India Post News Service
MILPITAS, California: Foundation for India and Indian Diaspora Studies (FIIDS), a think tank based in Washington DC, hosted a talk on “India’s Role in 21st Century: Challenges, Initiatives and Opportunities” by Mr. Avinash Dharmadhikari, a former IAS officer, educationist, activist, journalist, author, and founder of Chanakya Mandal Pariwar. This gathering was attended by representatives from various Silicon Valley organizations and individuals on a Diwali weekend.
The event started with the host Rakhi Israni, FIIDS Bay Area coordinator, welcoming Dharmadhikari and Khandero Kand, founder and director of FIIDS-USA, along with Hindu priest Acharya Krishna Kumar Pandey who sang a Vedic hymn symbolizing the importance of the festival of lights.
Dharmadhikari spoke about how India under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi started taking bold and decisive steps towards curbing black money with demonetization and implementation of Goods and Services Tax (GST) for one nation, one tax.
He mentioned about initial challenges of GST but also confirmed the stabilization of the framework within one year of its implementation which is a big achievement for a democracy like India. He also pointed out that in Modi 1.0, India went from being defensive to responding to terrorist attacks with Pulwama and Balakot strikes which was a clear message to Pakistan and other countries around the world.
He said with Modi 2.0, within the first 90 days, one of the most awaited and long pending issues of the removal of article 370 and 35 A and completely integrate Jammu and Kashmir with India showed tremendous political will of the Modi-led NDA government as it was done democratically with approvals in both Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha. After a brief Q&A session on various topics, his colleague Bhooshan gave a short presentation about Chanakya Mandal Pariwar, a public charitable trust working in the field of career guidance and personality development.
Khanderao Kand briefly spoke about FIIDS, which has provided an important platform to champion advocacy and research related to India and the Indian diaspora.
The event was concluded by Gaurav Patwardhan, FIIDS Bay Area coordinator, giving the official vote of thanks to Dharmadhikari on behalf of FIIDS.
Janmejai Singh, Sachindra Nath, Harish Kandpal, Jesal Shah, Praveen Agrawal, and Manoj Jawle helped make the event successful.
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