Our Bureau
New York, NY
The Indian Consulate in New York hosted a meeting of major community groups from the Northeast Region of the United States for 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. Organizational 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. The Heads of many of these groups were present at the meeting.
This interactive meeting set in a conference room style was initiated by Deputy Consul General Dr. Varun Jeph with welcome remarks, who then introduced Consul General Pradhan. Organizational representatives were given an opportunity to speak on behalf of their organization, any community issue, and the ways for cooperation with the Consulate. After hearing all the invitees, the Consul General responded by thanking all the community groups for their tremendous work in helping the consulate and their contribution to improved US-India relationship.
The new CG Pradhan concluded with comments on the Consulate working closer with the community groups and said, “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 especially 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.”
He also suggested that the community should go out and vote and get involved in local politics. The Consul General and Deputy Consul General will come to local Community events if invited in time, and the community can use the ballrooms for state foundation events. Finally, CG Pradhan said that the Consulate always welcomes feedback from the community.
Heads of several national and umbrella organizations were present at the meeting which 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.
The Consul for Community Affairs A.K. Vijayakrishnan, who managed the event, gave away 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.
The meeting was followed by a networking dinner.
