Cultural program in the ballroom

IACA Officials and representatives of Associations before the Welcome songs

According to Mr.Chand Akkineni, who started the festival in 1997 as the President of IACA, the 10th anniversary marks the growing unity among the Indian community organizations in Atlanat and prepares for a new India Center to be built at the IACA facility in Smyrna.
First off the marks were the Health Fair and the Visa Camp. As soon as the doors opened, people queued up at the Visa Camp organized by the Indian Consulate in Houston. Many availed of this personalized service on the doorstep instead of communicating with the Embassy by mail.
Health Fair organized by Dr.Inderpal Singh and Dr.Varinder Singh was attended by over 400 people who benefited from the services of local physicians from diverse specialties.
In the packed ball room, the audience was entertained with live medley of traditional folk dances, music, fusion dances, patriotic songs and heart pounding Bollywood bhangra.
The children were kept amused and entertained with Mehndi, face painting, beads, bracelets and kite-making and other fun activities.
 

Live entertainment in the Ballroom

Know your India Quiz: The quiz was sponsored by Festival’s Gold sponsor iCoachmath, and conducted by Ekta Jain and volunteers. The participants were divided into two categories:
Group A Elementary and Middle School. 90 students took part.
Group B High School 24 “ “ “
The half- hour Quiz had 30 multiple choice questions relating to India’s history, politics, arts, literature, geography, and epics etc. which were projected on a huge screen.
The winners of the Competition were:
Group A 1st Prize Chetan H.
2nd “ Divya Dutta and Sarayu Jay Narayan
3rd “ Anu Romesh; Devneet Singh; and Mona Modi
Group B: 1st Prize Anjali Gokarn; Arundhati Sridhar; and Aditya Srivastava
2nd “ Sima Modi
3rd “ Mayank Singhal; Shruti Chandramouli; Aakriti Singh
Leena Joshi of Themeworks, who runs art classes at the Global Mall, Atlanta, sponsored the Art Competition for kids. The budding artists were divided into three Groups.
Group 1 Ages 5 to 7
“ 2 “ 8 to 10
“ 3 “ 11 to 13
Each Group was given a different subject for drawing and painting using color pencils and crayons One hour time limit was set for the competition. Shamila Thakur and the volunteers helped with the competition. Over 40 kids participated and the results were as under:
Group 1: 1st Amal Bhatnagar
2nd Devneet Singh
3rd Maya Eashwaran
“ 2 1st Anu Romesh
2nd Mounika Pogula
Omkar Mayur
3rd Kesha Kanakiya
The prizes were awarded on the ballroom stage by Josephine Tan and Ani Agnihotri.
Cultural Committee’s Neeta Shenvi, Syamsundar Yellamraju and Lakshmi Vedala deserve a pat on the back for running a daylong live entertainment show in the ballroom. The prizes to the winners of the Cultural Show were presented by Paddy Sharma and Tushar Sanghvi.
Adult film dance competition winner choreographed by
Divya Srivastva, Song from Devdas (Performers: Divya
Srivastva
Vaishali Rawtoo
Vindali Vartak
Abhiruchi Agarwal).
Kids film Dance competition winner: Students of Arya
Dance academy: Asha Fuller
Jaya Prathusha
Pooja Patel
Kids’ folk dance competition winner: choregraphed by
Srivalli Kondur, participants-
Aakash Rudra, Rashmi Kondur, Sisira Saraswatula,
Poojitha Gorti, Suma Yellamraju

Chand Akkineni introduced Sarina Jain, Founder of Masala Dance and Fitness Inc.who had been invited to the Festival from New York. Sarina is an acclaimed fitness Guru, recognized as Indian Jane Fonda. She combines aerobics with the pulsating beats of bhangra, salsa, hip-hop, and other forms of dances. The irresistibly energetic Sarina invited both young and old members of the audience to join her on stage and perform with her in the workout. She electrified the stage with her high octane routines and soon had the other participants panting and puffing! She thanked The FOI organizers for inviting her and appealed to the audience to buy her workout videos.
 

Shakuntala Devi performing Maths.magic

Human computer Mrs.Shakuntala Devi was a big hit with the audience comprising of children and their parents. She explained how to calculate the cube roots of a number and invited the children to give her challenging numbers. She also demonstrated her ability to remember dates and days in any year.
IACA President Tushar Sanghvi, Chand Akkineni, Paddy Sharma, Ani Agnihotri and other representatives of supporting Associations stood on stage as Srijata Mukherjee beautifully sang the US National Anthem. This was followed by singing of the India’s National Anthem Jana Gana Mana. Rakhi Banerjee and her group sang swagatam and two rousing patriotic songs befitting the Independence Day celebrations.

