Indian Consulate in New York Hosts Interactive Meeting for Community Leaders with new Consul General Binaya Pradhan
Los Angeles, Feb 06, 2024
NRIpress.club/Ramesh/ A.Gary Singh
Indian Consulate in New York hosted a meeting of major community groups from Northeast Region of the United States to an interactive meeting with the new Indian Consul General Binaya Srikanth Pradhan at the Indian Consulate on Friday, February 2nd. Altogether 50 community representatives participated from New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Ohio. Organization representatives present at the meeting included the Global Organization of People of Indian Origin (GOPIO) and its chapters, Federation of Indian Associations - FIA (NY, NJ, CT), FIA Columbus (Ohio), Association of Indian America (AIA), Asian Indian American of Central Pennsylvania (AIACPA), Federation of Malayalee Association of North America (FOMA), Uttar Pradesh association of America, Tamil Sangam, Telugu Association of North America (TANA), Telegu Literary and Cultural Association (TLCA), Bihar Jharkhand Association, Oriya Society, Indo American Press Club, Hindu Center and several other service organizations including Team Aid. Heads of many of these groups were present at the meeting.
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The meeting in a conference room style was started by Deputy Consul General Dr. Varun Jeph with welcome remarks, who then introduced Consul General Pradhan. Organization representatives were given opportunity to speak on their organization, any community issue and ways for cooperation with the Consulate. After hearing from all invitees, Consul General responded thanking all community groups for the tremendous work helping the consulate and their contribution to improved US-India relations.
CG Pradhan also concluded with following comments on the Consulate working closer with the community groups: If there is a need for a Visa camp for passport, OCI or other consular services, the Consulate will come to the community group if there are enough people in need; Consulate wants to be connected with Students coming from India specially in the first year to help them out; for any emergencies, the Consulate is there to help out; Consulate would like to connect to University student leaders; suggested that community should go out and vote and get involved in local politics; Consul General and Deputy Consul General will come to local Community events if invited in time; and community can use the ballrooms for state foundation events. Finally, CG Pradhan said that the Consulate always welcomes feedback from the community.
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Heads of several national and umbrella organizations were present at the meeting and included GOPIO Chairman Dr. Thomas Abraham and President Lal Motwani, FIA NY/NJ/CT President Dr. Avinash Gupta, AIA President Gobind Munjal, FIA Columbus President Sriram Menneni, AIAPCA Founder/Chair Deep Gupta and FOMA President Dr. Jacob Thomas.
Consul for Community Affairs A.K. Vijayakrishnan, who managed the event, gave the vote of thanks. Other Consuls present at the meeting were Consul for Trade Manish Kulhary, Consul Bijender Kumar (Passport, OCI and Visa), Consul Shruti Pandey (Culture) and Head of the Chancery Vishal Harsh. A networking dinner followed.
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