India Association of New Hampshire (IANH), with over 500 members spread over 25 towns across New Hampshire, organized a Town Hall meeting in Londonderry today to discuss federal, state and local issues affecting the Indian American community. According to the 2000 census, six thousand Indian-Americans live in New Hampshire, mainly in the Southern tier of the state and the Sea Cost area. There are 1.7 million Indian-Americans living in the United States.

The Association invited representatives from the republican and democratic campaigns for President, NH Governor, US Senate and US House of Representatives. Mr. Prithvi Kumar, President of the Association welcomed the guests and highlighted the community service and educational activities that the Association is actively involved with. Ravi Sakhuja, former chair of Massachusetts chapter of Indian American Forum for Political Education pointed out the civil rights violations including arbitrary and secret extended detentions under the Patriot Act as one of the major issues affecting the Muslims and other minorities in the USA. Himanshu Desai, Chair of Public Relations for IANH spoke about the discriminatory treatment by the NH Division of Motor Vehicles towards the immigrant community. He said that his employee had to take a day off to go to Concord to apply for driver’s license because she was a non-citizen.

Paul Hodes, democratic candidate for US House of Representatives (district 2) addressed the audience on various national issues facing the country today such as the health care crisis, federal deficit, educational crisis, national security and the environment. He said that the Patriot Act had seriously undermined the civil liberties of the United States citizens. He said that he supports Senator Kerry’s plan to provide the same level of health insurance to all Americans that the members of the US congress enjoy. When questioned by a member in the audience about joining the India caucus if elected, his answer was, “absolutely, yes”. Eric Anderson from the Charlie Bass (candidate for US House of Representatives district 2) campaign took questions from the audience on Patriot Act, joining India caucus and other issues, which he promised to have his campaign respond to.

Joe Foster, New Hampshire senator from Nashua and Nishit Acharya spoke for the Kerry/Edwards campaign. Senator Foster spoke about the inadequate federal funding for the No Child Left Behind program leaving the states to bear most of the burden. He said that Kerry administration would provide full federal funding for this program. Nishit pointed out that the Bush administration had reduced funding for the Small Business Administration (SBA), which was hurting many small business owners of the Indian American community. He also said that Bush administration had reduced developmental aid to South Asian countries. He assured that the Kerry administration would restore funding to SBA and developmental aid to the South Asian countries to their original levels.

Dennis Burke, political director for the Granny D campaign said that they have been inspired by the non-violence practiced by Mahatma Gandhi and believe that it is a very important means to achieving world peace.

NH Representative Raymond Buckley pointed out the abuses of power by the Benson administration and said it was the prime reason he decided to give up his position as a state representative and be a candidate for the Executive Council. He said that the legislators like to hear from their constituents and that people should not shy away from contacting their legislators about issues important to them.

Derek Mitchell, who has spent considerable time in India as a Fullbright scholar, represented the Lynch for Governor campaign. He started off with the Indian greeting, “Namaste”, and spoke about the harm the SB 110 bill on insurance has done to the NH residents without achieving much in return.

Siddharth Das, the first Indian-American candidate for NH House of Representatives spoke about the need to resolve the educational funding crisis and create more jobs in New Hampshire. Ambassador George Bruno complemented the Association for its community service and political education activities and emphasized the importance of registering as a voter and voting in the elections. Mini Timmaraju, Executive Director of the Senate Democratic Caucus, setting aside her political affiliation, moderated the Town Hall meeting very ably. All in all, it was a memorable event for the Indian-American community living in New Hampshire.

|