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CALCUTTA was the home town for the first Rotary club in the mainland of Asia. R.J. Combes, the manager of a steel products company while on a business trip to U.S.A. was so impressed by the "Friendship, fellowship, and service" aspects of the movement called Rotary that he wanted to introduce the idea to his friends in Calcutta also. There was no difficulty for him to convince enough people and convene the first meeting on 26 September, 1919. The new club was chartered just after three months of the first meeting, on the new year day of 1920 to be exact. All the twenty charter members were non-Indians.
Today, Growth of Rotary in India in the last two decades has outstripped the growth of Rotary elsewhere in the world. When the world membership which stood at 853,000 in 1980 gradually climbed to 1,193,000 in 1998, Rotary's strength in India showed a growth from 35,000 to 60,000. |
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