The Federation of Indian Associations’ (FIA) executive board members attended the prestigious three-day Pravasi Bharatiya Divas (PBD) 2023 award ceremony-cum convention held in Indore, Madhya Pradesh. Chairman Ankur Vaidya, President Kenny Desai, Vice President Smita Miki Patel, Joint Secretary Mahesh Dubal, Committee Member Alok Kumar and Immediate Past President Anil Bansal, among others, were the FIA delegation from the Indian-American community diaspora in the US.
The 17th edition of PBD under the theme of “Diaspora: Reliable Partners for India’s Progress in Amrit Kaal” – was inaugurated on January 8 and concluded on January 10, 2023. It was organized to recognize and award extraordinary community service champions from various spheres of life distributed over various countries worldwide.
The FIA members were one of the various special invitees to the 17th edition of PBD as the 16th edition was held online due to the global pandemic (COVID-19) on January 9, 2021. The FIA Board of Trustees was conferred with PBD 2021 in recognition of various community services delivered, be it reaching out to help the people in distress during the coronavirus pandemic or sending medical cargo worth over $55 million to India to help the motherland India effectively fight the pandemic.
PBD History: Going back in time, the first edition of PBD was organized on January 9, 2003 to commemorate the return of Mahatma Gandhi from South Africa to India in 1915. And accordingly 1st PBD was organized to mark the contribution of the overseas Indian community to the development of India. And it was the year marked to convene the PBD convention annually. However, since 2015, under a revised format, PBD Convention has been organised once every 2 years.
The 16th edition of PBD, wherein FIA under the visionary president Bansal Patel was conferred with the prestigious recognition, was conducted in a virtual setting with the theme “Contributing to Aatmanirbhar Bharat”.