Shri A Balakrishnan, Vice-President of Vivekananda Kendra, Kanyakumari, has taken over as 6th President of the service organisation dedicated to the ideals and ideology of Swami Vivekananda.
A jeevanvrati of the first batch of Vivekananda Kendra, A, Balakrishnan was elected as President of Vivekananda Kendra at the Managing Committee meeting held on July 19, 2020, informed Kendra General Secretary Bhanudas Dhakras.
Balakrishnan succeeds former President P Parameswaran who passed away some months ago due to old age. After his retirement from the Indian Air Force, Balakrishnan came in contact with Eknath Ranade, founder of the Kendra, and was trained as a life-worker in the first batch of 1973 by Eknath Ranade himself.
After the training, he was posted in the North-Eastern region as Zonal Organizer. From 1981 to 2001, he held the responsibility as General Secretary. It was under his leadership that the Vivekananda Kendra started the residential Vivekananda Kendra Vidyalayas in Arunachal Pradesh in 1979.
Since 2001, he had the responsibility as the Vice-President. Earlier, Prof TMP Mahadevan (1972-76), Prof Kamal Nayan Vaswani (1976-78), Eknath Ranade (1978-82), D Lakshmi Kumari (1982-1995) and P Parameswaranj (1995-2020) served the Kendra as Presidents. A. Balakrishnan is the sixth President. (With inputs from NewsBharati.com)
