Bay Area Federation Celebrates Mothers’ Day Santa Clara, 12 May 2002 The Indo-American Community Federation (IACF), a Non-Profit public benefit corporation, celebrated Mothers’ Day in style tonight at the Mayuri Banquet Hall. The event started off with an introduction by the convener Dr. Naresh Sharma, followed by a slide presentation by IACF secretary Dr. Subhash Garg, who noted that Jeevan Zutshi founded the organization in 1994 making significant contributions. Recent events by IACF include the International Kashmir Symposium and Cultural night in June 2001, which brought together the entire range of opinion leaders on this urgent issue, and the highly successful Unity Dinner in January 2002, attended by 400 people including prominent elected officials at all levels as well as fifteen mainstream organizations.

An hour-long children’s program followed, featuring a diversity of tributes to mothers. Students from the Nrithyollas Academy in Fremont directed by Shrimati Indumati Ganesh performed three Bharatnatyam dances on the theme of motherhood. The dedicated talent enthralled the audience including the stunning costumes of high school students Akshaya Ganesh, Priya Shankar, Ramya Vaidyanathan and Rohini Venkatraman. This was followed by ex-tempore youth discussion entitled “About My Mom” moderated by
Garg, featuring a panel of six high school students including Priya and Ramya plus Nidhi Sharma, Monica Verma, Akash Ayare and Nikhil Sharma. The panel responded to informal questions about their mothers. Their candid and often amusing comments ended with each panelist stating what they value most about his or her Mom.