Shilpa Shetty to lead I-Day Parade in New York
By chennaivision at 27 July, 2009, 12:32 pm
New York, Bollywood star Shilpa Shetty will be the Grand Marshal to lead the 29th India Day Parade being organised in New York City by Tristate Indian Americans next month.
The Federation of Indian Associations (Tristate), the largest such organisation in the US, held a community reception at the Consulate General of India here. FIA officeholders, the organisers of the event, said with an expected crowd of 80,000, it could be among the largest of the annual New York India Day parades.
The Parade, which is taken out from 41st Street through 28th Street in Manhattan, the main New York borough, itself is considered the largest held outside India in connection with a day when the country won independence from Britain. The march is generally held on a Sunday, closest to Independence Day on August 15, and this year it is slated for August 16.
According to the organisers, a pre-parade news conference will be held with Ms Shetty and other celebrities interacting with reporters and community activists. There will also be a post-parade banquet to be organised at the Royal Albert’s Palace Banquet Hall in Fords, New Jersey.
The FIA expects several American officials like Governors of New York and New Jersey, Mayor Michael R Bloomberg and US lawmakers, as well as Ambassador Meera Shankar and Consul General Prabhu Dayal to grace the parade.
According to FIA President Dipak Patel, who will lead the parade as Marshal along with the Grand Marshal, the parade will be webcast live and arrangements are being made to broadcast it live. He expects at least 30 floats and 40 booths during the parade march.
Nirav Mehta, the FIA Executive Vice President has the organisational responsibility to ensure that younger Indian Americans, especially those born in the US, are more closely connected to the culture of the country of their origin.
Ramesh Patel, an influential past president of the organisation, said efforts would be made to pass the organisational leadership to the second generation of Indian Americans.
Though the FIA is nearly a 40-year-old organisation, it began organising the I-Day parade in 1981. The umbrella body currently represents about 300,000 Indian Americans in the Tristate area of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.
This year, the motto of FIA is ”Force In Action” and the organisers said over the years ”the FIA has blossomed into a commendable organisation that has become an effective mouthpiece for the community.” The organisers added that the parade, whose theme is stated to be ”Walk For Your Motherland,” is held to represent progress and unity of India to other ethnic communities in the area.
Every year, the FIA invites a Hindi film star apparently to attract a larger crowd because of Bollywood glamour. Thespian Raj Kapoor attended the very first FIA I-Day parade.
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