Indian Consulate and GOPIO Manhattan hold ‘Meet & Greet’ for Indian students

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The Global Organization of People of Indian Origin, GOPIO-Manhattan (NYC) in cooperation with Consulate General of India in New York held a ‘Meet & Greet’ Sept. 17, 2021, for students from India studying in Northeast U.S., to connect them to the community and offer mentoring opportunities, as well as to raise awareness of Consular services to students from the Indian Consulate.

Students from 21 universities, mostly from the Northeast participated in person or virtually, a press release from GOPIO said.

The chief guest/host for the evening Ambassador Randhir Kumar Jaiswal, commented, “Welcome to all the students from India with open heart as you pursue your future studies here in the North-East region and help in the growth of economy here in USA and back home in India.”

He further highlighted the goal to expand this program to include more students, from the pool of 200,000 students that come to the USA for further studies, to attend in person more interactive sessions and gain exposure to various services offered by the Consulate for the benefit of the students from registration at the Consular Portal, to cultural events to mental health support initiatives.

Ambassador Taranjit Singh Sandhu, via a video message from Washington, D.C., welcomed the students from India and commented “Indian Students continue to be a strong bridge between India and USA. Delighted to welcome the students virtually!  The education and knowledge partnership are an area that holds great potential in our bilateral relations.”

The GOPIO International Chairman Dr. Thomas Abraham, who also serves as an advisor to GOPIO-Manhattan, encouraged the speakers to mentor, motivate and guide the students, and told the audience there was a family of more than 4 million Indians in the U.S. with a potential to be a host family.

Numerous other GOPIO office-holders spoke at the event as did students.

Several panels were part of the meeting such as mentorship, visa status like F1, H-1B, OPT etc.

They were addressed by experts and participants. Speakers included GOPIO-Manhattan Executive Vice President Professor Rajasekhar Vangapaty; Abha Kumar, Business transformation leader; Senior VP & Strategy Director at Publicis Group & Lecturer at Glasgow Caledonian New York College Prasan Kumar; Neil Datta, head of Due Diligence at Forbes Family Trust & Co-Founder Meritas; Joe Simon, CIO at Entain which is involved in Sports Betting; Aseem Trivedi, manager of Data Analytics at Ernst and Young, among many others

Ankit Chaudhari, associate VP at JP Morgan Chase; Apeksha Tewari, Master of Laws from Penn State Law and Lawyer;

Shivender Sofat, president GOPIO-Manhattan, also spoke.

A Q & A session followed where Consulate senior staff and GOPIO members answered the concerns of the students.