Richa Chand
Chicago, IL
The Federation of Indian Associations (FIA) of Chicago, hosted a grand celebration of India’s 72nd Republic Day Event, virtually via zoom and Facebook live, on Jan 24th, 2021 at 6:00pm (CT), with program streaming live from Schaumburg, IL.
The program was started promptly by the wonderful host of the evening, emcee Anu Malhotra at 6:00pm with Lamp Lighting followed by US and Indian National Anthems, beautifully sung by Ananya Ghosh & Nitya Rao.
For opening remarks, the Founder President, FIA-Chicago, Sunil Shah was requested to share a few words. Sunil Shah in his speech, gave a warm welcome to all the guests and dignitaries present at the event and recalled a brief history of the FIA Chicago’s journey in the past 12 years. Sunil Shah while introducing and welcoming Honorable Governor of Illinois J B Pritzker mentioned that it was a distinct honor & moment of great pride for our association having him address our auspicious event. Governor Pritzker spoke very highly about FIA, Chicago accomplishments & said that you have partner at Governor’s office.
Besides, Illinois Governor J B Pritzker, other Honorable guests who spoke at the event were: Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi, Consul General Chicago Amit Kumar, Senator Christina Castro, Schaumburg Mayor Tom Daily, Hoffman Estates Mayor William Mcleod, and there were several key note speakers: Dr Suresh Reddy, Sri Deepak Kant Vyas and Dr Dayal Meshri, who shared their wonderful thoughts with the audience.
FIA President 2020 Gurmeet Singh Dhalwan and FIA current President Dr Kamal Patel also spoke eloquently about the organization and its accomplishments and future directions. Other FIA leaders who shared their inspiring speeches were: Neil Khot, Rita Singh & Shital Daftari. The new FIA Board transition was also announced and formalized for year 2021.
No celebration is complete without some music and dance… and there was a beautiful Dance performance by the students of SR International and a melodious patriotic song presented by Jitendra Bulsara.
But the most spectacular highlight of the event was the live singing session by none other than the legendary Bollywood singer, Kailash Kher himself! He is very well known for his Rock, as well as Sufi songs, besides his popular playback songs in various movies.
For the cheering audience, Kailash Kher sang some of the most popular songs like ‘Bharat ke Veer Tumko Naman’, ‘Aaj Mere Piya Ghar Aavengey’ & ‘Bam Lahiri’ and many more beautiful renditions from his song collection! This last and the most beautiful offering, brought the program to its end, and the event was duly concluded and closed by Richa Chand, FIA Secretary, with her Vote of Thanks speech. This amazing live experience on zoom and FB Live, was made possible by the logistic and technology support, provided by Phani Krishna. The entire zoom session, even though virtual was still very enjoyable and received rave reviews from the audience.
The FIA thanked the sponsors and supporters, which included Hanmi Bank, OROCHEM, REDBERRI, Air India, Pinky & Dinesh Thakkar, RELY Services, POWER VOLT, SNT Biotech, Reliance Global Logistics, Dr Utpal Parekh, Dr Bhupinder Beri, Dr Suresh Reddy, Dr Sreenivas Reddy, T Paul & S Chawla Attorney at Law, World’s Money Exchange, SR International, Pika Munshi HASATI, Ashima Washington, Rajesh Narayan and NEW YORK LIFE.
The media partners of the event included Adbhhut Media, India Post, TV Asia, Desi Talk, Divya Bhaskar, Hi India, Daily Herald and The Indian EYE Newsweekly.