Paddy Sharma welcomed and recognized BJP member from Gujarat,Bhavnaben Chikhaliya.
Chand Akkineni extended a hearty welcome to all, thanked and recognized the Sponsors and patrons and introduced the Chief Guest, Harsha Agadi, President and CEO, Church’s Chicken, International. He said Agadi, born in Bangalor, grew up in Mumbai and later earned his MBA at Duke University. He has previously worked with Little Caesars, American Express, etc. and is currently Managing Director of GHS Holdings. In a crisp speech, punctuated with frequent applause, Harsha said, “I am happy to be here to celebrate India’s Independence Day. We’ve become independent thro’ non-violence. Since 1991, after embracing American style capitalism, India has a GDP of a trillion and Indian-Americans have highest per capita income in the US. We are unique because we have come from one democratic country to another democratic country. We’re not refugees. We’ve come here to better our lives. We’re doing well because of our knowledge of English language, our skills and our willingness to settle in any part of the US and our work ethics. But we must not be complacent. And we must remember one thing-we must learn to contribute monetarily or in kind to worthy causes both in the US, elsewhere on the planet and in India, he said. I am very proud to be an Indian, I am extremely y proud also to be an American and I am even prouder of being an Indian-American” he concluded.

Kenneth Cutshaw, Hon. Consul for India in the US, a familiar figure at the FOI, said he always enjoyed coming to the FOI. Each year it is getting better and better. “I work closely with Harsha Agadi, who has proved himself a successful Indian-American. Very soon, we hope to be traveling to India to hopefully start Church’ Chicken enterprise there. As Hon. Consul for India I am very proud to be a part of this community and hope that the State Government here will provide you all the facilities to you that will be beneficial to your growth in Atlanta and the US.” he concluded.
Dr. Josephine Tan, chair of Governor Sunny Perdue’s Asian American Commission for a New Georgia, said she was proud to be a sponsor of FOI. She conveyed greetings from the Governor’s office and lauded Indian community for its immense contribution in all fields of activity. “The Government is planning sometime in the near future to visit India to further augment its trade relationship with India” she said.
 

IACA Officials with Harsh Agadi, Josephine Tan and Hon Kenneth Cutshaw

Tushar Sanghavi, Chand Akkineni,Ani Agnihotri,Paddy Sharma, Vir Nanda, Surinder Bahl, each spoke briefly about IACA’s history, its activities, and exhorted the audience to support its twin dream projects-India Center and Sanatan Mandir. The burgeoning Indian-American community in Georgia has created a strong need for a new, vibrant India Center which will offer facilities, activities and programs to preserve, promote and enrich Indian culture. Once the targeted fund of $500,000 is reached, construction on both projects, on 10 acres of land will commence and hopefully be completed within 2-3 years, they said. They urged the audience to visit India Center booth and donate generously.
Likewise Dr.Yogesh Joshi and Raj Bansal briefed the audience about the Sanatan Mandir project. The new temple will easily accommodate about 500 people in its Prayer Hall. It will also have an Assembly Hall, classrooms, kitchen and dining facilities and plaza areas for outdoor ceremonies. Board of Governors has been elected in August. They too urged the audience to visit the Sanatan Mandir booth and help fund the project so construction can begin.

Kaushik Patel, V.P.and Rubi Lalani, Asst.V.P. of United Central Bank, who had sponsored the Fashion Show, spoke briefly about the bank, established in Dallas, Texas, in 1987. The bank has been in Atlanta for over a year and half to serve the business community. They thanked the FOI for affording them an opportunity to participate in the Festival and sponsor the Fashion Show.
Fashion show: Christine Phillip, an Indian designer educated at Emory, costumes were designed by Indian silk.
There were interesting seminars on Inter faith, Yoga,racial justice,career counseling and domestic violence. A multimedia presentation on India was presented by Dr.Raktim Sen, Shanker Sengupta,Shubhangi Pandit and Niraj Sharma.
 

Parag Patel,Vinita Thaper;Dr.K.Thrivikraman;Sonya Thaper and Dr.Uma Majumudar

One of the booths that attracted many visitors was the Gandhi Foundation of USA booth, manned by the Executive Director, Giriraj Rao, BOD and Executive Committee members Antony Thaliath, Dr.K.Thrvikraman, GFUSA Youth Director Vinita Thaper, Sonya Thaper and Parag Patel. The booth displayed photos of GFUSA’s past events; several books authored by members of the GFUSA family and newly designed GFUSA T-shirts. Dr.Uma Majmudar, recent author of the book, Gandhi’s Pilgrimage of Faith: From darkness to Light was also present at the booth to sign her book. The visitors showed keen interest in GFUSA’s mission, activities and its plans for a Gandhi Center USA.; and also bought GFUSA T-shirts.
The day ended with a very exciting “antyakshari” competition with hundreds of participants joining in the fun.