India Post News Service

LOS ANGELES, CA: Baisakhi 2008 was celebrated Friday, April 25, at the Millennium Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles. Hosted by the Los Angeles County Sheriffs Indo American Advisory Council, the event was in honor of the Los Angeles County Sheriff, Leroy D. Baca.

Also honored and recognized were some members of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department and the Indian community. Also present at the banquet were members of the Bangladesh Sheriff Advisory Council led by its President, Jalil Khan and the Executive Director of the Bangladesh Advisory Council M Zafar Ullah.

The event kicked off with the lighting of the lamp by Sheriff Baca, which was followed by playing of the national anthems of both United States and India followed by a pledge of allegiance presented by a contingent of the Sheriffs Honor guards.

The award ceremony began after a brief introduction by Commander Tom Laing of the LA Sheriff's department n. A total of 15 members both from the Sheriff's department and the Indian community received awards.

The award winners of the Baisakhi event were the following: Sheriff Lee Baca, Chief Dennis Burns, Commander Tom Liang, Lt. John Rueff, Reserve Deputy. Mike Leum, Deputy Roger Peterson. Those honored from the Indian community side were Dr Prem Reddy, Hamilton Brewart, DrAmarjit Marwah, Dev Prasad Katragadda, Gurbax Singh Bhasin, Shivbir Singh Grewal, Dr Anil Shah, Malaysian Airlines and Harry Sidhu. Event Chair, Jimmy Sandhu in his welcome speech applauded the Indian Diaspora for its success and appealed for greater participation with the law enforcement agencies.

Kevin Kaul, also echoed similar sentiment and expressed his happiness at the success of the event. Both Sandhu and Kaul in their speeches congratulated and thanked the Los Angeles County Sheriff's department and the Indo American Sheriff advisory council members for their hard work and support. Captain Eric Para of the Sheriff's Department Emergency Operations Bureau (EOB) briefly outlined the Emergency preparedness.

Lee Baca also gave the usual speech. There were other speeches and the banquet concluded after an entertainment program by local stars like Nauzad Sadry, Gibran and kids from Varsha Parekh's Noopur Dance Academy.

This event is a perfect example of teamwork and precise coordination. It is difficult to say who contributed what, but there's no doubt that without Nauzad Sadry, Srinivas Ande, Dilip Butani, Prakash Pancholi etc this banquet would not have been what it was.

And then there is Sir Speedy Tustin. Owner Jagjeet Singh Bains and his team spent hours designing and printing all that was required including the banner and flyers etc.

The phenomenal success of this event has all the skeptics, the nay Sayers and opponents biting the dust and eating the humble pie. A certain element in the Indian community was convinced of this event's failure and spared no effort in maligning and ridiculing the organization and the organizers. It is now safe to assume that these people are now sitting and eating the humble pie.