The Indian American Forum for Political Education held its 24th Annual Convention at the Hyatt Regency, Cambridge, MA on December 2, 2006. The theme of the convention was “Becoming a Politically Effective Community.”

It was one of the most successful IAFPE conventions in the recent history with nearly 175 people attending the various sessions during the day. More than 300 members attended the evening banquet including more than 40 out-of-state delegates.

Ravi Sakhuja, Convener and President Elect, opened the convention. He discussed the need for more Indian Americans to be politically active. “We are 0.75% of the population, 7% of university professors, 14% of doctors, yet there are only 8 elected Indian Americans all over the country. We need to hold at least 50 elected offices,” said Sakhuja.

“It is the responsibility of each and every individual to participate as a citizen,” said Congressman James McGovern, who gave the opening keynote address. The morning session featured Upendra Chivukula (NJ), Ramesh Advani (MA) and Jay Choudhuri (IALI), who focused on how they got involved and their individual election experiences.

This was followed by a panel discussion consisting of Sanjay Puri (UNINPAC), Ramesh Kapur (MA), Richard Verma (Legislative Aide to Sen. Harry Reid), Anurag Varma (US-India Friendship Council) and Joseph Melookaran. “Economic relations are the key,” said Puri. “NPT is the past; Indian Americans are the future”, “Individual dominance to collective recognition”, “Keep the momentum going and hopefully we can have a Cabinet member in the next administration” etc. were the themes that kept resonating.

“25% of all VC funded publicly traded companies were started by immigrant and 60% of all Intel Science talent Search students are children of immigrants,” said Stuart Anderson, who discussed immigrations issues. Rishi Reddy, SAALT, discussed some of the myths. "Most Indians think that the current illegal immigration talks do not affect them.  On the contrary, there are 280,000 undocumented Indians in this country."

The panel consisting of young adults Kishan Putta, Toby Choudhuri, Mini Timmaraju, Nishith Acharya and Shilpa Phadke was very refreshing. They talked about “Politics is how a community solves its problems”, “Broad based coalition building”, “Funding a political intern through IAFPE” and “It is time to wake up – we are at the crux of a revolution.”

The three keynotes at the banquet kept the audience engaged. Minister Bombaywale (Indian Embassy) gave an overview of India’s growth today. Alan Khazei (City Year) encouraged all graduates to spend a year teaching in schools and Honorable Congressman Barney Frank (MA) gave us key insights as to how to make your congressmen and senators listen to you and work with you to achieve your vision. He emphasized personal communications and follow-up with them on issue before and after the vote. The lifetime achievement award was presented to Dr. Sudhir Parekh from New Jersey. The music and entertainment for the night was coordinated by Ranjani Saigal and the participants were Amrita Saigal, Priya Kumar, MIT Bhangra, Ashish Nimgaonkar and a dance by Vani Patel, Kripa Patel and Ishwarya Jagtap.

The co-conveners of the convention were Ramesh Advani, Gopi Bala, Shyno Chako, Purang Dang, Anil Saigal and Sai Nagrajan. Supporters included Dr. Dwarika Agarwal, Dr. Sahdev Passey, Lee Mohapatra Dr. Purnima Sangal, Rajiv Laroia, Pradeep Sharma and many others.

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