Celebrating a special birthday!

Even as the country is celebrating 'Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav', not many of Mahatma Gandhi's principles are in practice now.

Despite the prevailing relevance of Gandhian principles in the 21st century, 75-year-old Viswanadhuni Balamohandas not only practices Gandhian ideals but also encourages people to follow suit.

Born on 1947, August 15, the former Vice Chancellor of Acharya Nagarjuna University (ANU) is at present heading Gandhi Centre in Visakhapatnam as president. Initiated by freedom fighter and trade union leader late KS Sastry, Prof. Balamohandas has taken the reins of the facility later.

The centre brings Gandhians, former Vice Chancellors from various universities and social workers on to a platform. And their primary motto is to promote Gandhian ideals, especially Bapuji's 18-point constructive programme, among the younger generation. The focus is also on strengthening women empowerment, literacy, communal harmony, and gender equality, use of khadi and native language along with working on the anti-alcohol movement.

A school dropout, it took years of hard work, grit and determination for Balamohandas to reach the level of Vice Chancellor of Acharya Nagarjuna University in the later part of his life. After securing first class in PUC, he pursued B.Com, M.Com with merit scholarship and Ph.D followed by Management Studies in Andhra University.

Before serving as Vice Chancellor in ANU, the retired Professor donned various roles including Associate Lecturer, Reader, Professor of Management Studies and in-charge Vice Chancellor of Andhra University. "At the age of 31, I was the youngest Professor in the university of the country," recalls the former V-C of ANU. Sharing his future plans with The Hans India, Prof. Balamohandas says, "The next plan is to form a Gandhi sevadal in every school and college. The project will be taken forward with the support of the students from school to university-level along with volunteers. Initially, we are planning to form 1,000 such sevadals. By nominating a college lecturer for concerted coordination, we intend to promote Gandhian ideals among the next generation through the facility."

For his remarkable contributions to the field of education and society, Prof. Balamohandas bagged a number of awards, including Vishala Bharathi Gaurav Puraskar, Lifetime Achievement Award and Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan Award.

So far, he has written over a dozen books which form a part of spiritual, self-help, management and industrial economy genres.

As a staunch follower of Mahatma Gandhi, Prof. Balamohandas believes in contributing to society and his 'healthy life recipe' appears to be quite simple. "Stay constructively occupied, spread happiness, patriotism and brotherhood among people," he suggests.