The India Association of New Hampshire organized a Meet-N-Greet with the Indian Ambassador to the US Taranjeet Singh Sandhu and the Consul General of NYC Randhir Jaiswal on April 5, 2023 at the Alpine Grove Banquet Hall in Hollis, NH. 

The Ambassador was having a few formal meetings with the Governor of New Hampshire and spent the evening meeting with the Indian Diaspora. The event opened with a beautiful song rendered by Janani Sharma, daughter of musician Jyoti Sharma. She presented a beautiful rendition of the Bollywood piece “Tere Mitti “. Following a welcome by the Vice President Manoj Chourasia, there was a beautiful presentation of Ganesh Kautuam by students of Neha Parikh. The event featured several other performances by students Sujata Meyyappan, Jasmine Shah and Ekta Jain and was very well received by the audience. 

Following the presentation, Randhir Jaiswal, the Consul General presented a few opening remarks.

The Ambassador proceeded to give the keynote talk giving great details of the state of the state of India and the India-US relationship. He talked about the growth of India over the past few years to become one of the fastest growing economies in the world with the fifth largest GDP coming close to Germany. “India has the youngest population in the world compared to all the major economies of the world that have a big aging population” said Sandhu. He indicated that this will make them a formidable force for the future as they become an important part of the future workforce and customer base.He asked people to encourage their children to be connected with India for in the future that would perhaps be commercially beneficial.  He was very bullish on the Indo-US partnership which he said was really emerging to be a deep and strong partnership. He said that the president would potentially be visiting India this year and Prime Minister Modi may make a US visit. He talked about the interesting collaborations in the area of Biotech, Vaccines and Space. “CORBEVAX was developed at Baylor College of Medicine and manufactured in India by Biological-E  at a very low cost. This allowed us to use it extensively in India and share the vaccine with others in need” said Sandhu. He congratulated the Indian diaspora for its achievements and asked that we share any ideas with his office. 

A Q and A session followed. He mentioned he has had serious talks with the US state department to see how one can ease the Visa situation. Regarding the Khalistan issue, he said it had no support in India and was a fringe movement. 

The Ambassador’s speech was inspiring and reflective of an India that is confident and growing in stature in the world. We look forward to seeing the future of Indo-US partnership unfold.