- Photos by Vakiti Creations.
Atlanta, GA: Indian Friends of Atlanta (IFA) hosted its first India4US Forum – 2016 banquet at Signature Ball Room in Suwanee,Georgia. Members of over 50 associations, organizations of Atlanta attended the event. The main goal of the forum was for the Consul General of India to communicate to the community, the services the consulate offers, and to recognize eminent scholars and researchers of Indian origin.
The banquet kicked off at 6.30 pm with the social hour. Guests networked with guest speakers including Consul General of India Nagesh Singh, Consuls R. Srinivasan and D.V. Singh and other consulate staff members. Distinguished scholars Dr. V. Kumar and Dr. Veena Rao also interacted with the invitees.
Master of Ceremony, former Ms India USA Meghna Nagarajan kicked off the event with the national anthems of USA and India, followed by a minute’s silence for Mahatma Gandhi. Sunil Savili and Sairam Pamulapati of IFA, in their welcome speech, talked about the importance of uniting all the Indian organizations, and ways by which IFA can help become the bridge between all the associations.
In his keynote address, Consul General Singh spoke at length about the various services that the Consulate offers and various ways the community can get help from the Consulate staff. Nagesh Singh felicitated event sponsor Anil Reddy of MSD Solutions.
Consul R. Srinivasan went over the details of how to effectively apply for passports, OCI cards and visas. He also pointed out the common mistakes that are made while applying for these documents. He said, the consulate has provided an open hour from 10 am to 12pm on working days when people can walk-in to get help on their applications.
IFA team later felicitated the consulate staff for their service to the community.
IFA team Srinivas Peddi, Shyam Mallavarapu, Anil Reddy, Sunil Savili, Sreekanth Uppala, Kiran Gogineni, Sairam Pamulapati, Lakshmi Thesam, Abay Radha, Shweta Dhawan, Jamaludheen Masthankhan, Sridevi Ranjit, Sanjeev Akula, Arun Darpally, Ravi Balasubramanian came onto stage to unveil AV – ‘IFA Year in Review’ showcasing the various events and seminars that IFA has conducted with the support of various organizations and volunteers. The video was received with a great applause and was appreciated by the attended guests for the IFA teams’ service to the community. After the presentation of the video, the guests were invited to sumptuous dinner.
A novel initiative of IFA is to honor and recognize the brilliant and eminent scholars, academicians and business leaders of Indian origin inAtlanta. The first speaker in this initiative was Dr. V. Kumar, a legend of marketing, who gave a glimpse of his revolutionary theory that has won accolades in 57 countries and saved over 5 billion dollars to the companies.
The next speaker, Dr. Veena Rao, distinguished cancer researcher introduced the audience to her research on cancer gene BRCA1 gene. Dr. Shyam Prasad Reddy, another distinguished doctor accompanied Dr. Veena Rao on stage. Sheela Lingam felicitated Dr. Veena Rao and Dr. Shyam Prasad.
The last speaker of the event was Ishrat Alam of Incredible India who gave a presentation about the splendor that is India.
Shyam Mallavarapu of IFA team proposed the vote of thanks. He thanked Divnity AV for providing audio and video, Sridhar Vakiti and Boppana of Vakiti Creations for providing photo and videos of the event, Meghna for emceeing the program and volunteers for their tireless work.
For more information please contact info@ifaworld.org.
