Anuj Thukral

Anuj opened the 14th Rani Spa location at 42nd street in Manhattan in April 2008 and a Rani Spa Bell Blvd in June 2008. Anuj came out with his own cosmetic line Anuj Cosmetics and A new Rani line of products, all made in the USA as part of the made in America movement. Rani Spa launched - Spa at your door with the Rani Van wrapped in innovative designs by high end designers. Anuj upgraded the professional products used in services to more organic and higher quality products without increasing prices since the past three and a half years.

Prof. Avinash Kak

Avinash Kak is a professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Purdue University who has done pioneering research in image processing, tomography, computer vision, and computer languages. His recent research interests are in sensor networks and camera networks. This also includes the networking aspects of wireless cameras working together and the use of computational geometry to fuse information acquired from multiple viewpoints. His group is also strongly interested in high-level programming languages and those aspects of software engineering that relate to lending organization to software so that it can be extended and maintained easily.

Tina Sugandh

Singer songwriter, tabla player and dancer, Tina Sugandh is an explosion of global pop entertainment. Growing up in New Jersey, Tina hails from a musical family where she spent her childhood performing with her parents and siblings. Now, it is no wonder that this multitalented performer is poised at the crest of the next wave in popular music. She has just signed on with industry vet Jerry Blair who has been responsible for more number 1 billboard records than anyone to date including Ricky Martin

Prashan Shah has been awarded with the Marine Corps Good Conduct Medal 2 times in 2005 and 2008 and has been awarded with the Rifle Qualification Badge as an EXPERT from 2003 to 2008. Mr. Shah got out of the United States Marine Corps with an honorable discharge in October 2008 and served in Marines for six years as a linguist. He was recently awarded a Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal for using his extraordinary linguistic skills to assist the unit to overcome the language barrier between US forces and the Afghan locals at Forward Operating Base Ripley. Mr. Shah fluently speaks six languages.

Rujutha Vaidya

Rujutha is a choreographer based out of both NY and LA as well as spends a lot of time in Bombay. Having worked on many Bollywood films, last year she made the crossover to Hollywood films, when she choreographed Disney’s Cheetah Girls "One World". In January 2009 she came out with the first Bollywood meets Hip-hop dance DVD called BYou2, she also choreographed for Britney Spears Circus tour. In February 2009, she choreographed for AR Rahman and John Legend at the 81st Annual Academy Awards, the “O Saya”, “Jai-ho” and Wall-E” piece.

Anne Cherian

‘A Good Indian Wife’ is Anne Cherian’s debut novel. It was selected as the Barnes and Noble Discover Pick and has already been taught at the University of Michigan. Anne Cherian has discussed her novel on the radio, and given talks at the University of San Francisco as well as bookstores and libraries. With exquisite writing, Anne Cherian delves into her characters needs and traits, and shows how in the end they are like everyone in the world and desire peace and happiness.

Raj Bhavser

Raj’s most recent achievement was as member of the U.S. Men's Olympic Gymnastics Team that won bronze at 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. Raj competed extremely well at the 2008 VISA Championships and the 2008 U.S Olympic Trials. He was called up to the Olympic Team when Paul Hamm withdrew due to injury. Raj went on to be a key contributor to the USA Men's team bronze medal performance at the Beijing Olympic Games. He successfully competed on five events in the Qualification rounds and four events in the team finals.

Dr. Viswanath: Pioneer of Indian Television in USA

Dr. Banad N. Viswanath hails from Bangalore. He is a cardiologist and moved to the US in 1962 with his wife Sathya.
In 1976, Dr. Viswanath and Sathya started the first Indian TV program ‘Vision of Asia’ in New York to reflect India’s great culture and offer a platform to reach the community. The program still continues.
In 1986, Dr. Viswanath started another first – a full-time Indian cable television channel ‘International Television’. ITV reaches NY Tri-state area, Northeast and Midwest areas on Time Warner Cable, Cablevision and RCN platforms. In addition, Dr. Viswanath owns several UHF broadcast television stations and also the largest noncommercial Desi FM radio channel, ‘Asian FM.’

Dr. Viswanath was awarded the ‘Outstanding Asian American’ honor and also the ‘President’s Award’ for his contributions to the Statue of Liberty restoration and the Ellis Island Foundation. The family supports educational and cultural organizations in India.

Dr Suthan Suthersan

Dr. Suthan Suthersan is the Executive Vice President and Chief Technical officer of ARCADIS, a leading global engineering company that focuses on developing environmentally friendly cleanup technologies to remediate toxic waste sites. In the last 12 months he has applied for two patents for cleaning up mining sites with environmentally
friendly technologies and developed and organized an international remediation technologies conference from March 3-5, 2009. He also won the ARCADIS innovation award along with colleague Curt Cramer in June 2008 and currently working on his fourth book “Geochemical Remediation Systems.

Arun Prakash

Mr. Prakash has been a teacher at Bellaire Senior High School in Houston for 20 years teaching. In July 2008 he published namaste jii, an elementary Hindi textbook suitable for students from junior high school to college. For his accomplishments he was featured on ABC News and in the Houston Chronicle. This is the first hard bound, full colour, 480 page book of its kind with over 500 vocabulary pictures and grammar illustrations. For this and Mr Prakash's illustrious career, he has earned the 2009 Jewel of India Award, presented by the India Culture Centre as well as the 2009 Distinguished Alumni Award by Banaras Hindu University Alumni Association of North America.