The Chief Guest for the Investiture Ceremony Grateful 2016 was Mr. D. Balanagendran, IAS, an alumnus
of St. Louis.
After completing his schooling from Little Flower Convent, St. Louis Instiute and Ramakrishna Mission,
Mr. Balanagendra graduated from Loyola College with B. Com, during which time he also got a diploma
in Event Management from the Loyola Institute for Vocational Education.
He cleared the Civil Services (Indian Administrative Services) in 2016.
His leadership quality has been in evidence right from his school days, having been the School Pupil
Leader at Ramakrishna Mission, First Elected Visually Challenged Students Union Representative
‘Cultural Secretary’ Loyola College, Vice President Alumni Association at St. Louis and Secretary, Visually
Impaired Chess Federation.
His entrepreneurial spirit triggered him to co-found not only Inaiathendral, an Online platform for the
visually challenged to cater their ICT needs, but also Udaan Welfare Society and Radio Udaan, a
society/online radio of the visually challenged. He is also the co-founder of Sociocosmo, an online
platform to cater to the needs of the aspirants preparing for various competitive exams.
He has a wide variety of interests ranging from creative writing, blogging to web designing and
programming and board-less chess.
He is a three-time State Level Chess Champion, is a state-level gold medalist in Tamil Speech
Competition 2006 and was India’s first visually challenged student to represent at Microsoft Con.