

K alyan Banerjee is chair of United Phosphorus, Bangladesh, and a director of United Phosphorus Ltd., one of the largest manufacturers of agrochemicals in India, and Uniphos Agro Industries Ltd. Born in Kolkata in 1942, he earned a degree in chemical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, in 1964. He is a resident of Vapi, Gujarat, where he has contributed significantly to its development as one of the largest industrial estates in India, helping to provide infrastructure for health care and education.

Banerjee has been a member of the Rotary Club of Vapi since 1972. He served as club president in 1975-76 and district governor in 1980-81. He began his international service to Rotary in 1995, with his appointment to the RI Board of Directors. He has gone on to serve as general coordinator of the Poverty and Hunger Alleviation Task Force (1997-98), trustee of The Rotary Foundation (2001-05), and chair of the Southeast Asia PolioPlus Committee (2009-10). He has served on numerous other committees, including the International PolioPlus Committee (2008-09), Reach Out to Africa Ad-Hoc Executive Committee (2009-10), Leadership Development and Training Committee (2009-10), Permanent Fund Committee for India (2008-09), and the Child Mortality Emphasis Coordinating Team (2008-09).

Banerjee is also active in many other organizations, including the American Chemical Society, Indian Institute of Chemical Engineers, and the Senate of the Vishva-Bharati University. He has served twice as president of Vapi Industries Association and is a past chair of the Gujarat Council of the Confederation of Indian Industry. In addition, he is a trustee for the Jai Research Foundation.

Kalyan Banerjee is married to Binota, a social worker, and they have two children and four grandchildren

Monthly Message from Kalyan Banerjee

January 2012
 

My dear brothers and sisters in Rotary,

At Arlington National Cemetery outside Washington, D.C., stands a memorial to the Seabees, formally known as the U.S. Naval Construction Force. An inscription reads, “With willing hearts and skillful hands, the difficult we do at once; the impossible takes a bit longer.”

In Rotary, we already have our own mottoes. If we didn’t, I might be given to nominate those two lines. The power of combined effort, as Paul Harris once wrote, knows no limitation. When we work together, the impossible becomes possible.

I thought of this when I read, a few months ago, an article in the New England Journal of Medicine, the premier medical journal in the United States. Titled “The Polio Endgame,” it outlined a strategy for a post-polio era, including managing post-eradication risks.

Thirty years ago, such an article could never have been published. Today, it is a testament to the power of dedication, of persistence, and of combined effort. The impossible has, indeed, become possible. A post-polio world, once the stuff of dreams, will soon be here.

My friends, the day that polio will be eradicated is close at hand. We have to be ready for it with a powerful Rotary – a Rotary of enthusiasm and confidence, of bold vision and clear ambitions. It is time for us to prepare by taking an honest look at our clubs. Are our projects meaningful, sustainable, and relevant? Are our meetings productive and enjoyable? Are our clubs welcoming to new members, and are our schedules and events friendly to young families? And once people join us, do we welcome them properly, involve them enough? Do we make them a part of the family of Rotary quickly enough?

The figures tell us that while enough new individuals join Rotary every year and everywhere, too many exit Rotary, on an ongoing basis. What unfulfilled hope do they leave with? What expectations are we not meeting? Can we do more and better?

Now is the time to focus our energies on our clubs, and on the way people see them. It is time to show our communities that the Rotary of today is not the Rotary of their preconceptions. Rotary is a way to connect, to do more, to be more – it is a way to take our idealism and our vision, and turn them into reality.