India Post 19August 24, 2018 Community Across Americawww.indiapost.com

I-Day celebrated at Mahatma Gandhi MemorialIndia Post News Service

DALLAS, TX: More than 700people consisting of many chil-dren, visiting parents and NRIsfrom all walks of life gatheredto celebrate India's Indepen-dence Day on August 15 at Ma-hatma Gandhi Memorial Plaza inIrving, TX hosted by MahatmaGandhi Memorial of NorthTexas (MGMNT)

Dr. Prasad Thotakura,MGMNT Chairman, hoisted theIndian flag. Vice-Consul from In-dian Consulate Ashok Kumarwas the Chief Guest of Honorwhile Irving City Mayor RickStopfer, Sunnyvale City MayorSaji George, Coppell CityCouncilmember Biju Mathewand former Director of IrvingCity Parks and Recreation RayCerda attended as SpecialGuests. Local musical teacherSwathi presented a couple ofpatriotic songs with her stu-dents at this event.

Rao Kalvala, MGMNT Secre-tary welcomed all and intro-

duced guests to the audience.Dr. Prasad Thotakura, Chairman,in his message said "We pay richtribute to all freedom fightersand national leaders like Ma-hatma Gandhi, SubhashChandra Bose, Chandra SekharAzad, Bhagat Singh, Lala LajpatRai, Jawahar Lal Nehru, SardarVallabhbhai Patel and manymore who surrendered andsacrificed everything in attain-ing independence from Britishrule".

"We all need to realize thathatred, bigotry, outrage, racismwill create an enormous gapamong the mankind. Only pa-tience, alliance, tolerance andcoherence will bring all peopletogether," Dr Thotakura added.

Vice-Consul Ashok Kumar A section of attendees at MGMNT celebrations

and Dr. Anupam Ray congratu-lated the gathering for cel-ebrating India's IndependenceDay with huge enthusiasm. Hesaid that it is very fortunate toparticipate in this event and In-dia continues to be on the rightpath in the right direction to-wards the development of thenation.

Irving City Mayor RickStopfer said he was proud anddelighted to have many IndianAmericans live in the Irving Cityand appreciated all their greatcontributions for the better-

ment of the city. Irving City al-ways welcomes many immi-grants and city officials are al-ways there to help and build astrong relationship with the In-dian American community.

Mayor Rick Stopfer said hewas pleased to have GandhijiMemorial in the center of theCity. It is very joyful to see thou-sands of visitors across theglobe visiting the Plaza everymonth.

Former Director of Parks andRecreation, Irving City, RayCerda mentioned that thisGandhi Memorial stood out as amemorable project not only inthe state of Texas but also inUSA. Cerda appreciated the ef-forts of MGMNT Board for rais-ing over $700,000 within ashort span of time to build thismemorial.

Sunnyvale City Mayor SajiGeorge appreciated MGMNTBoard for organizing the Inde-pendence Day Celebrationsevent with great patriotic fer-vor. India became the largestand best democracy in theworld. Mayor George reminded

that India got its independencethrough non-violence and civil-ian disobedience. "We are allproud to celebrate India's Inde-pendence Day in the land ofUSA."

Coppell City Council mem-ber Biju Mathew conveyedgreetings from the city ofCoppell officials and said he

was honored to be at the event.He congratulated all teammembers for their tireless ef-forts in building the largestGandhi Memorial in the USA. Hestated that our home land India

and adopted land USA are notdifferent and both the nationshave many things in common.

Kamal Kaushal, MGMNT Co-chair in his remarks stated thatit was very joyful to see a hugecrowd near Father of the Nation,Mahatma Gandhiji's memorial.He said India was an under-de-veloped country at Indepen-dence but today it is a devel-oped and the fastest growingeconomy in the world. India'seconomy is higher than anyother country in the world.

Irving City Mayor RickStopfer released a book titled"Explorify" authored by a localwriter Vivek Acharya. MGMNTTeam felicitated all guests.

B.N Rao, MGMNT Treasurerthanked Chief Guest, all specialguests, Irving City officials, TV5Media, Dallas Morning News, TVAsia for their media coverage,Bombay studio for photogra-phy, DJ Manesh for Audio Video

arrangements, FunAsiA for thepromotion and scores of

volunteers for making theevent a grand success. MGMNTBoard of Directors JohnHammond, Piyush Patel,Shabnam Modgil, KunteshChokshi, community leadersMVL Prasad, CR Rao, AbhijitRailkar, Jack Godhwani at-tended the event. MGMNTBoard distributed the Indianand American flags and refresh-ments at the event.

Besides MGMNT, Universityof Texas at Richardson also cel-ebrated India's IndependenceDay. Dr. Prasad Thotakura, Presi-dent, Indian American Friend-ship Council, attended as ChiefGuest of Honor at the Indepen-dence Day celebrations eventorganized by the Indian Stu-dents Association.

MGMNT Chairman Dr Thotukara addressing a jubilant crowd during India Day celebrations

MGMNT team with guests and dignitariesChildren at India Day celebrations