The Georgia India Chamber of Commerce celebrated its fifth annual banquet, on October 29th, at the Hyatt Regency in downtown Atlanta. The celebrations were just a day after blasts ripped through New Delhi killing several and injuring over a hundred people.
The act was condemned by the Consul General S.M Gavai.

President Ash Thakker talked about the growing Indo US relations in all spheres economically, culturally, politically and strategically and that both countries are concerned about the issues of terrorism. R.K Sehgal was acknowledged for his contribution in getting the chamber started 5 years ago and since then it has organized close to 110 different events and hosted delegates from diverse Indian states. Thakker then recognized GIACC chairman Madhu Madhusudhan and other members of the Board Jeff Seabright, the Vice President of Coco Cola and one of the chief guests talked about his childhood when his earliest exposure to an Indian was in the shape of a tall Sikh exchange student who stayed with his family for a year and got the family interested in Indian food and turbans. The young six year old was protected from bullies because he had a “ genie” escort him to school and the genie’s magic continued to surround Jeff even after the genie Swaran Singh left to graduate from MIT and go on to greater achievements. Coco Cola too is going great guns in India.

Bhavani Subramani started the evening’s cultural performance with a classical dance number followed by a Gujarati folk dance by young boys, and the traditional diya dance by women. The Sangeetkar group comprising of four wonderfully gifted classical musicians played live music. Their performance during dinner hour was drowned by people talking and eating, which is very disrespectful to the musicians. I wish people would stop inviting live musicians, only to relegate them to the cocktail or dinner hour. It would have been much better to make their performance part of the cultural program which was very sparse as compared to some stellar events of the past, and play some recorded music, if it’s all that necessary, when people eat.

Following are the award recipients honored at the banquet
Here are the award recipients:
GIACC Member of the Year (Individual): Kandy Anand
GIACC Member of the Year (Corporate): Delta Airlines 
Friend of GIACC (Individual / non-member): Dinesh Mehta, CPA, PR Subramanian, Dr. Josephine Tan
Friend of India (individual): Rajeev Dhawan
Special Recognition / Award Committee may decide: Georgia House of Rep. Hugh Floyd
Founders Award to our Chairman: C. N. Madhusudan, NIIT
Presidents Award to 2005 President: Ash Thakker, Global Technology Connection, Inc.