The Indo-American Chamber of Commerce of Greater Houston (IACCGH) had its networking dinner at Ashiana Indian restaurant on August 20th, 2001. This event was free for all members and was well attended by representatives of leading business organizations like Reliance, Tata Consulting, Exxon Mobil, Lufthansa, Continental, Delta, Danos & Curole and entrepreneurs like Pradeep Anand (PointCross), Kiran Oberoi (Chirag), Suzanne Grover (IC, Inc.), Sulek Jain (Solutions Co.), Ramesh Anand (Intl Personnel resources), Dolly Lallani (Dolly�s boutique), Sasidharan Nair (Supreme Health Care, Inc.) to name a few.
Mr. Ashoke Nath, the new President of IACCGH took over from past President Dr. Durga Agrawal at the annual Gala held on June 16th, 2001. Joining him on the executive board is Jagdip Ahluwalia as Vice-President, Subroto Mukerji as Secretary, H.P. Bhagat continuing as Treasurer and Ashoke Shah as President-elect for next year. Mr. Nath also introduced the new Executive Director of the chamber Mrs. Chitra Shanbhogue to all the members.
The new board gave an accounting of the chamber initiatives and activities in progress. The list of some of the macro projects, which the Chamber is spearheading, is:
- The Joint venture between M.D.Anderson and All India Institute of Medical sciences. This venture would include Faculty, Student & Patient exchange, clinical trials, and filling the shortage of nurses here in the US.
- A math think-tank joint venture between St. Stephen�s college in Delhi and University of Houston
- Setup of a top-notch teaching institute in India with Rice University, IIT Kharagpur and BIT Mesra.
The IACCGH was proud to welcome twenty-three new members to the organization and introduce them at the networking dinner.
Mr. Rinzing Wangdi had words of support and praise for the new board and the Chamber. He said the board of the Chamber ” is a very powerful and high quality board, with very good professional experience and quite impressive”. He said that “India is in a take-off stage” and all Indo-American should take advantage of this unique opportunity to bring commerce to the United States and take commerce to India. Mr. Wangdi, along the same lines as Ambassador Mansingh�s message at the Gala, stated that Indo-Americans community is behind politically and we could make a political impact if we made an effort to do so.
Attendees enjoyed a delicious dinner while Prajit Dutta of Artsindia.com gave a brief talk on “Collecting Art as an Investment”. Prof. Dutta was in town showcasing Indian artists both known and upcoming. Prof. Dutta is an Economics professor in Columbia University in New York. The networking dinner gave members an opportunity to enjoy a relaxed evening with peers and get a lot of useful contacts to further their business interests.