By IANS,
Washington : Influential US senator Christopher Dodd will be presented “Friend of India Award” by the Connecticut unit of Global Organization of People of Indian Origin (GOPIO) at its Annual Awards Banquet May 2.
Dodd, Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee and Co-chairman of the India Caucus in the US Senate, will be honoured in recognition of his leadership in advancing economic and political cooperation between India and the United States, and his years of support to the Indian-American community.
Besides Dodd, two Indian Americans, Dinesh Paliwal and Neesha Ramchandani, will also be honoured by the organization for their outstanding achievements and contributions at its fourth anniversary event at the Italian Centre of Stamford.
While Paliwal, chairman, president and CEO of Harman International is being recognised as “Indian-American Achiever”, Ramchandani gets the “Young Person Of The Year” award, GOPIO announced Wednesday.
Stamford’s Mayor Michael Pavia will be the Guest of Honor at the banquet. Also attending will be Lt. Governor Michael Fedele and India’s Consul General in New York Prabhu Dayal.
Paliwal has instituted numerous initiatives and programmes to strengthen company operations, including driving innovation and breakthrough technologies, expanding the company’s footprint in emerging markets, and dramatically improving its cost structure.
He has lived and worked in six countries on four continents. Prior to joining Harman, he was with the ABB Group for 22 years.
Ramchandani is a pediatric nurse practitioner and certified diabetes educator. She is coordinator of the paediatric diabetes programme at Maimonides Medical Centre in Brooklyn, New York. While the majority of her time is spent doing clinical work and diabetes education, she has been doing innovative research in paediatric diabetes technology and has presented her research all over the US, Europe and South Africa.
GOPIO serves as a non-partisan, secular, civic and community service organization promoting awareness of Indian culture, customs and contributions of PIOs