Ajoy Dube from Bellflower, California is the new president of the National Federation of Indian American Associations (NFIA).  NFIA is the largest non-profit umbrella organization of Indian associations in America, established in 1980, and aims to unify the diverse Indian American community by coordinating and promoting the activities of its member associations.

The virtual oath swearing-in ceremony and elections were officiated by the founder president from 1980-88, Dr. Thomas Abraham. Since the founding of the organization  Dr Abraham has made it a point to guide each upcoming leader to work passionately towards the upliftment of the organization, the NFIA said in a press release. 

“Ninety-six general body members had the opportunity to vote. Of these, 77 participated in the voting process”, said Dr. Abraham Chair of the Election Committee.

Dube is a veteran in community involvement, both in the metropolitan Los Angeles and in California, and has been working in the community for several decades in leadership positions. A retired Boeing Engineer by profession, Dube is bringing into the current Executive Committee a lot of enthusiastic team members who have contributed to their local communities and to NFIA for last several years.

Executive Committee Members including Lavanya Reddy (Executive Vice President), Dr. Satish Mishra (Vice President), Ashok (Pat) Patnaik (Vice President), Raj Razdan (Vice President0, Dr. Makam Subbarao (Secretary), Dr. Om Sharma (Joint Secretary), Pooja Thomre (Treasurer) are all veteran members of NFIA and are bringing in their experience besides their long-term service association with NFIA.

While Director-At-Large like Aparna Hande, Dr. Lalita Kaul, Minhaj Akhtar are re-elected and are bringing in their long-term service association experience with NFIA. There are 2 Director-At-Large who are elected for the first time at NFIA. A Medical Informatician and Researcher Dr. Sukrit Mukherjee has served NFIA before as an appointed member, helping the organization with technological support needed during the difficult time of  Covid era and wants to take NFIA to greater community service by creating an ingenious technological platform. Mr. Vamshi Reddy is a first-time elected Director-at-Large and wants to help the organization. Veteran community leaders Mr. Subash Razdan and Mr. Sudip Gorakshakar were also elected as the new Director-at-Large.

There are a lot of new faces in Regional Vice Presidents of NFIA. Mrs. Prashanthi Harathi and Mrs. Kamini Khare were elected as the RVP of Pacific North and Pacific South Regions respectively. Satish Gabhawala, Gunjan R. Rastogi and Aruna Patel won their respective RVP titles of Central (Illinois), New York (NY) and South East (GA) unopposed. Mr. Kamlesh Munshi and Mr. Gope Gidwani kept their RVP positions for Capital (DC) and New England respectively uncontested.

The administrative positions were elected by the New Board. Chairman of NFIA Foundation Mr. Babu Patel, Executive Director Admin: Dr. Hari Har Singh and Women’s Conference Chair Dr. Manorama Gupta.

Following are the newly elected team for 2021-2022 term:

About NFIA

NFIA was formed in May 1980 at the First Convention of Asian Indians in North America organized by FIA New York. NFIA has been at the forefront of activities in US-India relations for four decades. NFIA was instrumental in the formation of the Global Organization of People of Indian Origin (GOPIO) at the NFIA sponsored First Global Convention of People of Indian Origin in New York (1989). The weeklong convention attracted over 3000 delegates from 26 countries. 

NFIA organized the first sub-conferences of Medical professionals (1984) & Hospitality Industry and Technology (1986) as part of its national biennial conventions. NFIA has been a catalyst (through its various sub-conferences) for the birth of professional organizations such as AAHOA, AAPI, and TiE.

NFIA has been campaigning for charitable causes both in India as well as across the US. 

NFIA can be reached by calling President Ajoy Dube at 562-682-6186 or e-mail adube4321@aol.com.