Former District Governor of Rotary club (Kochi-Coimbatore) G Vishwanathan who passed away on Sunday was an ardent advocate of organ donation. His mortal remains were donated to the ‘Society for Organ Retrieval and Transplantation (SORT)’ and Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences, Kochi. His eyes were donated to the Eye bank in Aluva immediately after death. He was 73. G Vishwanathan was governor of 110 Rotary Clubs spread across Kerala and Tamil Nadu.
While he was the district governor of Rotary he was an advocate of organ donation and consistantly propagated the message. It was his decision to donate all his reusable organs after death and also to donate his body to medical college students.
He was also the former president of Kerala Brahmana Sabha, past chairman of the Institution of Engineers India, president of Indian Institute of Material Management and founder president of Computational Society of India.
He was the chief patron at the Rotary Centre for Senior Citizens at Chunangamveli, Aluva, during his last days.
G Viswanathan (GV), born in Thiruvananthapuram on October 12, 1939 to late V Ganapathy (former member, KSEB) and Meenakshy Ganapathy, did his schooling in Munnar and Ernakulam before graduating in Electrical Engineering from BITS, Pilani. He obtained a PG Diploma in Business Administration from Bombay and started his career with FACT and later on with Howard Finley Consultants at UAE, Qatar, Malaysia, the Netherlands and Nigeria. He was the head of infotech division at Muthoot Group till 2007 and was currently heading a soft skill training organisation ‘Finesse’ at Kochi.
He is survived by wife Meena Viswanathan who was the Prinicipal of Bhavan’s Vidya Mandir Elamakkara for 15 years,daugther Anuradha, son-in-law Hari Narayan and grandsons Shashank and Mihir who are settled in the United States.
A condolence meeting organised by the Rotary Clubs of the city was held on Monday at Rotary Bal Bhavan, Panampilly Nagar.